Small Business Marketing

Do you need to market your small business but want to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck?

You’re not alone, here are some simple facts about marketing:

1. Yellow Pages are in steady decline (This is why they are pushing so hard for long term contracts)
2. Print Directory Ads get a poor response at best and are not measurable
3. Newspapers are in trouble across the country
4. TV and Radio are not cost effective for many small businesses
5. Email marketing is seeing a drop in response rates (Due to the amount of spam, most people DO NOT give their best email address)

So what’s left? You probably guessed it… digital advertising.

Here’s an interesting statistic:

When people are looking for your business, do you know where they look?

Demographic            Traditional Media                   Digital Media
18-34 Years old                   19%                                   81%
35-44 Years old                   28%                                   72%
45-54 Years old                   35%                                   65%

So what exactly is digital media?

• Online search engines (Google)
• Local search sites (Google Maps)
• Internet yellow/white pages
• Social networking sites
• Cell phones and other devices

What does this mean to you?

This is actually good news for you and here’s why:

1. Digital media advertising is typically A LOT CHEAPER than traditional advertising
2. Digital advertising is extremely measurable
3. Digital media allows small businesses to compete with large companies

Where are people searching?

Get a FREE SEO Analysis of your website, Click Here

More Internet Statistics:

• 131 Million Blogs are on the internet
• There are 600+ million active Facebook Users
• There were 90 Trillion emails sent in 2009
• There have been 10 billion+ Tweets since 2006
• 2 Billion videos are streamed daily on YouTube

People are on the internet and searching for people to do business with…If your business isn’t being found online, You Are Losing Business!

How Can You Get Your Business In Front Of Potential Customers Online?

Local Search!

“Local search is any search made with the goal of finding something in a specific geographic area”

How do we know if the searchers are searching for something local?

1. The searcher a specific city name in their search (eg. Chattanooga Plumbers)
2. The searcher has personalized settings turned on. (Google knows where they are when they are searching)
3. The searchers IP address will identify them and where they are

“73% of activity online is related to local searches”

“97% of internet users in the U.S. gather shopping information online.” Of those, 51% classify their behavior as “Shop Online, Purchase Offline”

To do business today, you need to be where your customers are every day:

• On the internet
• On their mobile phones (When was the last time your cell phone was not at least in the same room with you?)

Why is Local Search So Important?

Get a FREE SEO report for your website, Click Here

Where are your customers?

1. Your neighborhood?
2. Your city?
3. City’s close to you?
4. Your geographic region?
5. Your state?

The larger the area your business services, the more time effort and money it will take to be successful online.

Most of the time, the smaller your geographic area of business is, the easier it is to compete online.

The reason why is very simple, you have less competition online locally than you will have if you are competing nationally.

What’s more, your competition is also generally less knowledgeable about internet marketing.

What needs to be done for “On Site” optimization?

Be sure to use your location as well as the specific keywords you want to be found for.

The basics will make your website “Google Friendly” use:

1. Title tags
2. A description
3. Great content
4. Internal linking

Location is key! Where is your business?

• Be sure your full street address and local phone number are on the pages of your website
• Optimize your contact or about page for your business name and location
• Add a KML file (a special location file) to your website
• If you have multiple locations: create a separate page for each

Create your business listing in each of the following places:

Google Places
Bing Local
Yahoo Local

**NOTE** Google Places is by far the most important of these listings

Get a FREE SEO analysis of your website, Click Here

Standardize your listings:
Use the same name, address and phone number everywhere online

Optimizing your business listing:
Use your main keyword/phrase and terms in your profile descriptions

Be sure to include:

• Your products and services
• The brands you carry
• The locations you serve
• any other relevant information to your business niche

To get your Local listing to rank high often you’ll have to:

• Get your clients to review you online – your Google local listing will have a place for people to review you – the more reviews you can get the better. (Don’t try to cheat and load a bunch of reviews yourself)
• Get citations – Citations are web pages that cite or mention your business or website – they do not necessarily have to contain a link to your website

Get a FREE SEO analysis of your website, Click Here

Tagged as: Small Business Marketing