A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Local Business Marketing Plan

The modern customer expects a lot. They want a personalized experience. They crave convenience. They demand transparency. And if you can’t give them what they want, they’ll turn to your competitors and find what they&#8217;re looking for elsewhere.
Offering a great product and stellar <a href="https://www.podium.com/article/customer-service-failing/">customer service</a> isn’t enough. You need a well-thought-out plan that will take you to the finish line (a sale) and beyond (<a href="https://www.podium.com/guides/customer-retention-and-repeat-business/">repeat purchases</a>). 
Does the thought of creating a marketing plan send a chill down your spine? Do you want to tear your hair out every time you brainstorm ways to get your brand in front of your target audience?
If so, you’ve come to the right place.
In this step-by-step guide to local marketing, we’ll dig into the details of what a great marketing plan looks like. From building buyer personas to identifying which tactics and channels help you connect with your customers, this resource is every local marketer’s best friend. We’ll cover: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How to define your ideal buyers</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The ins and outs of creating solid marketing messaging</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The pros and cons of different marketing channels</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How to gauge your marketing success</li>
</ul>
And so much more. 
<a href="https://www.podium.com/ebooks/small-business-marketing-template/">&gt;&gt; Download Your Free Marketing Plan Template Today! &lt;&lt;</a>
<h1>Local Marketing 101</h1>
Before you put together a local marketing plan, you need to understand the basics. Let’s go over a few local marketing FAQs.
<h2>What is Local Marketing? </h2>
<a href="https://www.podium.com/article/what-is-local-marketing/">Local marketing</a> is when a business markets itself to consumers within a certain radius of its physical location. It&#8217;s how local businesses attract foot traffic, drive sales, and improve brand awareness in their local communities.
Who should use local marketing tactics? If you have a locally-based brick-and-mortar business that serves customers face-to-face, local marketing should be high on your priority list. 
As customer expectations adapt and the desire to shop locally increases, local marketing grows all the more crucial. Let’s look at some numbers: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">In the past two years, the volume of &#8220;near me&#8221; searches has increased by <a href="https://www.chatmeter.com/resource/blog/50-local-seo-stats-every-marketer-should-know-2018/">900%</a>.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Nearly <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/12-local-seo-stats-every-business-owner-and-marketer-should-know-in-2019-i/549079/">half</a> of all searches have local intent. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Local searches result in a purchase <a href="https://xpanddigital.io/seo-statistics/">28%</a> of the time. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/search/how-advertisers-can-extend-their-relevance-with-search-download/">4 out of 5</a> consumers turn to search engines to find local information. </li>
</ul>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-25096 size-large" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-1024x621.png" alt="local marketing statistics" width="640" height="388" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-1024x621.png 1024w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-300x182.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-768x466.png 768w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-1536x932.png 1536w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-600x364.png 600w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-360x218.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-160x97.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-350x212.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-100x61.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1-565x343.png 565w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1.png 1674w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />
If you run a local business, connecting with local buyers is crucial. And to do that, you need a local marketing plan. 
<h2>How is Local Marketing Different From Other Types of Marketing? </h2>
Actually, local marketing utilizes digital and traditional marketing tactics. The difference is in the who and the where. Local marketing targets people in a specific region, whereas a more general marketing approach targets shoppers across the nation—or even the globe. 
The difference also becomes apparent when it comes to messaging. Local businesses interact with their customers differently than national retailers—for many customers, that’s part of the appeal. They want to feel a personal connection to the local businesses they buy from—which is why personalization is a crucial aspect of effective local marketing. 
Now get out your pens and pencils, let’s dive into the details and start creating your marketing plan. 
<h1>Defining Your Ideal Buyers</h1>
The first step in creating your marketing plan is to <a href="https://www.podium.com/article/getting-clear-on-your-ideal-customer/">get clear on who you’re marketing to</a>. 
Now, you may be thinking: I want anyone and everyone to buy from me. 
While it may seem counterintuitive to limit the people you’re trying to sell to, doing so can actually help you sell more. Think about it: Your business is unique—what you offer solves a specific challenge or fills a need in a way no other product, service, or business can.
For example, imagine a pest control company has always said that their ideal customer is a homeowner. But after conducting some market research and figuring out who is already buying from them, that pest control company might find that their ideal customer is a middle-aged homeowner who is married, has no kids, makes six figures, spends an hour a day on Twitter, and goes out of town on business often. 
These simple distinctions will help the pest control company get into the minds of their potential buyers and decide which marketing tactics to utilize.  
It all comes down to this: No matter how great your offering is, if you can’t get the right eyes on your brand, the sales just won’t come. 
<h2>What is a Buyer Persona? </h2>
A buyer persona is a detailed description of the best-fit customer for your business. Creating well-defined buyer personas helps you align your business goals to the needs and expectations of the people you’re most likely to do business with. A typical buyer persona includes the following information: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Demographics: Age, income, education level, and marital status.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Psychographics: Values, lifestyle, hobbies, and morals/beliefs. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pain points: What problem(s) are they paying you to solve?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Channel Preferences: Where do they spend their time (both in the digital world and the physical world)?</li>
</ul>

Become a Local

<h2></h2>
<h2>Conducting Market Research </h2>
You can make educated guesses about who your customers are, what motivates them, and why your target audience would choose your competitors over you, but at the end of the day, the best way to get information is to go straight to the source. You do that by conducting market research. 
Don’t let the term “market research” deter you—it’s simply the process of gathering information about your target buyers. This information will help you better understand who is buying from you, which will in turn help you improve existing products and launch new products to solve customer pain points.
How do you conduct market research? Here are a couple of common tactics we’d recommend. 
<h3>1. Run a Competitive Analysis </h3>
A competitive analysis gives you insight into what your competitors are doing. Conducting this kind of research gives you a double win: You can test strategies things that are working well for your competitors and you can avoid strategies that flopped. 
Here’s how to run a competitive analysis in three easy steps. 
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Identify 5-10 of your top competitors. This sounds pretty straightforward, but it&#8217;s important to note that there are different kinds of competitors you might want to consider.</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li style="list-style-type: none;">
<ul>
<li>Direct competitors, who offer similar products/services as your business. </li>
<li>Indirect competitors, who offer different products/services but are in the same category as your business.</li>
<li>Substitute competitors, who sell products/services that are in a different category than yours but could be used as a substitute for what you offer. </li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li style="list-style-type: none;"></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Analyze their content. Look at things like:
<ul>
<li>Social media: Consider their engagement and the types of content they publish.</li>
<li>Website content: Do they publish content regularly? Do they have clear calls to action? Do they showcase their reviews somewhere on their site? Do they offer easy ways to get in contact with them?</li>
<li>Pricing: How do their prices compare to your own?</li>
<li>Online reputation: How many reviews do they have? What is their <a href="https://www.podium.com/guides/google-review-star-ratings/">star rating</a>? Is their Google Business Profile up to date? </li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>Write everything down and make a plan of action. What are your competitors doing well? What are their weaknesses? Are there things you could do differently to differentiate your business?  </li>
</ol>
<h3>2. Gather Customer Feedback</h3>
Most people are happy to give a business feedback…if the business is willing to ask for it. Here are a few ways you can gather customer feedback. 
<h4>Ask for a Review</h4>
Reviews give you actionable insights from the people who matter most (your customers). And gathering <a href="https://www.podium.com/article/online-reviews-worth/">reviews</a> doesn’t have to be hard. Enter: Text.
Text allows you to gather <a href="https://www.podium.com/guides/creating-a-review-based-culture/">reviews</a> with minimal effort. Any time a customer makes a purchase, consider sending them a quick text asking them to leave you a review on Google or another relevant review site. Here’s a text template you can use: 
“Hi :customer_first_name:, your honest review helps our local business more than you know. We&#8217;d be so grateful if you&#8217;d take the time to let us know about your experience. It only takes a minute! Click here to leave us a review: :link:”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-25097 size-large" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-1024x1002.png" alt="leave us a review" width="640" height="626" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-1024x1002.png 1024w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-300x294.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-768x751.png 768w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-1536x1503.png 1536w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-511x500.png 511w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-360x352.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-160x157.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-350x342.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-100x98.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review-351x343.png 351w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/leave-us-a-review.png 1674w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />
Struggling to gather reviews? Check out our guide, <a href="https://www.podium.com/guides/creating-a-review-based-culture/">Creating a Review-Based Culture</a>.  
<h4>Send a Survey</h4>
SMS surveys are a great way to gauge overall customer satisfaction—and because they generally only require customers to answer one question (Think: On a scale from 1-10, how satisfied were you with the service you received today?) the likelihood of a decent response volume is high.

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<h3></h3>
<h3>Customer Satisfaction Score </h3>
Customer satisfaction score (<a href="https://www.podium.com/article/what-is-csat/">CSAT</a>) is pretty self-explanatory—it gives you an indication as to how well customers think that your product or service is meeting their needs and expectations; this information can help inform future product decisions or changes in strategy as needed. 
Calculating this metric starts with a survey. For example, you could text your customers a question like, &#8220;How satisfied are you with your recent purchase from our company? Please choose a number between 1 and 5 (1 meaning highly unsatisfied and 5 meaning highly satisfied). From there, you divide your satisfied respondents (who answered with a 4 or a 5) by the total number of respondents and multiply that number by 100. So, if you surveyed 100 people and 50 of them were satisfied, you would divide 50 by 100 and multiply it by 100, giving you a CSAT of 50%. 
<h3>Conversion Rate </h3>
The conversion rate is another key metric when it comes to measuring the success of your marketing efforts; this metric tells you how many people actually took action on something after seeing an ad or engaging with a piece of content on social media, for example. The higher the conversion rate, the better—so tracking this metric helps businesses identify areas where improvements need to be made in order for campaigns or initiatives to be more successful overall. 
Conversion rate is calculated by dividing the total number of clicks by the number of conversions. The higher your conversion rate, the more effective your marketing campaign is. If your conversion rate is low, it might be time to make some adjustments or stop the campaign altogether. Conversion rates vary across industries but generally speaking, you should aim for a conversion rate somewhere between 2% and 5%.

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<h2></h2>
<h2>Test, Adjust, Repeat     </h2>
Tracking the above metrics will help you measure your success and determine if your campaigns are profitable or not—which is essential information when deciding where to allocate resources and budget dollars in the future. Additionally, tracking these metrics allows you to build better customer relationships, target specific audiences more effectively, and optimize their campaigns for maximum returns moving forward.
And remember: Even the best marketers have to pivot sometimes. If you’re not satisfied with the results from your marketing plan, don’t be afraid to make a few changes and see what happens. With time, you’ll gain marketing confidence, figure out what works best for your business, and ultimately boost your bottom line because of it. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-25103 size-large" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-1024x555.png" alt="marketing team putting together a local marketing plan" width="640" height="347" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-1024x555.png 1024w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-300x163.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-768x416.png 768w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-600x325.png 600w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-360x195.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-160x87.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-350x190.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-100x54.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan-633x343.png 633w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/marketing-team-putting-together-a-local-marketing-plan.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />
<h1>Download Your Local Marketing Strategy Workbook</h1>
Time to pick up your pencils and put your newfound knowledge to work. Download our Local Marketing Plan Workbook and we’ll walk you through the process of creating a marketing plan that will grow your business and boost your bottom line.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Local Business Marketing Plan

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