.gif)
How You Can Grow Your Online Presence and Win More Customer
The potential customer often researches online and then purchases it in the store. The decision as to which store to visit, which service provider to book or which craftsman to hire is already made online. For this reason, local online marketing is extremely important for regional providers. If you run a local company, make sure that your business looks neat and appealing – after all, you want to encourage local customers to enter your branch. But what about the online and mobile appearance of your shops?
Why should you be present online and mobile as a local business?
“Online and mobile? I don’t need it – I want customers near me to come to me! ”You might think now. However, this thinking is increasingly a fallacy nowadays, because: Even if customers plan to shop in their local shop, they often research beforehand online or on the go to prepare for their purchase – and the smartphone is also always at hand in the store. This is borne out by figure from Google: According to this, 30 percent of all search queries from mobile devices have a location reference. 76 percent of all users who made such a request visit a local company from the search results in the course of a day!
In concrete terms, this means for you: It doesn’t do much to just clean up your branches on-site if your company is online and mobile “with closed shutters”. Your local marketing must also and especially take place online and mobile. In the first post on this topic, we already presented the absolute basics for all newcomers to the topic of local marketing. In today’s second part, we will show you more local marketing ideas for advanced users, which you can still implement with little effort and high time and financial investments.
What information are your customers looking for?
In order to evaluate which measures make sense in local marketing, it is important to bear in mind what concerns customers who want to find out about business online or on the go have:
- They are looking for information about branches, their addresses, contact details and opening times.
- You want to find out about products and offers or find out whether certain goods are available in a store.
- You want to know how other consumers rated products and services.
Your goal as a local company must be that (potential) customers can find this information as easily as possible. This increases the likelihood that the customer will buy from you and not from the competition or online. Below we give some tips on how you can implement this in practice.
Branches, Addresses, Contact details, Opening times
Google My Business: Contact details, opening times, etc. are very basic information for which consumers often use a search engine. In order to be easier to find in Google search, an entry on Google My Business is helpful. It brings together all the information that Google has about your company in one place, makes it centrally manageable and editable. Your advantage: Your company has a uniform appearance in Google search, Google Maps and Google+. The following applies: The more data and information you provide, the better it is for Google, for your customers and ultimately for you too, because those who actively manage and maintain their entry often “reward” Google with better rankings!
Entries in directory media: Due to the central role of Google services, Google My Business is one of the most important, but by no means the only relevant address for a company entry. It is clear that it is difficult to keep an overview and to keep the content consistent on all platforms. The solution: Either you deliberately restrict yourself to some of the most used directories and keep them up-to-date – or you take some budget in your hand, save time and nerves and hire a service provider to manage your entries.
Information About Products and Offers
Local shopping services: Local shopping services, e.g. the apps Shipt and Instacart and the online portal www.instacart.com (offers from the Offerista Group) also offer their users information about branch locations, contact details and opening times – but can do even more. As a brick-and-mortar retailer, you can publish your brochures and offers there digitally – this way you reach a larger target group than through traditional distribution in print form. At the same time, you can use your budget more efficiently because you do not pay for the digital distribution of your brochures and offers, but only if users are interested in your offers and click on them. Speaking of clicks: You can find out exactly how many users were interested in your offers, when and where, and even whether they subsequently went to one of your branches – information that traditional forms of advertising do not offer.
Location-based push campaigns: How nice it would be if you not only had to wait for consumers to look at your offers but that you could address them directly on your smartphone – exactly when they were close to one of your branches? This is not a dream, but the reality – with geo-based push campaigns! These can be booked through various providers, such as the Offerista group, operator of Shipt and Instacart. A good way to draw attention to special promotions or offers in your branches, to reach a higher customer frequency and to turn passers-by into customers.
Reviews of Products and Services
Force customer reviews : Reviews play an important role in buying decisions -studies show that around 70 percent of consumers state that reviews by other buyers influence their decision-making process. In our first contribution to local marketing , we already told you that you should keep an eye on your ratings on the most important portals and react to them recommended. But what if you not only reacted to negative reviews, but also promoted positive reviews? Please actively ask your satisfied customers to rate them – for example, verbally, via a display at the cash register, using the flyers enclosed in the shopping bags, … Make it as easy as possible for them – using QR codes for scanning, for example which customers can go directly to the rating portal – and create incentives. Why not let all customers who rate your company participate in a raffle?
Conclusion: Being online and mobile marketing is worthwhile for you!
The selection of strategies, tools and services for local marketing is very, very extensive – but it is worth taking a look at them so that your customers can find you better. With a clever selection of suitable measures and channels, you can achieve a lot with little effort and without a large budget. With the above digital guide around local online marketing, you will also make your company known locally and successfully.
Hitcaliber is your contact for online marketing with a local focus. We would be happy to support you in building your digital presence. We look forward to your questions, ideas and concerns!
