Your Local Marketing is Missing the Mark

Here is how you fix it…

Local marketing is a great business strategy. You need to take care of local marketing or your business won’t be anywhere near as successful as you want it to be, and it should be. Unfortunately local marketing strategies don’t always work as well as they should. There are some mistakes you can make but they’re also simple to fix, so just keep these in mind.

photo credit: Steven Depolo via Flickr

The main mistake almost everyone makes is to be unfocused. The worst thing you can do when it comes to marketing, especially local marketing which has to be precise, is to not have a goal in mind and just do everything and hope something works. When you’re going to take out advertising or try your hand at marketing you have to know what you’re doing and have a goal in mind. Advertising won’t work for you unless you make it work for you.

Word of mouth is a fantastic tool for marketing. Especially free advertising. You don’t have to pay anyone to talk about you right? The truth is that some people don’t take this as seriously as they need to. People are going to talk about you for sure if they like you, but you also need to take time to encourage people to talk about you. Don’t rely on dumb luck and ask people nicely to recommend you to their friends or offer incentives. Consider handing out coupons and giving people extra coupons to hand out to their friends. It might cost a little but it’s great for building a good reputation.

Another mistake that’s easy to make is trying to reach out too far. Remember the word “local” is in the term “local marketing”. It’s about trying to reach out to your local area. It’s easy to get lost in the highs of social media and trying to reach out to a wider audience, and you should avoid that. Feel free to reach out to a wider surrounding area, but don’t try and reach a global audience when you’re a local business. Those people aren’t going to come to your business no matter how much they like it. Focus on the customers you can actively get. Plus not focusing on your local area might build up a bit of a bad reputation with them because you’ve neglected them.

There are other mistakes you can make when it comes to local marketing. The main thing to keep in mind when it comes to marketing is to focus on your local area, and to have strategies and business ideas in mind. It’s the same stuff to keep in mind when it comes to marketing on any level. It’s too easy to get caught up and try and do too much. There are solutions to just about any problem you can have. If you’re having trouble then do a bit of research to solve the problem yourself, or consider hiring a professional marketing company to offer you a hand.