Local Business Marketing Can Leave You Wondering Who Stole Your Customers
Could there be any more clutter in local business marketing? Think of the options available to you: local papers, Penny Saver paper, multiple mailing options, Value Paks, radio, local TV, billboards, signs, coupons, referral programs, calling campaigns, monkey-suit wearing teens spinning signs by the road, etc. The list is almost endless.
Do you feel like somebody is thwarting your local business marketing efforts?
What is finite is our marketing funds. We don’t market for the sake of marketing, we want outcomes and results. If we spend money on marketing, typically we’d like prospects / customers as a result.
Are Your Local Business Marketing Results Justifying The Money You Spend On Them?
Once you spend money on your local business marketing campaign, often it feels as if it was thrown into an endlessly deep pit. You spend and then hear crickets. Did it work? Is it just taking time? Are new prospects a result of your marketing or a completely different reason?
Its hard to measure the results of local business marketing and directly track your spending to your increased revenue. If you can’t track your results, its hard to know where to spend for your next marketing campaign.
If you can’t track your results, local business marketing will always feel a bit like magic. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t…
Fortunately, Local Business Marketing Can Be Incredibly Effective
As with almost all complex activities, it is most effective to master one step and them move to the next and so on. But, typically business owners are working on a dozen projects at once and as a result are overloaded and it makes it challenging to market effectively.
In our case, we look at the marketing options that have the potential to drive the most prospects to a business. Rather than market across a half a dozen areas, we focus on one at a time and do it well.
We’ve found that Google Places are not only effective at driving prospects to your business, but its becoming even more effective!
Our local business marketing campaigns on Google Places usually result in 10-15 calls a week from prospects (we measure a call only when it exceeds 90 seconds).
The path to this success is optimizing your Google Places listing, optimizing your website, integrating the two with a few other sites so they all reinforce each other, and monitoring the results.
The first step on this path is do clearly define what your key words are as they relate to your services or products. Next you create 10 pictures and movies that are optimized for your keywords and locations and then place them on your profile and site with the appropriate tags.
We then integrate all of the local business marketing efforts so that they lead to the location where your customers will find you and pick up the phone and call or come to your store / location.
Not only does our system produce an endless stream of customers week-over-week, we can measure the results and know exactly which techniques are producing prospects and build upon them.
If you haven’t already claimed your Google Places for business page, go and grab it now. To find it, go to maps.google.com and type in your business name and location and click on your business. If you are the owner, Google will walk you through the steps to claim your free page and verify that its yours. Then you can start optimizing!
If you don’t have the time / expertise / desire to learn how to effectively use Google Places in your local business marketing, contact us to learn how we can do all of the work while you enjoy the rewards! Our number is: (877) 242-4812.
Best wishes in your local business marketing efforts!
Michael
michael@thecogentcoach.com
(877) 242-4812
P.S. If your local business marketing efforts aren’t brining in 10-15 prospects a week, you’re doing something wrong!
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m interesting in learning more Michael, can you give me a bit of information about the type of service you do with this? We’re a landscaping contractor firm and our business is all local, so this really hits our sweet spot. Thanks in advance.
Twitter: cogentcoach
June 8, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Absolutely, send me an email for the full description too.
Depending upon level selected, we build your local site and optimize, add 10 pictures/videos that we create, do the keyword and market research, add marketing to the sites, set up a YouTube site with optimized connections, optimize your web site, sign up for and create 6-8 local search sites, run marketing on your home web site, etc.
The end result is typically (trackable) 10-15 phone calls per week from people who have found your and are specifically interested in what you are offering.
Hope that helps, looking forward to chatting with you.
Michael
This was a very interesting article you pointed out some very common place marketing strategies that I never remember are there. Usually you can use the newspaper and things to get the word out and it works pretty good but your right you want something that is going to make you money in the long run. Business marketing can be tricky, stick with it and you will do fine.
Twitter: cogentcoach
June 8, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Hi Ralph, thanks. Its not unusual to lose track of what is out there, that is why we focus with laser-like intensity on a few methodologies that are proven to work and generate results. If I tried to stay on top of everything that is out there in the marketing world, I couldn’t do well at any of them
Michael
We’ve been using a similar technique, but haven’t had the time to figure out exactly how to generate much buzz around it. The internet continues to be a “magic box” to me much of the time. Thanks for the great post.
Twitter: cogentcoach
June 8, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Hi James, I understand the “magic box” aspect of online marketing! Especially with Google doing all it can to create a search-friendly environment and eliminate black hat marketing techniques. This creates a great situation to give both the searcher and the search engine what they want and have your site traffic increase and see an inflow of prospects and customers. We spent a lot of time perfecting our method and have focused on it as one of our main techniques to boost revenue for our clients and see them grow continuously over time.
Michael
Thanks for the Google Plus tips, I didn’t realize it could generate so much traffic. How hard is this to do on your own or do you recommend getting help?
Twitter: cogentcoach
June 9, 2012 at 10:39 am
Hi Beth…now only can Google Plus Places generate traffic, it generates prospects which are far more valuable. We typically see about 10-15 new prospects per week from our method!
Thats a bit of a loaded question as one of our services is local marketing
I would say that you can do it on your own if you have the time to learn how to do it and test the results and improve over time. You may already have the knowledge as well, in which case you are probably already doing it.
I put a lot of actionable advice and tips in these posts, so if you’re interested in doing it yourself you can get a jump start.
Michael
I know that Google places is a very targeted form of advertising for any local marketing efforts. It definitely beats advertising in the local penny saver. I would have to agree that your web marketing efforts must be back up by accurate tracking of the responses to each campaign. Obviously you should be marketing to drive traffic to a local mobile web site. And once you are, Google Analytics is a great source for tracking.
Twitter: cogentcoach
June 12, 2012 at 7:17 am
Alvin…thanks for the comments. I find that in spite of its peculiarities, Google + Local is a great place to be found for a business and it can be done quite inexpensively while delivering continued results over time. It is replacing many of the printed methods and also many online places such as Craig’s List.
Michael
The one complaint I have about Google places is the fact that they act entitled at times. I have gotten my Google Places account canceled on several occasions. Sometimes they don’t even give you the proper explanation for why they shut you down. They are inconsistent when it comes to this. That is my primary complaint. Other than that, I understand the value of having a local listing. It can give you a real competitive edge.
Twitter: cogentcoach
June 12, 2012 at 7:19 am
Jared,
Google+ Local has a definite set of rules and if you run afoul of them your site can quickly get pulled down. That’s one of the dangers of using a free site and service just like a Wordpress.com hosted site that can disappear over night. On the other hand its easy to get great results by giving your customers and Google what they want, it just takes a bit of knowledge and testing.
Michael
I just logged into my Google account and noticed that the Google tool interface got revamped. Then I noticed that they improved the Google Places dashboard as well. I have not yet established my Places listing. So I guess I am no different than many of the business people who have failed to claim their local listing. It seems amazing that so many business owners would overlook such an effective marketing tool, but it is a fact.
I agree with Jared about the entitlement that Google takes with your account. I understand the rules and I follow them to the tee and I still got cancelled for no apparent reason. I don’t care if I do have to pay for the service with someone else I will not use Google Places anymore. Even though they give you the use of this service free it doesn’t mean they should just shut you down.
I agree with Jared about the entitlement that Google takes with your account. I understand the rules and I follow them to the tee and I still got cancelled for no apparent reason. I don’t care if I do have to pay for the service with someone else I will not use Google Places anymore. Even though they give you the use of this service free it doesn’t mean they should just shut you down.
many people identify so deeply with Google that they treat the mega-corporation like a person, a friend or enemy. It’s like loving or hating the road infrastructure. On the Web, Google is part of the infrastructure. It’s huge and impersonal even if there are some familiar faces. I’m known to be critical of Google but nonetheless I use many Google services. Isn’t that hypocritical then? Well, I don’t love or hate Google Places, but I realize its importance.
Google goes around changing things all the time and I can’t keep up with them for half of it so I quit trying. I have been with Bing for months now because I never knew what was going to change or what I would be locked out of for no reason. Thank you for posting this because the way things are I am sure that things will change again real soon.
Thanks for the tips! I know optimization is crucial in this day and age, however, I never really thought about utilizing Google Places. Great article, Michael.