A Guide To Creating a Marketing Campaign for Your Local Business in 2020

When you have a local business, it's easy to stick to what you know when marketing your business. Creating a marketing campaign may feel like second nature to you, but it's worth asking yourself if the techniques you're using are outdated.

Is there a better way in which you could be reaching your audience?

With the US digital marketing spend expected to hit $120 billion by 2021, the question may not be ‘is what I'm doing working?' but, ‘is there a more cost-effective solution?'

With 63% of marketers saying generating traffic and leads is the top marketing challenges they face in 2020, it's time to look at how you can market to your local network and customer base more effectively.

This article will guide you through a raft of tips, tricks, and techniques on how to create a marketing campaign for your local business that can provide significant results if implemented.

Let's get started.

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Creating a Marketing Campaign Plan

While it may seem obvious for any new business to have a business plan, it's not always evident that you need a marketing plan. A marketing plan differs to a business plan; it focuses on winning and keeping customers.

Your marketing campaign plan should be strategic, including numbers, facts, and objectives. For example, 50% of consumers who do a local search on their smartphone visit that store the same day compared to 34% on a laptop or desktop which did the same.

Creating, understanding, and updating your marketing plan will help you strengthen your overall business decisions and action steps. You'll know what to sell, who will buy it and the tactics you'll incorporate to build leads that will end in a sale.

In truth, a marketing plan doesn't have to be lengthy either; it just has to get right to the point of how to achieve your business goals.

Step 1 – Situation Analysis

A situation analysis defines potential customers, assesses competitors, evaluates projected growth and makes a realistic assessment of your business.

You should start off by taking a snapshot of your companies current situation. This first section is going to help you identify what sets you apart from your competition.

In 2018, target audiences everywhere have become increasingly segmented. It doesn't matter what industry you come from.

Whether you run a perfume store, a restaurant or a retail computer outlet, to position your product offering competitively you need to understand your market.

In your situation analysis, you need to describe what the overall market including your competition is offering, and how your offerings provide more value in detail by answering the questions that your target customer is asking.

Your situation analysis should be an overview of your companies weaknesses, strengths, threats and opportunities.

Your characteristics that exist within your organization are your strengths and weaknesses. Any outside influences refer to your threats and opportunities.

Once completed, you can shift your focus to outside opportunities which you have a chance to win with. Make sure also to add external threats to your marketing efforts and include an idea of how you could disrupt these threats.

Try to think of as many details as possible. It's impossible to think of it all in one sitting, but as you think of opportunities and threats in your daily life, be sure to add them to your notebook on your phone and computer and circle back to include them into your marketing plan.

Remember, your marketing plan is a living document, as technology evolves, which it evolves fast, so does your marketing plan.

Understanding where you start from gives you a significant advantage in planning out your marketing campaign plan.

Step 2 – Your Target Audience

The second step should be a little simpler than the first. You need to create a simple, paragraph which outlines your perfect target customer. You can describe your prospects in many ways including age, sex, earnings, geographical location, and even family composition.

You should be able to identify a number of properties about your target audience, ask yourself:
Are your customer's followers or leaders? Aggressive or timid? Modern or traditional? Extroverted or introverted?
Do they purchase what you're often offering?

These kinds of questions will help you to outline your target audience and help you to begin to understand what you can offer them.

Depending on your type of business, you may outline your audience differently. If you're a B2B marketer, you might target your customer by job title, the kind of company and location.

If you're a B2C marketer, it may be how often they shop, where their geographical location is and how much they earn as a household.

It doesn't matter who your target audience is, you should be sure to define them in this section as it will help be your guide as you plan out the rest of your marketing plan.

Step 3 – Your Marketing Goals

When you begin to outline your marketing goals, you should consider your options.

Do you want to reach more customers online?

Do you hope to use a local expert?

For example, if you live in Chicago, you may want to inquire with a Chicago SEO expert to understand how you can get a competitive edge in the local SEO market. A Chicago SEO expert would usually have a better understanding of the local market than an online marketer who works everywhere in the world.

That local specialty can make a big difference.

You may choose to delve into online statistics and target markets that are emerging or underpriced. A lot of businesses in the last few years have been investing in Influencers on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat for their marketing needs.

But sometimes it pays to stick to the strategies that deliver the best results. For example, Google is responsible for 94% of total organic traffic online.

By focusing on targeted marketing goals, you can start to deliver real results.

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Step 4 – Develop Your Marketing Strategies

This section is where the magic really happens in your marketing plan. In steps one to three you've outlined who your audience is and what you need to accomplish.

In this step you will focus on the tactics you'll use to reach and acquire these prospects and how you'll accomplish your goals.

An excellent marketing plan starts targeting prospects at every single stage of your sales cycle. Some marketing you'll use will be great for targeting cold clients.

Warm prospects, those that you have exposed to your marketing before, understand who you are and what your brand stands for. They will respond best to permission-based emails; events focused on customer appreciation and loyalty reward programmes.

Your hottest prospects are the ones who you've already exposed to your marketing message and are close to reaching a decision and closing.

In your marketing strategies you want to outline your approach to each of these different types of prospects then include a variety of different tactics you'll use to reach that prospect.

Why Local SEO is So Important

When looking at the different ways you can acquire your clients once you've outlined your marketing strategy, for a local business there is one technique which stands out more than others.

Local SEO and SEO, in general, are a great way to build up a great marketing campaign for your local business.

You'll find that 90% of searchers haven't made up their mind about a brand before their search. This means if you can rank in the top spot for your website, you'll have a great chance of having success or at least a massive step up on your competition right there.

SEO and specifically local SEO is an easy way you can build up your audience and expose yourself more to your local clients.

For a complete guide explaining SEO, take a look at:
What is SEO?

The Top Marketing Strategies For Your Local Business

To help you better understand some of the different marketing strategies you can use within your marketing campaign, check out some of these killer strategies.

Just remember, there is no magic, secret formula for marketing.

All businesses and industries are not created equal, what works for some companies might not work for others, so make sure to test and experiment to see what works best for you and your audience.

1. Google My Business

Ranking your Google My Business (GMB) in Google could be one of the most important tools to accompany a local SEO campaign for your local business. If you are targeting and attempting to attract local customers, it may be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal.

Google My Business is a powerful tool as often you'll find that when searching for local businesses if you can rank in the top three of GMB's rankings, you'll get a significant amount of traffic without having to pay for ads.

Google My Business works by combining all your different Google platforms into one location. This includes your Google + profile, Google Maps, your Google reviews and access to other Google insights.

You'll even find if you have a unique business name, which people search for, you can get a sizeable free ad showing up compiled information about your business, all pulled from your Google My Business profile.

This tool gives you immediate credibility online and a lot of visibility. If you run a local business, this should be your number one priority.

To sum it up, think about what Google calls this tool. Help Google help your clients find you by setting up and optimizing your Google my Business account, it will only help you.

To learn more about Google My Business, take a look at:
Your Ultimate Google My Business Guide

2. Google AdWords

Do you know how many search queries there are on Google every second? Over 40,000 search queries a second.

There are no other advertising methods that have that kind of potential to get your business before that many eyes. Except for perhaps the Superbowl, but that'll set you back a cool $5 million.

Google AdWords is competitive, it's expensive, and if you understand how to use it, it can make a big difference to your business. Even though AdWords is an ad network, the goal is always focused on the end user.

It wants to deliver relevant results to its users, and because of this, it will cost you less when you are utilizing some proper on-page SEO tactics. Google will assign a quality score to your ad; this depends on a number of different factors:

• Click-through rate
• Relevance
• And the landing page you send your ads to

This quality score factors into the bid price you'll need to pay to get an ad to display. The great thing about Google AdWords is it will pair up with practically any other strategy to deliver excellent results.

Your only limits are your application and your budget. Start low and test your conversions. Once your ads are paying for themselves, scale up. More on this in later posts.

Need help learning how to set up your Adwords campaigns?  Take a look at this handy guide:
How to Set up a Google AdWords Campaign

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing in 2019 is enormous. With long-form blog articles generating 9x more leads than short-form blog posts, the value in content marketing can be game-changing for your business.

Content marketing is the process of building and creating valuable content to attract your audience and produce profitable customers and leads.

Content marketing ties itself into SEO and is one of the best ways to build a good brand for your business.

Content marketing very much focuses on generating long-term results, not a short-term win like you might get with AdWords.

You'll find the first reward to not be significant in content marketing, but over a more extended period of time, the growth that brings visitors, leads and customers can be one of the most significant driving forces to carry a business forward.

Content marketing isn't easy though; it requires a lot of different elements to be successful:

• Quality content
• Topics relevant to your niche
• SEO optimized posts
• Optimized for real-life readers
• Consistently creating and promoting content

Content marketing isn't limited to just blog posts. It will include everything from podcasts, videos, online courses and a whole host of other engaging activities you can be doing online.

You should focus on value-based content that helps your audience learn and build trust from the information they read from you. If you are going to consider content marketing in your business strategy, make sure you have the time and resources available to be able to produce content with no ROI for some time. (Highly Recommended)

Need help creating your content marketing strategy?  Don't worry, we have you covered.  Check out:
How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the cornerstone of internet marketing for many marketers. You'll find that most people who visit your site aren't going to buy from you immediately.

Capturing contact information for lead nurturing and additional marketing is one of the best ways to sell, even in 2019. Email is still one of the highest converting mediums available for converting your leads into customers.

Email marketing funnels always start with an opt-in bribe or a lead magnet. This is a free offer, compelling your customers to give away their email in exchange for something for free.

You could do a free ebook, a seat in a webinar, site membership or a coupon.

Once your customer subscribes to your email list, you'll have the opportunity to provide valuable content via email. This can then lead to selling products once you've established trust.

Want to dominate your email marketing?  Take a look at:
The 10 Elements of a Successful Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

Take Your Marketing Campaigns to The Next Level

Now you've got a better understanding of creating a marketing campaign; you can begin to grow more leads and increase the amount of exposure to local customers for your local business.

For more support on growing your local business online, get in touch today.