5 Highly Effective Digital Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Local Business

Traditional marketing strategies are still used to help companies gain more visibility in their target markets, but digital marketing is quickly overtaking as the main resource of brand-building and competitiveness. For local businesses that haven’t set out to win over the global market, this means trying to build relevance in a limited area with limited resources. What’s more, the number of small businesses with such a local focus is quickly growing. 

Wherever you look, you’ll notice that countries are dominated by small, local endeavors doing their best to steal the spotlight. They need to use everything from large-scale SEO strategies, ongoing content creation, all the way to advertising to make their names more prominent. Digital marketing has become the most effective way to make yourself known and to earn the trust of your target audience for the long haul. If you’re looking to build a better business presence in your region and to win over the hearts of your customers, use the listed digital marketing tactics.

Influencer collaborations

Local customers who spend their money in local stores and by supporting local brands also want to hear that other locals appreciate the brands they like. When a Brisbane athlete posts an Instagram video from a local café, you can expect the entire community to flock there as soon as possible.

To get more visibility and awareness, work with local influencers with a strong reputation among your target audience. Focus on the people with whom you can establish a lasting partnership, and you’ll be much more likely to win over more customers and more online attention. 

Take care of your content

Everything from your social media strategy, newsletter campaigns, subscription emails, all the way to your blogs and videos fall under the idea of content. As you already know that content has held the throne in digital marketing since its inception, you also know that regular and on-brand content creation helps small, local businesses acquire new customers, retain the old ones, and earn the trust of the community.

Since content creation is one of the main pillars of digital marketing, remember that without content, the rest of your digital marketing efforts will likely falter or fail. For example, your SEO strategy depends on content, while your social media success is based on your content output as well as engagement, and your email campaigns require, first and foremost, the right copy. Set up a content strategy that supports all of your digital marketing efforts, and you’ll allow your local business to thrive.

Boost your local SEO efforts

Due to time zone differences, cultural uniqueness, and location-specific trends, brands regularly need to collaborate with professionals in various digital marketing sectors to retain their position in the market. Working closely with trusted SEO professionals allows them to outsource their SEO strategy while they focus on more mission-critical tasks of running their day-to-day operations.

Being Sydneysiders, they will be well-versed in all local trends, customer expectations, and they’ll have the experience to help your brand succeed in the local market. Localizing your SEO strategy helps you narrow down your focus on the elements of SEO that make the most sense of your small business, without wasting your time and resources on SEO tactics that would potentially work elsewhere. 

Rely on marketing analytics 

Everything you do has some kind of effect, be it good or bad. As simplistic as this may sound, keeping track of all your marketing endeavors is the only way you can distinguish between what’s working for your brand and what’s holding you back. Tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs are just some of many tools you can use to monitor some of your digital marketing campaigns, their SEO footprint and overall success.

With the right analytics tools, some of them built into your website and social media, and others that you can integrate with your CRM platform, you can keep careful track of where you are with your digital campaigns. Understanding which tactics are skyrocketing your presence and which ones are merely a drain on your budget will help you redefine your approach by reallocating your funds towards the tactics that bring you the best results. 

Manage your website properly

Getting noticed locally starts and ends with proper website management, since you cannot count on your social media to do all the heavy lifting while your site is slow to load and your shopping cart doesn’t work. Most brands will work with professional web developers locally to have someone on standby whenever there’s a need to fix something, and even just to update all the plugins, add new content, and freshen up the site with new work hours. 

If you have a busy bookstore in a hectic city like Melbourne, you cannot really keep your website in top condition on your own. The right people can make sure your site loads quickly, that the navigation allows customers to find what they need without delay, and that all the functionalities work properly. These technicalities will help you provide a great experience for anyone who interacts with your business, improves your ranking, and your chances of someone actually coming to your physical store when they get the information they need from your site. 

Wrapping up

Being mindful of your location is an effective way to give your digital marketing strategy the right direction and purpose. Add a few tactics that global enterprises implement, with a local twist, and you’ll have a winning strategy to build your digital presence in the eyes of your local audience. 

Whether or not you’re new to the world of small businesses, and no matter if you’ve just set up your very own minimalist fashion brand in Sweden or a hip new jewelry brand in Australia, take these ideas to heart when you’re setting up your presence online.