Is local marketing a good technique for small businesses?
Local marketing seems to have been a theme for me this week. Last night I was interviewed on the subject for an article in the Royal Mail magazine. Today, we exhibited and an event named ‘Best of Bristol’ specifically for local businesses. And, this afternoon I did a radio interview for JackFM in which I was asked whether local marketing is a good technique for small businesses. So… I thought I’d bring my thoughts together on the subject.
What is local marketing?
Local marketing is basically when you target your services to a specific, and usually quite small, geography. For example a town, city, or region. The reason it’s being talked about at the moment is the mammoth rise of Groupon, which allows businesses of any size to market their services with tantilising promotions within a specific locality. But, local marketing is by no means new. Sending a press release to your regional newspaper is local marketing. Attending a networking event run by your local Chamber of Commerce is local marketing. It doesn’t need to be digital to be local either. And, what’s more – you don’t need to be local for it to be effective!
Is local marketing and effective technique for small businesses?
The short answer is yes. It stands to reason that if your product or service is geographically anchored in a specific town or region (for example a conference centre or a consultant who wants to keep clients within an hour’s drive) that marketing beyond your locality is a bit of a waste of energy. But, if you’re a national or geographically neutral business (like an online service) a local marketing mindset can pay dividends.
When we helped Gradwell, a small business internet services provider, appoint a PR agency – a local mindset on a national scale was a key part of the criteria. Here’s the rationale. People like to buy from people like themselves. And people pay more attention to case studies and stories with which they can empathise. So, with clients and resellers up and down the country, Gradwell has plenty of news with regional interest. If you have a case study from Liverpool, it makes sense to pick up the phone to the Liverpool Echo, or even share a stand with them or a regional reseller at a Liverpool business event.
So, don’t think that because you’re a national business, or that your services have no geographical element, that you can’t benefit from a bit of local marketing.
A few local marketing ideas for you…
- Regional PR: It’s hard to get into the national press, particularly as a small business. It can be easier to get coverage in regional press. Have a look through your case study material to see if you could approach the local paper of the business that’s featured in the case study. Don’t just think press, think regional online media outlets too.
- Geographical Direct Mail: Make more of that case study. How about a direct mail piece to businesses in the same region as the one in the case study, directing people to the full detail on your website or to a webinar with that you and that company?
- Regional events: Could you partner with a reseller of your services to take a stand in their region to support their sales of your services? Or perhaps making even more use of those case studies again, you could approach events organisers to offer a two-headed speaking slot presenting the case study.
- Geo Technology: If your business relies on footfall into your premises, and has products that sell on the day, you might consider joining a service like Vouchercloud. This means that you can put out an offer on their service. People with smartphones within a certain distance of your site who subscribe to the service get details of your special offer when they are physically close to you.
- Regional promotions: It’s Groupon that kicked off this post, so let’s say a bit more about it. You join their service and come up with a jaw-dropping offer. It goes out to people in a defined area who have subscribed to the service or follow their regional Facebook pages. They can then buy your offer as a coupon that they redeem with your business within a given time period.
- Local search: People often add a location on the end of a search term when they’re looking for something online. So, making sure that you rank well for people looking for what you do, in your area, is a key local marketing technique.
- Local advertising: We’re not big fans of print advertising, but online can be excellent, and can be highly geographically targeted. Facebook and Linkedin in particular offer targeted advertising down to postcode level. In fact, Linkedin now lets you define which specific companies you want your ads to appear in front of, so that when people from that company log-on your ad is displayed.
So, the answer is yes – local marketing is a great technique as part of an integrated small business marketing strategy. And, it’s not hard. These ideas should certainly get you started. If you have more ideas or examples to share, we’d love to hear about them.
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | @bryonythomas | www.clear-thought.co.uk
If this blog is of interest to you, you may also like:
- Case Study: Appointment of a PR agency for Gradwell »
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Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Published on 1 March 2011
