Local Marketing Ideas That Actually Work: A Comprehensive Guide
When you run a brick-and-mortar store, focusing on customers in your area is key to growth. With a strategic local store marketing (LSM) plan, you can reach your target market and build long-lasting relationships with the right people every time.
In this guide, we’ll explain what LSM is and how you can successfully implement strong marketing techniques at a local level.
Local store marketing—sometimes known as neighborhood marketing—describes the combination of strategies used to target customers within a specific area. This area is typically no more than a 5-mile radius around your physical store, as the goal of LSM is more so connecting with the community than achieving a broad reach.
When planning an LSM strategy, business owners are challenged with identifying what makes their local community unique. It requires a strong understanding of the people who live in your surrounding neighborhood(s), so you can cater your messages directly to them and increase sales.
Though LSM is frequently used by small businesses, it’s also an incredibly effective technique for franchisees and large-scale businesses with brick-and-mortar stores. By reaching out to potential customers on a local level, your message becomes far more personalized. This can not only help you gain more foot traffic, but it will also help you gain repeat customers who see you as a critical part of the community and spend 67% more than first-time visitors.
Why Local Marketing Is Crucial for Small Businesses
A local marketing strategy lets you more efficiently use your advertising and marketing budget. You can make the most of your digital marketing plans by targeting new customers that are close to your business and therefore more likely to convert.
Narrowing your target audience also improves your conversion rate. This is an important metric that can show your business is on track and even help you gain more investors or secure a loan for expansion.
19 Local Marketing Ideas to Drive Foot Traffic and Online Engagement
Building an effective local store marketing plan requires you to blend your hyper-local market research with strategies that help you build relationships, rather than just expand your reach. In doing so, you can build a brand that your audience can fully relate to and they become loyal customers.
We’ll introduce you to some strategies you can use to boost your local marketing efforts and community presence below.
1. Engage on social media.
Storefront signage may be able to draw in some new customers, but odds are, your audience is spending more time online than passing by your local store. With most internet users using social media for over two hours per day, social platforms provide endless opportunities to engage directly with consumers in your area.
Keeping an active social media presence for your local store or stores gives community members the opportunity to reach out to you, even when they’re not directly in your area. As you respond more, your customer engagement will rise and loyal followers may become loyal in-store shoppers, too.
Social media ads are also great tools for targeting customers in specific areas with localized content, so you can engage more with potential customers outside of your direct following.
Some businesses may even find it useful to create Facebook groups for their local customer base. As long as you have a team member who can serve as a strong moderator, this is a great way to prove that you’re a leader in fostering community while providing value to locals. Adjust your social media marketing strategy to include whichever platforms your target audience spends the most time on.
2. Create a customer loyalty program.
Reengaging shoppers is extremely important in local store marketing. To compete with the modern convenience of ecommerce stores, you need to provide ongoing value that drives customers back to your physical location after their first visit. Customer loyalty programs can effectively make this happen.
As much as 77% of consumers will take part in loyalty programs. To encourage them to do so, you need to provide ongoing rewards that show them they can get more value out of shopping with you than any other brand. Examples of great reward systems may include:
- A coffee shop offering a free drink every 10 visits.
- An auto repair shop offering a discounted service once every five oil changes.
- A grocery store with a tiered loyalty system that allows customers to increase ranks and get better freebies the more they spend.
3. Collaborate with locals.
Collaborating with local businesses and entrepreneurs is an excellent way to cultivate brand awareness within existing customer bases. Not only do local collaborations show your commitment to lifting up your community first, but they also help you instantly build trust.
Collaborations can take many forms. A local bakery and ice cream parlor may work together to create a limited-edition dessert. A gym and med spa may partner on a social media giveaway. Professionals in the wedding industry often just cross-promote on each other’s websites.
Of course, you still want to be strategic about who you’re working with. The most valuable collaborations occur when you work with trusted local brands that share your core values, target similar audiences, and can provide consistent referrals to your business. For example, it would make much more sense for a luxury hair salon to partner with a high-end nail salon than a budget tattoo parlor, even though both options fall under the beauty industry.
Your city’s chamber of commerce can be a great resource as you’re looking for like-minded brands to collaborate with.
4. Take part in local events.
Your potential customers don’t want you to just say you’re invested in the community—they want you to show it. Showing up at community events, including both nonprofit and for-profit ones, can be a great local store marketing opportunity for you.
When you have a booth at or simply talk to people at local events, you allow people to connect your face to your brand, making your company feel much more human. In fact, 84% of business leaders attribute a significant part of their brand’s success to event marketing. The power of face-to-face connections is still unmatched when it comes to neighborhood marketing.
Sponsoring events can further show your financial investment in the community outside of your brand. It can also be a great alternative to a physical presence at an event when your team has limited time to spare.
5. Reach our to local press.
The majority of Americans trust their local news outlets to tell the truth. This high level of trust means that gaining positive press coverage—which can reach thousands of local customers—can drive an enormous amount of foot traffic to your store.
A large part of gaining press coverage is sending out press releases whenever your business has something noteworthy (or appealing to a mass audience) to report. However, building relationships with your local journalists can have the greatest impact in the long term, as you’ll continuously be considered for local listicles, expert quotes, and other online mentions.
The more frequently your site is mentioned and linked on news sites, which typically have strong page authority on Google, the higher your search engine rank can be for relevant local searches.
6. Optimize Google Business listings.
Google My Business is now called Google Business Profile, but it has very similar functionalities. Optimizing your listing is essential to your local SEO efforts, especially given the popularity of Google as a search engine.
How do you optimize your Google listing? Start by making sure that all the information on your profile is accurate and detailed yet as concise as possible. Ensure you have filled out details like your address, store hours, and contact methods.
Then, take advantage of Questions and Answers, make Posts that include photos or videos, and respond to reviews.
7. Sponsor community events.
Sponsoring community events is an excellent way to get your company’s name out there while also giving back to the local community. To start, your company’s name and logo will appear on the events’ website, posters, shirts, hats, banners, and any other location. This will dramatically increase brand awareness.
On top of that, it shows that your company cares about the local community and is part of it. This will help you form connections with the community and encourage potential customers to consider you.
There are plenty of types of local events you can consider sponsoring, from industry conferences to runs to art festivals or annual fairs. You can also sponsor local sports teams.
8. Host local events and workshops.
Sponsoring local events is far from the only way to be involved in the community. Consider hosting your own events, even if it is something as small as a workshop. This will give you similar benefits to sponsoring an event in terms of visibility and showing that you care for the community.
But it also gives you more control over the event, so you can make sure it directly fits the needs of your target market. This can make the event more valuable to your audience than another event would be. It also gives you the freedom to host the event at your location, so you can encourage purchases or let them happen naturally. You can also pass out business cards or encourage sign-ups for your email marketing.
9. Use location-based targeting in online ads.
Paid online ads are a crucial part of your online marketing strategy. To get the most out of these ads, you should consider defining your target audience based on location. Include local keywords in these ads, such as your city name.
The best local paid ads will use direct intent keywords. For example, if someone searches for “plumber [City],” they are likely to want to hire a plumber very soon. With your online ads, be sure to include your location in the text in addition to setting up location targeting behind the scenes.
As you use this location-based targeting, track its effectiveness. Following the right marketing metrics will let you confirm that your location-based targeting is doing better than your other efforts. It also lets you determine which location-based advertising methods are the most effective so you can concentrate your efforts on them.
10. Offer promotions to local customers.
Promotions and discounts are a common way to temporarily increase business, whether your goal is to attract new clients or encourage repeat customers. But you can also use this strategy to specifically target local customers.
This can be as simple as offering a specific free product, discount, or other promotion to people within your local area. Restrict it based on the city people live in, their zip code, or however else you want to. You should notice an increase in local customers visiting your business in-store or online to take advantage of the discount.
11. Encourage and respond to online reviews.
Reviews form a significant part of your online presence, so every small business should have a solid review strategy.
To start encouraging reviews, just ask your customers to leave one. Then, make it as easy as possible for customers to leave a review. For example, you can use a review link generator and send the review requests and the link through text messaging. That strategy would also let you take advantage of the 98% open rate of text messages.
Once you have started to encourage reviews, it is time to respond to them as well. This is especially important for negative reviews. Responding to a negative review puts you back in control of the situation and lets you show your dedication to customer service and resolving any issues. If done well, your response to a negative review will win back the unhappy customer and attract new customers by showing them that if they have a problem, you will do your best to fix it.
12. Consider a referral program.
One specific type of local promotion to consider is a referral program. Referrals supplement reviews as an excellent way to bring in new clients. You can offer a discount or reward to both existing and new clients to get the best results.
13. Provide exceptional customer service.
No matter the other local marketing ideas you use, make it a point to provide exceptional customer service. If customers have a good experience shopping for your products or using your services, they are more likely to recommend your business to others. They are also more likely to leave a positive review that encourages others to try your brand.
The best way to confirm that you are providing exceptional customer service is to ask your customers. Send out a survey or encourage feedback to confirm.
14. Use local SEO.
No local marketing tactics are complete without local SEO. In fact, this will likely be one of the very first things you do. Local SEO strategies ensure that you appear near the top of online search results, making your brand more visible.
Remember that local SEO strategies are varied. Find appropriate local keywords (similar to those you would use for local paid advertising) and optimize your business listings across the web. Create a landing page for each local community and optimize it. Don’t forget off-page SEO, such as ensuring your website loads quickly and is responsive on mobile devices.
15. List your company in directories.
Another important aspect of your local SEO and marketing strategy is to list your company on as many relevant directories as you can. From Yelp to the local chamber of commerce to industry directories, make sure each has an accurate business listing. Pay close attention to the business name, phone number, and address.
Accurate listings make your company easier to find. It also shows Google that your information is accurate, improving your local search rankings.
16. Share your company page with community groups.
Once you have your page up and running, consider sharing it to relevant community groups and sites to get more engagement. Make sure to choose groups that are relevant as well as those that are local points of interest to get the most reach for your page.
17. Sponsor Local Youth Programs
In addition to being active at local events, consider sponsoring your local youth programs. This method gives you a lot of mileage on the money you spend. Not only will you do well in helping youth in your community, but you will also get more positive exposure for your brand. This is an excellent local marketing strategy.
18. Claim Your Business on Relevant Sites And Be Responsive
Make sure to claim your business on sites such as Yelp, Google, and all other review sites and relevant directories. In addition to claiming your business, fill out all the details on your company. If there are reviews, respond to these as well. This will help with the algorithms and get your business seen by more people. This kind of local marketing has a snowball effect and will build up over time.
19. Offer Incentives for Repeat Clients
Client retention is an important part of the marketing program. You should make sure to market to your clients to retain them as well. One way to do this is to offer incentives such as coupons, add-ons, or other incentives for clients that return.
Grow With Local Marketing Strategies
Great local marketing strategies are essential for any company with a brick-and-mortar store. While it requires quite a bit of market research and commitment, the results can be far superior to those you’d get through general marketing techniques. As you continue mastering neighborhood marketing, pair your localized marketing efforts with enhanced relationship-building techniques to drive further loyalty. Get our relationship marketing tips to create the strong customer base you need.
