Increasing leads for your local business seem next to impossible given that you have next to no time as it is, let alone the time to hire someone to do your local marketing for you – especially given the prices that some marketing companies charge you for their services.
When it comes down to it, as a local business owner marketing has two main goals. Either generate you more leads or to bring in more sales.
So we’ve put together a list of marketing techniques that you can do yourself:
Solve Your Customers Problems
The reason anyone buys anything is to solve a need, desire or problem – or at least, the perceived notion of this.
You need to identify that problem and convince the reader that your product can solve it. And it can do it better than any of your competitors. You want to do this in different forms and with different intensities because every reader will be at a different stage within the purchasing process.
Optimise your Landing Pages
We’ve talked about landing pages before in, How to Create a Great Landing Page for your Service Business,
These pages should be clear with what you want visitors to do.
Landing pages need to be clear. Make as simple as possible to get your message and goal across to your reader as easy as possible. Get the relevant information out in the first paragraph. Include easy to see ‘Call to Actions’.
Make action as easy as possible. Whether your landing page has the goal of building your email list, generating leads or directly selling your product you want to ensure that it is as simple as possible. Be clear in the action you want them to take. The easier it is for visitors to take action, the more you’ll convert them.
Landing pages should have a very focused approach. They should be tailored for different segments of your potential customers. Not every customer will be at the same stage in the purchasing process. Some who is just starting to think about purchasing vs someone ready to purchase will require a different amount of information to persuade them,
Say someone is ready to purchase. Simply add an easy, one-click buy now button with short persuasive text. You don’t have to add huge reams of information. These customers know that they want to buy, you just have to convince them to buy your product over your competitors.
Whereas, someone just starting out may be searching for answers to a problem that your product can solve. Answer the questions that person could have in a detailed page. Don’t force your product on them, but mention in at the end and maybe once or twice throughout you information. It could be enough to get them to buy from you. Include an email subscription form because if they don’t want to buy from you now and they subscribe you can send them an email a week later. That could be all you need to get them over the line.
Build Partnerships
Look to build partners, not only with other influencers within your niche but partner with companies in similar industries.
This could be an opportunity for both of your businesses to grow your reach.
It could work like this; maybe you have a product that works alongside a different business’ product. Reach out to them maybe you can build a partnership. If someone buys your product they get a 25% discount on the similar partnership product and vice versa.
This allows your brand to gain exposure and if you factor in enough to your profit margins you can sell your product for cheaper when referred from this partner and still make a profit. The increase in sales could net you a profit greater than if you had sold your product on your own at full price.
Ask a Larger Site to Review your Product
Reach out to larger sites and review sites within your industry. Offer to give away your product in return for a review. These sites are already getting in front of your audience, they’ll have a large readership that you can utilise to promote your business and products.
If you don’t want to just give away your product to anyone you can use a tool like similarweb.com to determine roughly the sites traffic. You can also look at social indicators on social media to see how many follower they may have. Although this may not be the most thorough analysis it will give you some idea as to how many people you have the potential to get your product in front of.
Search Engine Advertising
AdWords Advertising or Pay-Per-Click Advertising are great for new and established businesses alike. It’s a great way to attract readers who you can prequalify as leads. When AdWords are done right, they will get in front of people who are at the stage of purchasing. AdWords provides your website with targeted traffic, which means that the clicks you receive through these campaigns will convert easier than some other forms of marketing.
These will work side by side with your landing pages, and like your landing pages, AdWords Advertising can focus on different segments of your market at different points in the purchasing decision process.
Conclusion
Ultimately, all of these techniques are aimed at getting your local business more traffic that is likely to convert into sales. How successful each will be different depending on your product or services, your audience and how well each of these techniques are executed.
If you work on a number of these techniques and do them well you’ll see you leads and sales to increase all why growing the power of your business website.