Local Online and Internet Marketing: A Guide for Business Owners

Small business owners use a variety of strategies to attract customers and grow, and local online marketing should always be one of these strategies. It is arguably among the best methods of growing your business, thanks to the results it delivers.

What’s great is that there are many tools small business owners can count on for effective local online marketing. For instance, tools like Podium help local businesses gather reviews and maintain SMS communication with leads and customers, improving customer engagement, expanding customer bases, and driving revenue.

To help small business owners understand the concept further, this guide will walk you through the definition of online local marketing and provide local marketing examples and tips for attracting a local audience.   

What is local online marketing?

Before you can take full advantage of local online marketing, you need to understand “What is local marketing?” Local online marketing is a set of strategies that the Internet to drive more customers and impressions. These strategies give small businesses a chance to compete with larger businesses.

Local online marketing is similar to local marketing in that both strategies focus on a specific audience within a particular area. However, these two concepts have their differences. Local marketing may be more focused on traditional offline marketing methods like fliers, events, and partnerships with other local businesses. Meanwhile, local online marketing involves using SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and pay-per-click advertising.

Local internet marketing lets you appeal to your audience by offering the benefits of immediacy and convenience. Leads and customers can visit your store more easily and get faster responses in case something goes wrong. They also get the satisfaction of knowing they are supporting a local business.

Benefits of Local Online Marketing

A crucial part of understanding “what is local marketing” and making a marketing plan is seeing how it can benefit your business. The following are just some of the most important benefits of local business online marketing.

1. Targeted Research

As part of your digital marketing strategy for online local marketing, you will need to conduct targeted research. After all, you can’t effectively target your local community and ideal demographics if you don’t know who your target market is and what their needs are.

If you haven’t already completed this type of targeted research, you can easily reuse it in future marketing strategies or for audience segmentation. If you have already done so and have customer personas, then you can save time by optimizing your local online marketing strategies using this data.

2. Cost-Effectiveness

Local online marketing is incredibly cost-effective, reducing the time and money traditionally required for marketing. This comes from the smaller, more targeted scale of the marketing campaign compared to general online marketing.

With online marketing, you would likely use a long list of strategies and resources so you can target a wider audience. But not everyone in that audience would be a good fit for your product or service.

By contrast, local marketing tactics target people who need your product or service and are more likely to convert, so you can make the most of your investment. Think of it as a funnel with a smaller number of prospects at the top – but all those prospects are more likely to convert.

3. Enhanced Customer Engagement

Local marketing efforts tend to result in higher customer engagement as well. This comes from both the fact that you are a local business and the more targeted approach that comes with local marketing.

That increase in customer engagement has far-reaching consequences. It goes a long way in encouraging brand loyalty and trust. Trust and loyalty improve the customer lifetime value of each acquisition.

4. Increased Visibility

With the improved customer engagement from your local marketing efforts, you will also generate buzz and increase your brand’s visibility. Your local community will start talking about your business and the great experiences they have with you. This will help significantly with brand awareness and word-of-mouth advertising, as well as local reviews. You may even get more foot traffic at your store.

5. Measurable Results

The results you get from local online marketing are measurable, so you don’t have to just assume that you are getting a better return on your time and money spent. You can directly measure the return on investment (ROI) and customer acquisition cost (CAC), both of which will be lower.

You can also easily measure other key metrics such as conversion rate, churn, ad clicks, and time spent on the page. All this data can provide you with a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of your local online marketing strategy. This way, you can easily optimize campaign aspects that don’t work.

6. Potential Local Partnerships

Local online marketing also gives you the perfect opportunity to form partnerships with other local businesses. Aside from generating even more buzz and visibility for your business, these partnerships emphasize your focus on the local community, increasing the feelings of connection and trust that customers have with you.

As with any other partnership, it also gives you direct access to the audience of your local partner, expanding your reach and potentially generating more leads for your business.

The 9 Most Effective Local Online Marketing Techniques

There are dozens of local business online marketing strategies you can use for your business, but you should start with the following. These are the most important and effective strategies you can use.

1. Optimize your site for local SEO.

Working on your local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy should be one of your first steps with local online marketing, especially with local store marketing. Remember that local searches are those that have the phrase “near me” or include “in [city]” or similar phrasing.

Most people that use local Google search want immediate results and have a sense of urgency. Maybe they need a plumber right away. Or perhaps they want to find a local store where they can buy a specific item immediately.

Local SEO starts with the same principles as standard SEO, but the keywords should include those phrases like “near me.” You also need to optimize your Google Business Profile, so it provides relevant information to potential new and existing customers. Factors like the number of online check-ins, your online reviews, and your star rating will also play a role in your local SEO rankings.

After you optimize your website for local SEO, use it to generate more leads and conversions. With the right website chat, you can make your website a conversation starter. See Webchat in action on your site to get started delivering an excellent customer experience right from your website.

2. Create and optimize your Google Business Profile. 

Your Google Business Profile is one of the major factors affecting your local SEO ranking. Start by claiming your Google business listing. Then, make sure that all the information in it is up-to-date, including your phone number, address, business hours, products or services, and accepted payment methods.

The previous steps are the minimum that every single business owner should do if you haven’t already done so. This can significantly improve the visibility of your business’s online presence.

Ideally, you will also set up Questions and Answers on your Google profile and make posts that include photos and videos. Optimizing your Google Business Profile also includes encouraging reviews and responding to those reviews.

3. Get and manage customer reviews.

As mentioned, customer reviews are part of your Google Business Profile and therefore your overall local internet marketing strategy. Most people trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from family and friends. On top of that, most customers look at a review, if not several, before choosing which brand to use. Savvy businesses take advantage of the influence of reviews by encouraging their customers to leave reviews.

You can encourage reviews by displaying them on your website. As a bonus, this also makes them more visible to website visitors. You can also offer an incentive such as a discount or freebie in exchange for reviews.

In many cases, getting more reviews is as simple as nicely asking your customers to leave a review. Podium’s free Google Review link generator makes this very simple to do. Use it and Podium’s other tools to get more reviews and more business for you.

Once you get reviews, make it a point to respond to negative reviews as well as positive reviews. This will give you a chance to win back customers who have had a less-than-satisfying encounter with your business. It will also show potential clients that you care about their experience.

4. Use social media ads.

Even before you use social media ads, start by claiming and verifying your social media business profiles. Get a profile for all the major platforms that your customers have a chance of being on, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube. If you’re targeting a younger crowd, you can also make profiles on Snapchat and TikTok.

Make sure your social media profile contains at least basic business information, including your logo, a quick brand summary, and a link to your website. Even if you don’t actively use your Pinterest profile for social media marketing, having one prevents your audience from mistakenly thinking another profile belongs to you. This is crucial because you can’t control how another profile affects your online reputation.

Once you have your accounts set up, sign up for ads. Facebook and Instagram are great platforms for social media ads because these offer intuitive and effective targeting. Use these targeted ads to focus on local customers.

5. Create local content.

Just like content marketing is part of general SEO, creating local content is part of local SEO. You will want to use similar strategies, such as looking for topics that interest your audience and providing them with valuable information.

Don’t forget to do keyword research and include relevant local keywords in your content and even on landing pages as well. Doing so can help your website rank well in local search results.

The beauty of local content is that it lets you get even more specific. You can focus on highly specific local issues or even mention local news.

6. Use Google Ads and pay-per-click.

Look at your local digital marketing budget and allocate a portion each for Google Ads and PPC advertising. Remember that PPC ads appear at the top of the search results page, boosting your brand’s visibility. Meanwhile, Google Ads offers excellent targeting options and gives you valuable data and analytics. Both platforms can make a significant difference in your local online marketing strategies.

7. Improve your communication channels.

To boost engagement and encourage loyalty and trust in your brand, you should ensure your customers can reach you whenever needed. It’s crucial to keep communication channels always clear and working. Make it a point to be anywhere and everywhere your customers prefer to communicate, from Facebook Messenger to email to texting.

If you aren’t sure what channels your customers want, send out a survey and ask them or see what communication methods competitors offer.

Communicating with your audience on multiple channels shouldn’t be overwhelming to manage. Podium’s Inbox tool makes customer communication faster and easier by putting all your conversations in a single place. You can even view the context for the conversations thanks to the CRM functions of Podium.

8. Take advantage of local listings and directories.

Every one of the local marketing examples you find will also suggest getting your business listed in as many local directories and listings as you can, as long as they are relevant. Start with Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing, and your local chamber of commerce, and then look for others. Ensure you post accurate information, including the exact business name you put on your Google Business Profile.

Google will confirm that your information is the same on every directory as it is on your business profile. If it matches, your ranking will increase as Google assumes the information is accurate. If the contact information doesn’t match, it will hurt your local search rankings.

As a bonus, adding your business to local listings and directories also increases your backlinks, another factor Google considers when determining rankings. Of course, it also provides yet another way for potential customers to find you online.

9. Make your site mobile-friendly. 

Always prioritize mobile users. Most of your audience will look up your business on their smartphones, so make sure your website loads properly on mobile devices. Also, ensure they have access to the same information as desktop users.

Automate and Improve Your Local Marketing Efforts

Podium offers an all-in-one solution that lets you automate and improve your marketing efforts. Streamlining communication across multiple channels, using your website to chat with customers, and generating reviews are just a few of the ways that Podium facilitates local marketing.

Explore our customer stories to see the dramatic results that Podium can deliver for local businesses. For instance, just by using Podium, Schoonover BodyWorks’ monthly review volume increased by 600%, and the business got a Google rating boost from 4.4 to 4.9 stars.

Best of all, Podium pricing is straightforward and affordable, especially given all of the tools included in the platform.

FAQs

Q: How to do digital marketing in my local area?

A: Start your local online marketing campaign by boosting local SEO efforts and by claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile. From there, work towards generating more reviews and strategically use paid ads and PPC.

Q: What is an example of local marketing?

A: Any local advertising campaign, whether it is on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or another platform, is an example of local marketing. Local marketing is distinguished by the fact that you have a smaller local target audience instead of a larger general audience.

Q: How can I promote my local business online?

A: Promote your local business online via your Google listing, on social media, and on your website. Also, use local SEO strategies, PPC, paid advertising, and local partnerships, and let your customers communicate with you via their preferred channels.