For any local business owner, exploring new ways to promote your company can be challenging. With the average online shoppers’ attention span being only 8 seconds, you need to find ways to grab users’ attention and keep it. If you want to stay competitive in your industry and gain more recognition, knowing how to utilize and implement local inbound marketing is critical. You may already have some background knowledge on this topic, but if not, let’s go through the basics and then get into detail.

What is local inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is a method of growing your business through building meaningful relationships with consumers. It targets prospective customers to discover your products or services, by creating valuable content and experiences that suit their specific needs. Inbound marketing is the idea that the customer should be the focus of the buying process rather than the seller or the product/service. We refer to inbound marketing as ‘local’ when you focus on confining your marketing efforts to the local population or community rather than addressing the mass market. 

Conversely, outbound marketing is a strategy of contacting a much broader unspecific audience (think of it as cold-calling anyone you can contact with the same message each time).

Local inbound marketing can be applied in various ways, but we’ll focus on three key methods. First, attract your consumers by drawing in the right people with valuable conversation to establish trust. Second, present your insights and solutions to consumers’ problems or needs and specify your products, so they will be more likely to buy from you. Finally, provide support and help to your customers to ensure they have a successful and positive experience with their purchase.

Benefits of Local Inbound Marketing

The online marketing strategy of local inbound marketing has been changing the relationship between buyer and seller. This approach has successfully entered a digital age where online competition is high and getting consumers’ attention is even more difficult. 

Local inbound marketing seeks to meet consumer market needs. For this to work, your business must gather as much information and data as possible about your audience. Discover what their needs are, what problems they are experiencing, and then find ways to solve them. 

When you successfully utilize and implement local inbound marketing to reach your target audience, there are several benefits your company will experience. Some of those include but are not limited to:

• Earn the trust of your buyer

• Provide helpful information to consumers

• Build an online community for your company

• Improve customer relations

• Increase leads

• Build long term relationships 

Strategies for your business

Now that you know a little more about what local inbound marketing is and how it can help your business, we’ll look at some examples that you can implement. These are proven strategies that will be sure to get consumers’ attention and increase your business’s sales.

First, you’ll need to know your main inbound marketing objectives. Your efforts should be towards actively getting your business found by consumers, being favoured, and creating fans. These will be the people committed to your brand and advocates for your products or services. Furthermore, you must devise a strategy and campaign to increase inbound traffic, which is actively being found, your conversion rates, and total customer value. Increasing any of these elements will positively impact your sales and increase revenue. With that being said, here are some foolproof strategies for your business:

1. Community involvement on social media

Using social media platforms for your business is one of the best ways to grow your online community. It provides the opportunity to have conversations and discussions with consumers and stand out among competitors. The greatest thing about it is you can decide what platforms suit your business and which ones can help your business the most. That means that you don’t have to focus your attention on every social platform out there, yet maybe put your efforts towards 2-3 platforms. Whether you use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, or others, each app offers its unique benefits and challenges.

Despite which platforms you choose to use for your business, building a community and being involved with the conversation is very important. You want to create an environment where users feel included and heard. It also makes a huge difference to have a frequently active company showing up on their accounts and contributing to their online community. Remember this: your social media platforms can be whatever you want them to be! They are entirely customizable and can show a side of your company that people should be interested in. Put effort into making a feed that you’re proud of, and users will surely be captivated. 

Social media is also a great way to target and connect with your local audience. Perform an analysis of local businesses, and take advantage of using locations, hashtags, or trending topics within the area. To stay relevant, perform these audits every week or every month to ensure you are posting content that is up to date and pertains to your local audience. Posting content that entertains or educates the local market will encourage consumers to check out your company online, or better yet, increase foot traffic to offline stores. 

2. Digital marketing budget

Investing wisely in your business can go a long way in the realm of advertising. With digital marketing and a local inbound strategy, you can reach your target audience with immense precision. Early on in the planning phase, allocate a certain amount of funds towards your marketing efforts. Many business owners take advantage of Google Ads; however, there are countless other digital advertising options to utilize. 

It’s also important to note that although you may be implementing a local inbound marketing strategy that may be of a smaller size than marketing to the masses, budgeting is essential. Of course, the amount you allocate will depend on the size of your business, your marketing objective, business goals, and available funds. However, if you have a budget in place, it will make implementing strategies much more manageable. 

3. Engage your audience

Whether it’s prospective or existing customers, engaging with users interested in your brand can be hugely beneficial. You want to build loyalty among consumers, and if you implement specific ways to do so, your efforts will go a long way. Additionally, continuously running campaigns that engage the user will keep them interested in your brand and your products fresh in their mind. 

Some examples of ways to engage your audience are automated marketing emails, monthly offers (potentially for existing or new customers), newsletters, social media interactive campaigns, or referral programs. Referral programs are a great option since it attracts new consumers from already existing buyers. Nevertheless, any of these methods will get people interested in your brand, if not already, or engage your current audience further. It is also beneficial to get to know your local audience better and run campaigns that will specifically interest that particular demographic. 

4. SEO strategy

To attract consumers on a deeper level through inbound marketing, optimize your content with an SEO strategy. A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy will ensure you effectively target your audience using keywords or phrases for your product/service. You can also perform an SEO audit which will provide you with all the necessary information regarding the functionality of your business. An SEO audit can be performed on your website, social media platforms, or any other content you want more information on. It will tell you what is working and what’s not, allowing you to make changes as necessary. 

Conducting an SEO audit as part of your strategy will allow your content to appear organically on search engine results pages (SERP) for consumers searching for similar information. Reaching your target audience and getting the attention of the right customers can lead to more sales and increased traffic to your webpage. 

5. Visual content strategy

After putting in the effort to get people to notice your company and visit your webpage, you want to hold and keep their attention. How? Through visual content. One of the most important aspects of running a business online and managing social media accounts is the content you publish. This involves photos, videos, presentations, or even infographics. It’s also not just about what you post, but also how it looks. Visual elements include colour, tone, pattern, texture, form, or shapes. You want visual content to be a representation of your brand and create a look that is unique to your business.

Visual content can also be in the form of video to assist your company’s products or services. Some examples include product demos, brand storytelling, service promotion, or customer case studies. Roughly 70% of YouTube viewers watch videos for “help with a problem” they may be experiencing with their job, studies, or hobby. If your company can help with those problems, you will reach a large market of people potentially interested in your business. 

Despite the type of visuals you create for your business, it’s important to publish content that matches your brand’s style. In addition, ensure it is consistent across all of your platforms, meaning that the images on your website, Instagram, and Facebook page, should all be of similar appearance and objective. 

6. Email marketing

Email marketing can be an effective way to keep existing customers engaged with your brand. To do this, you need to create a few strategies to entice the consumer to open and read the email and potentially act on it. A few ways to make emails attractive are implementing exclusive offers, discount codes, giveaways, or limited-time sales. Not only will consumers be more likely to take an interest in the emails, but they may also even click on an element within the email and be redirected to your website. 

Email marketing is a great way to grow your customer base and increase loyalty among current buyers as long as you create attractive emails for your subscribers and encourage them to take action. 

7. Geo-targeting 

Geo-targeting is the perfect way to deliver content or advertisements to consumers based on their geographic location. Google Ads offers a feature that allows you to specify a location or even a group of places you want ads to show in. It can be especially beneficial for companies that rely on the foot traffic of local consumers to their offline stores. It is also a way to share relevant advertisements to an area that has similar needs. 

Using Google Trends, find out which regions offer the most potential for conversions. The searches can be broken down by country, region, subregion, and city. If you notice a high search volume for something in a specific region that your business offers, target your ads for these locations. Remember that targeting your local market can lead to faster market penetration, improved brand loyalty, and overall better customer satisfaction. 

Takeaways

The ability to adapt to changing times and bring in new customers while retaining current ones is what local inbound marketing focuses on. Adjusting your marketing strategies to zero in on your local audience has several advantages, such as a higher ROI, increased retention business, organically extending the customer lifetime value (LTV), and providing you with a competitive edge. Focusing on the local market will provide you with an upper hand in knowing your audience and fulfilling their needs.

FAQs

What are examples of inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing consists of connecting customers with materials and experiences they find helpful in their buying journey. Examples of this type of valuable marketing for businesses are web-based seminars, social media campaigns, blog posts, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, or video series. Anything that delivers helpful content to the consumer can be considered inbound marketing.

How is inbound marketing different from traditional online marketing?

Inbound marketing focuses on attracting audience members by providing them with helpful and relevant information. The local element of this type of marketing is directed towards your local audience compared to reaching a larger demographic. In comparison, traditional online marketing typically provides customers with information through generic ad campaigns that don’t speak to their specific needs or geographic location. 

What is the difference between Inbound marketing and outbound marketing?

Outbound marketing is the more traditional strategy of the two. It involves translating messages to potential customers through print advertisements (ex. newspaper ads, flyers, brochures), television commercials, sales calls, and emails. In contrast, inbound marketing attracts customers by tailoring content to suit their needs and provide valuable information. However, outbound marketing can be costly, and the ROI is much lower compared to inbound marketing. 

What are the stages of inbound marketing sales methodology?

Local inbound marketing can also be concerned with inbound sales. It is broken down into four stages; identity, connect, explore, and advise. As a business owner, you must identify suitable buyers, connect with the buyer, explore the relationship between buyer and seller, and finally tailor your information to advise the customer on a potential purchase. Doing this will create a relationship with the customer, which helps you understand your audience better.

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