The Green Apple Blog

More and more businesses are continuing to improve their digital footprint by expanding their online marketing and development solutions. For many companies, the focus on widespread marketing can often overshadow the importance of local marketing. Depending on the type of business, localized marketing is becoming more important than ever for independent retailers, restaurants and others. Luckily, there are some great alterations a marketing and business team can make to improve localized marketing strategies.

In the last few years, the takeoff of check in services has been crucial to many companies. These check-in services such as Foursquare have been more crucial to those businesses looking to promote on a local level than anyone else. With these services, businesses are able to offer up benefits and discounts for checking in at their location. When customers check in, it has a twofold effect. First, it keeps customers coming back to receive discounts and second, it allows people throughout social media rings to see their friends checking in at your establishment, working in a sort of viral marketing type way.

In social media, it’s important to gear your profile towards your customers. With a company looking to build local marketing, remember to use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to spread a localized campaign first, and then go wide if necessary.

Along with check in services, it is important to stay on top of the overall digital marketing landscape. Just like national companies, small businesses and restaurants often struggle building their names because of a lack of web features and information. No matter the size of the company, it’s more important than ever to maintain a solid online profile.

Extending from just an online profile, building a mobile platform has become crucial as well. Most websites that have mobile versions climb the search rankings easier. It also helps get correct information and directions out to people on the go.

So now you’ve focused on building a localized social media and web campaign. When building a website and looking to improve local based marketing, it’s important to gear your website to your customer base. This means that the information and content should be targeted towards the area where your businesses is located or attempting to break into. Another great tip for improving a localized profile is to keep your companies address within view throughout online profiles. With this technique, visitors will be aware where your company is located and ease of access to your services.

Many businesses that are looking to improve localized marketing are often in a tough position when it comes to improving their advertising and reach. Small restaurants and stores are sometimes lacking in a professional who can properly improve marketing efforts. Luckily, there are some outbound options that can be taken to help improve a company’s local marketing profile. For example, an independent store in the state of Florida could look at Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando SEO or development platform to improve their footprint. This can be a big help for marketing, as well taking some of the stress and load off of the everyday employees of the business who could be ill prepared.

With smaller companies and regional businesses, having a local marketing plan can often be essential to success over time. With the ease of access on the internet today, an improved digital footprint can help improve localized marketing, with the possibility of both quality and convenience.

The web is all about sharing information. The things you received for free you should spread for free. This excellent web statistics package falls in that category. 

Some time ago, Google bought Urchin web analytics software. It allowed you to track number of visitors, from what search engines and keywords, and so much more. From what I understand, Urchin used to cost upwards of $500/mo. Google aquires it, improves it, and releases it for free. It is a snap to install on any website, not taking any more than 15 minutes for your webmaster to put on there.

Learn more about Google Analytics here.

Many of Create Web Development Studios clients want their web site to come up on top on Google search. In fact, some expect it to happen. While we do have a host of search engine optimization techniques that we apply, it is unrealistic to expect to come up first in the search engines for “Jacksonville Real Estate”. I honestly don’t know of any company in Jacksonville, Florida that can pull this off. I would suspect the budget would be tens of thousands of dollars and would be a monthly battle to stay on top in the search engine results.

On the other hand, if you are in a unique market or specialize in a highly competitive market, there are things you should consider. For example, a realtor may focus on selling “atlantic beach homes” instead of “jacksonville real estate”. Highly competitive markets like clothes, electronics, and realty requires you to specialize to achieve top organic search engine results.
What should you be able to do with search engines and your web site?

• Your Company Name Comes Up First in Google, Yahoo, and MSN
  In most cases, searching on your company name should result in the top ranking for Google, MSN, and Yahoo. Even with sites that use flash technology this is possible. Search Google for our clients “Mack Salon” or “Create Studios Jacksonville” and see who comes first. In some cases it is necessary to qualify the search with your business location, since “Create Studios” is rather generic, whereas “Create Studios, Jacksonville” qualifies the search.
• Build Your Web Site Content with the Right Keywords
  Find the keyword “buckets” that will help sell your business products and services online. Many times these keyword buckets are counterintuitive. The realtor selling “atlantic beach homes” may need to target “move to atlantic beach” since it may generate 120% more traffic than the previous keyword phrase. There are many free tools to help you analyze keywords such as this keyword suggestion tool or the Google keywords analysis tool
• Learn to Write Content for Your Website
  Team up with someone well versed in web copy writing techniques as they differ greatly from the off-line world. A book like the Online Copywriter’s Handbook.
• Stay Clear of Black Hat Techniques
  Don’t use any “black hat” techniques for cheating the search engines. We consulted once with a prospective client who bought 12 different domain names, based on keywords, and redirected them all back to his master site. Google had them dropped within months!

Advertising is undergoing a paradigm shift. It used to be “yell louder, harder, and more” and you’ll get the consumer’s attention. We are all familiar with car dealerships illustrating this principle. However, today people want information where they want (blackberry, internet, on demand tv) and when they want it. Scream louder and they will simply turn you off. Marketing guru Seth Godin argues that businesses can no longer rely solely on traditional forms of “interruption advertising” in magazines, mailings, or radio and television commercials. He quotes this direct mail executive who states:

“Advertisers are going to have to learn how to deliver messages with frequency and low cost if they are to cope with the increasing competition for the consumer’s attention.”

–Lester Wunderman, Chairman-Emeritus of Wunderman Cato Johnson, the largest direct-marketing firm in the world

How can the web can play a key role in this new marketing paradigm? Your website is the perfect medium to broadcast frequent messages with a minimal amount of time and effort (as compared to creating a print campaign or television broadcast). One key strategy is to become an information resource for your field. For example, Medisolare - a non surgical cosmetic center, seeks to become an authority on this subject posting articles, tips, and expertise on this new and emerging field.

What tool can help you post frequent and easy messages to your consumer base? A blog is the best place to start. Wordpress.com, Blogger, and Typepad are great places to start. You don’t even have to own a domain name to get started.

How Can You Drive Visitors to Your Site? Post your website URL everywhere, and we mean everywhere… Start with your business cards, marketing collateral, professional organizations and more. Reach out and get others to link back to your site… maybe a mortgage broker recommends you as a realtor. Your networking and professional organizations can have websites that will link back to yours as well. Have people in your office setup a profile on linkedin.com or myspace.com

Paying for Eyeballs Small costs can return big dividends… try pay per click (PPC) advertising with Yahoo, MSN, or Google. Pay to register in directories and other places (yellow pages, google maps, etc…)

Track Your Stats You need to know what’s working, so make sure your web host has statistics you can review or try the Google Analytics.
Examples

Foster community on your site. If you are contractor matchmaker like Donna Bavier, let customers post reviews of their experiences - and don’t filter out the negative ones.

If you are a salon, explain the latest in hair styles by showing before and after and walking the customer through the experience.

Edit a video clip of your salon experience and post it on you tube.