Local marketing often makes the difference between your most profitable month and the worst sales record you’ve ever seen. Even in the online sphere, when you have a product that could potentially be sold in your local area, a lack of local focus can make it much harder to pull in customers who are willing to stay. 

But with a focus on the local area, you could double what you’re selling and the amount of customers who engage with you by simply drawing your marketing efforts closer. Of course, it’s not a magic solution for any business who wants to boost their sales and establish some more brand recognition, but it’s certainly something worth thinking about for the future. 

Indeed, a focus on local marketing can improve your customer retention and loyalty, make your business more visible in the online sphere, and even create a profit hotspot just outside of your front door. 

However, it’s always best to double check that local marketing is right for you. You don’t want to suddenly put all your time and resources into a local focus if your customers are primarily international! 

With that in mind, here’s what to ask before you delve into the world of local outreach. 

Where are the Bulk of Your Customers?

Finding out as much as you can about your ideal customer is key to business success. Researching your potential market is crucial when you’re putting your marketing strategy together; you need to be sure you understand who it is you’re selling to. 

Part of discovering this ideal demographic is figuring out where your customers are located. You’re likely to get more than one location pop up on your website analytics, but you should hone in on where the majority of your paying traffic calls home. 

If it then turns out that your highest traffic source comes from the same location that you do, whether this is national, regional, or local, it could be a sign you have a strong home turf advantage. 

As such, you may want to focus on investing more into your local marketing and pulling in more profit from those who are already spending the most time with you. Double check the traffic on this, but if the conclusion is clear, you should head back to the drawing board with this information in your pocket. 

What’s Your Marketing Budget?

The extent of your marketing budget will very much dictate your marketing priorities. If you don’t have enough to cover more than one type of marketing – in this case, both local, real world marketing and digital marketing – you’re going to focus on the one that has better potential for gains. 

Even if you want to diversify and start incorporating more local methods into your overall campaign, there may not be space for you to do so. 

Say you want to invest in print marketing, so you can print an order of 500 quality flyers to be posted into mailboxes, handed out at a trade show or network event, or to be posted up around the local area. Will your current marketing budget stretch to both online and offline materials? 

A lot of small businesses tie up their entire marketing capital in making sure they’ve visible online, and it takes a lot of re-budgeting to make sufficient room for other methods. 

You’ll need to ensure you’re ready to take a hit here, and willing to put in the right time and energy required to analyze your marketing budget from a different angle. And if this occurs right in the middle of your slow season, it could be quite a risky opportunity to take. 

Are You Finding it Hard to Build Rapport?

Engaging with your customers is the name of the game. In modern marketing, this can often be forgotten about. There can be much more of a focus on overwhelming your audience with marketing content, hoping something will resonate, and watching your follower number grow and grow. 

But if none of those followers are really doing anything other than looking at what you offer, your conversion rate is going to remain low for the foreseeable future. You’re making an impression, for sure, but it’s not one that’s urging them into taking action. 

That’s something local marketing can help you address. When you can interact on a more personal, face to face business with a customer, you can leave a good lasting impression. Seeing as you’re more likely to have the opportunity to see your local customers in person, directing your focus here can make a big difference. 

Plus, with more of a focus on local marketing, you’re likely to get more reviews out of the deal as well. When you’ve had a prime interaction with a customer, they’re going to feel a lot more lenient about sharing their thoughts with the world. They’ve seen first hand who you are and the kind of excellent customer service you offer. 

They’re not just going to buy something and move on – they’re going to leave a note encouraging other customers to come in and buy something as well. In the marketing world, that kind of influence is worth its weight in gold! 

Do You Have a Google Business Profile?

If you don’t, right now would be the perfect time to register for one and get it set up. It’s free to do so and there’s no disadvantage to having one in place, even if you’re not sure whether or not you need one. 

You absolutely do, even if you’re not keen to market towards a local audience. 

After all, being an online business means competing for visibility in the biggest marketplace in the world. It’s a bit like an Ancient Greek forum, with conversations going on all around, people shouting as loud as they can to attract attention, and every single speaker wants the same people passing through to stop and listen. 

Google Business is there to stop you from being drowned out. It was designed to make it easier for smaller businesses to be heard on the same level as their bigger counterparts, who often have more of a budget, and possibly even more marketing talent working behind the scenes. 

After all, there’s no kind of marketing in the world that can make a bad business with a shoddy product seem like the perfect choice. But if you’ve got a good product or service, that’s more than worth the money and delivers every single time, you shouldn’t be held back by access to marketing power. 

If you’ve got something to sell, whether you’re selling to an international customer or a local one, Google Business is the kind of tool that pushes you further up the rankings when the search matches perfectly. 

So, Should You Be Focusing on Local Marketing

It can be a mixed bag for a lot of businesses, but it’s something you should weigh up when you’re trying to get your name out there. The more of a customer pool you have to pull from, the better your chances of setting up a loyal customer base who are more than happy to recommend you. 

And more often than not, these customers come from the same area you do. Of course, you’ll need to look into your marketing budget and do a bit of research into your online traffic, but that’s par for the course. Keep this in mind for your business’ future; local marketing could be what’s missing from your strategy right now.