If you’re running a business that works in the local area, you already know how hard it can be to widen the reach of your company. You’re attracting people from the local area, and even if you get a few tourists here and there, you’re always going to be bringing in the same few people. It’s a simple fact you can’t change, right?
Not quite! There are ways to widen your reach as a local business. You can start to bring in customers from further afield, who still won’t have to travel far, and you can make twice the amount of income you currently are. Sound good? Then let’s get into the details down below!
Target Local Audiences Through Social Media
Social media isn’t only a global platform – it can be a local one as well. Indeed, you can make use of local hashtags to get the audience in your area following along with your posts. On platforms like Instagram and facebook, it’s even easy to target local audiences and make sure they’re the ones who see your adverts.
Of course you have to pay for advertising in the latter manner, but it’s one of the most affordable methods of advertising in 2024. You won’t have to fork out much for a week’s worth of social media advertising, especially if you have a focused campaign ready for publication.
One thing will always remain the same though: if you make something worth following for, local audiences will do so! Align your use of local hashtags with everything you put out, such as a discount for the first ten customers, and you’ll notice your follower count rising.
Conduct Door to Door Marketing
Door to door marketing isn’t just about knocking on doors and seeing if someone will let you in. You can be a bit more subtle and less intrusive than that! You can create some quality leaflets advertising your business, drop them round your local streets, and then keep your phone on at all times.
Why? Because you’re likely to get quite a few texts, emails, and calls through! It’s even been found that nearly 50% of a business’ leaflet recipients follow the call to action and get in touch. What could be better for a company like yours?
You can also host regular leaflet drops to other businesses, if they’re willing to display your prints on the counter or in the window. Ask around and see what you can do to help each other!
Contact Local Influencers
Every online influencer lives somewhere! You can leverage this by reaching out to those who are local to you and have a substantial following that overlaps your own audience.
For example, if you’re a beauty salon that relies on local custom, reach out to a beauty influencer who might be interested in one of your treatments. If they’re on board, you can provide a treatment for free in return for an honest review or being mentioned in a few of their posts.
Of course, they’ll need to be upfront about receiving the service for free, but this won’t affect who the post reaches. As long as they liked it, and their audience trusts what they have to say, you could end up with a few new customer contacts.
Make Use of Local SEO
As a business with a website, you probably already make use of SEO in your regular content. In doing so you bring more attention your way through the use of relevant keywords. However, if you’re a business who wants more local customers, you should start using local SEO tactics instead.
Think about what people near you are searching, and do a little research into these keywords and terms as well. But as a general rule, potential local customers are looking for shops and services near them, that are both affordably priced and convenient to get to.
Make sure you include words like these in the website content you create. The online world is the first place people stop these days, and if you put yourself in the right place, they’ll find you first as well.
Additionally, you can collect data from your website visitors to enhance your marketing efforts. Ensure that you use techniques such as cookieless attribution and a first-party data strategy to safeguard the data you gather.
Local Customers are Waiting for You
It’s true! As such, if you’ve got a local business that isn’t getting much attention right now, try out tactics like these and see if they make a difference. You could very well bring in three to four times the amount of leads you usually discover and all with a little bit of renewed focus!
