Local Marketing Musts for Your Business

If much of your business comes from local customers, then local marketing should be a priority.  Even on a limited budget, targeted, local marketing initiatives can be some of the best ways to maximize your marketing dollars.  Here are some marketing ideas to increase your local marketing presence:

1. Online Business Listings

Make it easy for people to find you by listing your business with Google My Business. In addition to Google, be sure you're listed in all of the other significant online directories including Yahoo, Bing, Yelp and YellowPages (to name a few). Make sure your business listings are complete, correct and consistent on all these major sites.

2. Ask for Reviews

Let your fans sing your praises- they're your best local advertisement. According to BrightLocal, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Encourage happy customers to review you on sites like Yelp, Yahoo Local or Angie's List. 

3.  Connect with Local Journalists

If you regularly read the local newspapers, you're probably familiar with the reporters that cover your city or industry.  Make an effort to form professional relationships with these journalists and they may end up reporting positive things about your business.

4. Facebook Local Advertising

Local ads can help you reach your nearby target audiences. Facebook’s Local Awareness advertising is an easy and affordable way to get in front of people in your neighborhood, city or county. 

5.  Local Email Marketing

Target your emails and include messaging and an offer that local customers can take advantage of. Use a local subject line. Integrate social media to make your local email marketing even more successful.

6. Participate in Community Events

Be sure that your target audience will be in attendance at any local events you commit to. Plan your marketing strategy ahead of time.

For more marketing tips, visit www.marketing-er.com.

Local Marketing Musts for your Small Business

If much of your business comes from local customers, then local marketing should be a priority. Even on a limited budget, targeted local marketing initiatives can be some of the best ways to maximize your marketing dollars. Here are five marketing ideas to increase your local presence:

Online Business Listings

Make it easy for people to find you by listing your business with Google My Business. Then you're sure to be located when people search for you on Google Search or Maps. According to ComScore, 78% of local mobile searches resulted in a offline purchase(usually within a few hours). Appearing in a local search can have a direct impact on your business.

In addition to Google, be sure you're listed in all of the other significant online directories including Yahoo, Bing, Yelp and YellowPages (to name a few). Make sure your business listings are complete, correct and consistent on all these major sites.

Also, join your local chamber of commerce to ensure that your business is included in their online directory.

Facebook Local Advertising

Local ads can help you reach your nearby target audiences. Hyper local Facebook advertising is an easy and affordable way to get in front of people in your neighborhood, city or county. Facebook ads ask you to simply enter your business address and the area you want to reach around your business. Your ad featuring a photo and message will be routed to people in that vicinity. Your ad will show up in the Facebook newsfeed of people near your business at any time, on any device.

Ask for Reviews

Let your fans sing your praises- they're your best local advertisement. According to BrightLocal, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Encourage happy customers to review you on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!Local or Angie's List. 

Participate in Community Events

Local events can be a worthwhile way to meet potential customers and introduce them to your business offerings.Be sure that your target audience will be in attendance at any events you commit to. Plan out  your marketing strategy ahead of time and ensure proper event staffing, brochures, product samples, ways to capture leads and take payment.

Connect with Local Journalists

If you regularly read the local newspapers, you're probably familiar with the reporters that cover your city or industry.  Make an effort to form professional relationships with these journalists and they may end up reporting positive things about your business. Start by following local reporters on social media including Twitter. Comment on their articles, Retweet or Share their posts/articles and ask questions.  If you periodically provide these journalists with credible, helpful or newsworthy information, you're likely to see the fruits of your labor.

What free or paid methods do you implement in your local marketing efforts? Please share below.

Twitter Trends: Are You Marketing with Hashtags?

If you're a devoted Twitter user, you know all about hashtags. If not, you've heard of them and may be wondering what the buzz is all about. Twitter's hashtag or # symbol can be used to highlight keywords or topics in your Tweets. You can insert hashtags anywhere in your Tweet.

People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize Tweets and help them show more easily in a Twitter Search. For example if you search in Twitter on #jobs, you will see all the recent Tweets that have include that hashtag and are relevant to the word "jobs". Hashtags help other Twitter users find information on a particular topic.

Check out www.hashtags.org to find out which hashtags are searched on the most. Or create your own hashtag. For example, come up with an original hashtag associated with an upcoming business event. All interested and participating parties (attendees, speakers, moderators, event organizers) can use this special hashtag in their related Tweets and it provides real time feedback and information for anyone who searches on it.

Hashtags are in commercials, print ads and now they're even painted on football fields. Incorporate hashtags into your tweets to be noticed, collaborate with others and to reach a specific audience.

Facebook 2012 Update: Summary of Mari's Smith's Webinar

If you didn't catch Facebook Expert Mari Smith's webinar yesterday on Facebook 2012, here are some of the high points to get you caught up.

Mari recommends that these "to do's" are on your daily Facebook checklist:
• Check your Business Page hidden posts (click on Wall to see them). These are typically spam but check here often so you don't miss an important message.
• Respond to comments and questions promptly (within hours not days).
• Check out Insights to see your page metrics. See which posts are being viewed the most and how many Engaged Users you have. Use this information to gauge what posts draw the most attention.

She threw out a lot of random tips such as:
• Try to "edutain" which is to provide quality content in a fun, engaging way.
• Use all of your other social media networks to grow your Facebook page.
• Short status updates have better engagement rates than longer ones.
• Increase your "shares" and it will increase your page's visibility.

Mari offered an interesting tidbit of what's coming soon on Facebook:
• One to one email capability to your fans (they're testing or rolling out this functionality in Asia now). This can really change the way businesses use Facebook to market directly to their followers.

Hope these help you to use Facebook more effectively for your business!

Looking for Local Publicity? Check out Patch.com

By now many of you may be getting your local news at Patch.com. Owned by AOL, Patch covers news in almost half the states in the US including Connecticut.

Find out if there's a Patch in your town or in the towns where you do business. They are looking for community news, local events, calendar items and many are soliciting columns written by local residents. They also welcome photos and videos.
Read the news at your Patch site regularly and email your Patch editor when you have information about something going on in your community. Got some exciting business news like the opening of a new store, an upcoming seminar or the launch of a new product? Let your Patch know! Their popularity is growing so much, they're giving the community weeklies and some daily papers a run for their money!