50 Local Marketing Strategies

 

50 Marketing Strategies To Increase Business From Your City

Building your local marketing strategy is important in order to attract more customers and build trust and credibility. Even though local marketing strategies mainly benefit those businesses whose customer bases are local, every business can get advantages from them, since having a link from locally respected websites and blogs benefits any business whether it is local, national or international.

The following are 50 local marketing strategies for your business.

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Taking some time for thinking and preparation

Before you begin your local marketing campaigns, try to take some time for thinking and preparation.

1.Think who your potential customers are and prepare a profile of local businesses or individuals who will most likely buy your products or services. Investigate where they hang out, their shopping habits, the types of jobs they are doing, their economic well-being and the factors that affect their buying decisions.

2.Breakdown your potential customers in to groups based on their age, family status, shopping habit or anything that seems common to them. Then, try to think about a strategy that can address each group in accordance with its behaviors and activities.

3.Investigate what your competitors are doing with regard to addressing their customers through local marketing. Then, think about strategies that you can beat them.

Involving in community activities

After you giving yourself some time for thinking and preparation, you can now move to your marketing campaigns. Involving in different community activities is one of the most effective ways that you can build local links to your business.

4.Sponsor local activities such as kids or adult sports teams, college events, church activities, Hospitals, meet ups and networking events. Use those channels to promote your business and to get a link. Most of those local activities use websites or social media for promotion. Then they will link out to your website.

5.Give support for local charity organizations and ask them to put your link on their website. In addition to the links this strategy builds trust for your business.

6.Engage in voluntary activities. Encourage your employees to spend a day feeding the hungry and sign up to work in the community garden and request a link to your website.

7.Organize socially important events such as panel discussions, forums and different activities that can attract community interest. Invite the local bloggers, radio or TV stations and newspapers to spread the word for you and give you a back link on their websites.

8.Offer discounts for local colleges and high schools and request a link back from their websites.

9.Start local coupon programs and ask for link from local coupon websites.

Online local marketing strategies

The following are online strategies that help you get local links.

10.Register and market your business with local search engines such as Google places, Yahoo local and Bing local. Besides gaining local links, your business will benefit from more targeted traffic.

11.Register with city websites and put your link.

12.Register with local business directories and put a link back to your website.

13.Guest blog in local community blogs. Find relevant blogs that you can write about your products. This is a great way to get quality links and gain exposure locally.

14.Participate in local online forums where local issues are discussed and get a back link to your website

15.Create Facebook fan page for your company and get fans through connecting local contacts. Then, ask your fans to link back to you on their face book profiles.

16.Look for local face book fan pages. Be a fan, engage in discussions and put your link.

17.Create a twitter account and invite your local contacts to follow you. Then, ask your followers to link back to you.

18.Create a LinkedIn account and join local business groups in or create one yourself and participate in discussions leaving your link at the end.

19.Register with local chamber of commerce website and put a link back on your member area.

20.Participate in local blogs. Leave your comment and a link.

21.Get interviewed by local bloggers and get a link back to your website.

22.Request a link from your local Business partners’ websites.

23.Find local college websites and participate in their blogs and leave your opinion and a link.

24.Request a link from your local customers’ websites.

25.Start a local activities blog and create content that can attract the community. People and businesses will most likely give you a link from their websites and blogs.

26.Put Facebook and Twitter icons on your local activities blog. It will be easy for your visitors to share your content, and hence, give you a link back.

27.Offer free downloadable reports that can interest the local community and request a link back if the user finds it useful.

28.Register with local business associations and put a link on their sites.

29.Prepare press releases with a link back to your website and give them to local Press release websites.

30.Post your job openings on local job listing websites and get your link.

31.Exchange links with local complementary businesses and websites.

32.Ask questions and give answers on local Q&A sites if there are any. Don’t forget to put your link on each of your questions and answers.

33.Rent pages from local authority websites. Promote your products or services and put a link back.

34.Request a link from local product review websites.

35.Join local businesses or interest groups on Google groups and Yahoo! Groups. Participate in local discussions and put your link.

36.Submit your business profile with your link on it to local business profile websites.

37.Prepare industry news articles putting your link on them and submit to local news sites.

38.Ask for a link from your local webhosting company website.

39.Ask for a link from relevant local niche sites.

Giving testimonials

Giving testimonials is another great way that you can get local links.

40.Give testimonials on your suppliers’ websites and put a link back to your website.

41.Write testimonials on your coffee, donuts or bagel shops’ websites and put your link.

42.Use pizza or grocery delivery services to your office and write a line or two sentences of testimonials on their website and put your link.

43.Write testimonials on your electricians or doors and windows installations company websites and link back to your website.

44.If you have booked a trip with local travel agency, then give your testimonial on their website and put a link.

45.Have you ever bought a consultancy or training service? Find the company’s website, write your testimony and put a link back to your website.

46.Have you hired local IT Company for computer maintenance or troubleshooting? Have you outsourced your website design to a local company? Then, get a link through your testimonials.

47.Give testimonials on your local vendors’ website that you buy your office furniture from. Put your link at the end of your testimonial.

Using local Media

Don’t miss out the local media to get your local links.

48.Look for the local radio and TV stations’ sites. Participate in their discussion forums and blogs. Leave a comment and a link.

49.Find the Local newspapers’ websites and participate in their News forum and leave a link.

50.Look for local magazine websites. Participate in their discussions and blogs. Leave your comment and a link.

That’s it! Got questions? Any other local marketing strategies work for you? We’d love to hear about them in the comments.