Local Marketing: Making a Name Right Where You Are

This is the perfect article for the entrepreneurs among us. The Internet is helpful in getting small businesses the traffic they deserve. You’ve seen a viral story or two of someone using Instagram to save a small shop from closing down. People move from borderline bankruptcy to making profits quickly. What happened to these business owners could easily happen to you, too. You just need to step up in terms of local marketing tactics. We can help you with that.

Maybe positive reviews from satisfied customers on your Google My Business (GMB) used to be enough. These days, business owners are going to have to be a little more deliberate than that. Gone are the days when a business listing in the phone directory was all you needed.

If you don’t have multiple business locations, you’ll have to use a special type of marketing to reach target customers. The social media marketing experts at Plixi can help you with that.

What Is Local Search Marketing?: How To Know If Your Business Needs It

We live in a time where people place a lot of emphasis on global notoriety. Some care about reaching more people so much that they forget about the customers right in front of them. Furthermore, your followers all the way to Austria can’t help you if you don’t ship products. Your fans in Grenada may follow you, but will they ever need your custom winter coats? 

This is where local business marketing becomes important. So, what is local search marketing? It is simply the type of marketing that focuses on driving sales on a face-to-face basis. It aims to increase the foot traffic to local businesses by focusing on customers in the vicinity of the business.

This kind of local marketing for small businesses focuses on visibility, but visibility for people who are already nearby. Here are some examples of the businesses that could benefit:

1. The local swimming instructor who gives lessons to little kids. 
2. The mom-and-pop floral shop puts out fresh flowers every morning.
3. The up-and-coming lash tech that is building her clientele.
4. The guest house your neighbor converted to an Airbnb.
5. The bakery that an old couple owns that makes the best fresh bread.

Sometimes, businesses cannot reasonably ship their products over long distances. Hence, they rely on sales happening on-site. Other companies cannot afford all the costs that come with having an online business platform. 

Or, some businesses simply want to maintain in-person relationships with their customers. There are many possible reasons. One of these may apply to your business, or you may have a different reason altogether. Keep reading to see if this tactic is for you.

Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing Will Always Benefit You 

When you type in “near me” or “in [insert place here],” it likely means that you are in the neighborhood. It means that you are ready to spend your money. You just need to find out where to spend it. In fact, you are so ready to spend money that you don’t even want to travel far to do it. 

This is where hyperlocal social media marketing comes in handy. This type of marketing strategy ensures that the people who are ready to spend their money find you.

People who search for businesses in their area are not typically window shopping. They can always window shop using online stores. They’re willing to go to the location right now. This means that they don’t want to go through the hassle of waiting for their items to reach them. 

They are ready to go out and get the items themselves. While physical shopping may sound weird to some people, some people still like human-to-human interaction.

Practicing some local small business marketing tactics will help you get the best return on your real estate. There could be some takeaways in this article that can work for you.

How To Market Local Business Products Using Hashtags

Hashtags still work as a brand-growing tool. You just need to know how to make them work for your local business marketing specifically. You can’t just add hashtags to a post and expect it to do well. There is a science to it. Luckily, we know the right formula for success. 

It involves three key components. We’ll explain them here. Here is how to market local business products with Instagram hashtags:

1. Popular Hashtags

Think of the general things that come to mind when you think of your product. If you run the local thrift store, use hashtags that center around that topic. If the business is a local food truck, follow that same idea. 

Encourage users to save the post to remember your business if they are ever in the area. Don’t waste your precious real estate on just these hashtags. The next two are arguably more important. 

2. Location Hashtags

Your brick-and-mortar business isn’t going anywhere. It depends on people finding it if they are in the area. You’ll have to put your mind in the head of a tourist. IG users will use Instagram as a directory to find local businesses. Think of what they would search for to find your business.

If you have a hair salon, add the street location in a hashtag. Here are some examples of niche hashtags with street names in Atlanta:

• #bakestreetalthairsalon
• #buckheadhairstylist
• #decaturestreethairsalon
• #piedmontavenuehairsalon

Let’s try this again with a tourist in Brooklyn who needs to do their nails. Here are some ideas:

• #brooklynnailtech
• #myrtleavenuenailsalon
• #gelmanicureinbrooklyn
• #bestnailartistinbrooklyn

This is a great way for people to find you. Adding your location to the product you offer allows people to find you naturally. Remember, you want to increase the number of walk-in clients. People need to know that you’re nearby. The general hashtags may get fans to your page, but you can only sometimes convert that to income.

3. Business Hashtags

Routinely using a hashtag for your business is the last component of this formula. It’s a hashtag you will use, encouraging existing clients to use it. IG complies with all posts under a hashtag in one place. If you use a specific hashtag every time, your potential customers can find your content in one place. 

Yes, they can go to your profile for this, but what about your user-generated content? Customers could also have posts with these hashtags, allowing future customers to have built-in reviews.

For local marketing for small businesses, the last two components are the most important. Put most of your effort into emphasizing your location.

3 Local Marketing Ideas for Small Business

Getting people to know you exist could be harder than you think. They may walk past you every day and never even know what you sell. This could be because your business blends in too well with the community. 

They may have forgotten what you, convinced your shop is scenery. We can’t have that. We have three tips to help you stand out from the crowd. Check out the three best local marketing ideas for small businesses.

1. Collaborate With Other Small Businesses

Your business might be in the neighborhood that you grew up in. It could be full of other businesses run by neighbors. It’s a great idea to fortify existing relationships with other community members. Whether your business is new or longstanding, you could benefit from greater visibility. Capitalizing on another business’s consumer base is the way to go.

A collaboration with another small shop will give you access to another group of consumers. When these consumers see that a business they trust endorses you, that cuts down the work for you. At the very least, they will see that you now exist. They can test out your products for themselves, and you have the opportunity to reach more people. 

Instagram allows you to post jointly with another IG account. Ideally, the business you want to collaborate with does have a social media presence. You can post together. This goes for photos and reels. The content will appear in front of their followers. It’s a free way to advertise. 

Think of a local business that sells products that complement yours. Do you run a thrift store? Find a store that markets itself to tailors. Emphasize that they can transform clothing. Are you the local barista? Collaborate with the boutique bookstore. People love to sip their coffee while reading a book.

People think of competition too quickly. There are so many opportunities to bolster your following by using another small business. 

2. Host a Giveaway

You need to maintain a good reputation in your community. You don’t plan on moving any time soon, and you need people around you to love you. Nothing lets someone’s guard down more than a giveaway. Of course, you can sell raffle tickets from your cashier counter. 

However, you’re reading this article because you want to figure out how to incorporate social media. We can give you the local small business marketing perspective using Instagram.

Instead of buying a ticket, you can host a giveaway using something a lot more powerful. We’re talking about engagement. You can tell people that they can enter the giveaway by liking, commenting, and sharing your content. 

This kind of activity will do wonders for your engagement rate. You could even step it up by requiring that they follow your page. Maybe you can tell them to tag a friend in the comments. Don’t be afraid to combine this tip with the tip before. You can collaborate with someone for this giveaway. To make sure everything is above board, you can use a free contest picker online.

3. Use Instagram Ads

If you already have a marketing budget, you could consider channeling it into your social media. Instagram has a great platform for creating ads. It lets you choose the ideal customer that you want to market your content to. You can decide how long you want the Instagram ad to run for. 

You could even make sure that it stays within the confines of your budget. Use this tool to make sure that your ad is going in front of the kind of customer you want. This is a lot more direct than handing out flyers to people randomly. They may never need or want the product you offer.

2 Local Online Marketing Tips To Incorporate in Your Blogs

Search engine optimization is all the rage for businesses right now. We aren’t just talking about Instagram. People are looking for ways to have their content appear above the fold in search results. If you run a blog connected to your business somehow, check out these top two local online marketing tips:

1. Use the words and phrases that are relevant to your location: What are some popular landmarks in your area? Are there any special events that people will be researching? It’s wise to use phrases like this. It will increase the chances of your website coming up in a search result. 
2. Think of the multiple ways that people research the same thing: They may change a word here or just the tense there. Incorporate these keywords into your article’s headings and in the body of the article.

Plixi Will Help You Come Up With Instagram Marketing Strategies

The type of Instagram marketing strategies that your business will need are unique to your business. You’ll need tailor-made tools to help you reach your target audience. Don’t think that just because your business is small, the effort you put in will be small as well. We take your growth seriously. 

This is why our in-house platform of Instagram influencers will help you with your local marketing objectives. They also have the help of a propriety AI targeting algorithm. We’ve been perfecting it for a decade. We can get you the results you need. We don’t just mean inflated numbers. 

You can get a following that translates to real income for your business. Start gaining Instagram followers today.