Local marketing success requires attention to detail and a process, or plan, that accounts for every step in the relationship.
The majority of advertising and marketing dollars spent by small, local businesses returns dismal rates of return and are all too often complete failures.
Have you heard or used any of these excuses for less than stellar local marketing results:
You need to run that ad 7 times in order to really see the impact.
It was the wrong place to advertise.
That advertising medium doesn’t work!
Our customers don’t look there.
The position of the ad was bad for us!
The quantity of people we are reaching needs to be much bigger. If we get just 1% of 1% we are golden!
We need to offer a bigger discount or deal.
Advertising doesn’t work for us/We don’t advertise.
You could add many more to this list of course, but these are pretty typical.
It’s easy to make excuses for a lack of local marketing success. Taking a closer look at what a well-planned local marketing engine looks like may open your eyes to steps in the process that you may be overlooking. By making sure you are covering these pieces of your marketing and sales engine you can be assured of the highest return for that particular effort. If you’re looking for local marketing success then look no further than our local marketing success blueprint.
Below is an outline of our local marketing success blueprint, showing you a well-oiled marketing and sales engine. Our goal is to help you gain perspective on marketing and advertising as a process, not an event. We look briefly at each step of the local marketing success process below:
Local Marketing Success
Local Marketing Success is dependent on the attention to each detail in the process of grabbing the attention of a prospect and converting them into a customer and then turning that customer into an evangelist!
- Generate Leads: Local marketing success is about communication
The goal should be to generate additional customers by making them aware of your company and the problem you solve. You advertise to generate leads and turn them into sales. For many companies struggling to get their desired results, this is where it ends. They advertise in the hopes of making the cash register ring as opposed to advertising to start the engine.
- Build Trust: Good job! You got my attention.
Now I’m looking for something that convinces me you are trustworthy. My mind is wondering if I should explore further or just move on. I believe the quote “All things being equal, people do business with those they know, like and trust”
Is there anything you are offering to help build trust? Is there social proof in the form of testimonials? Are you offering a value exchange in the form of a white paper, video tutorial or other piece of information that provides more clarity and showcases your position as the market leader? If not, you aren’t building trust but trying to close me regardless of trust.
- Capture: OK – local marketing success requires my trust and you got my attention. Now I kind of trust you.
I’m willing to provide you with my information so you can continue to communicate with me because even though I’m not ready to buy today (80% of consumers aren’t) I will be buying soon and I’ll give you permission to stay in contact with me to have the best opportunity of being the one I buy from.
- Follow-up/Nurturing: Great! I’ve given you permission to communicate with me and I’ve let you know I’m a prospect who is interested in what you have to offer.
But I’m busy and I’m distracted and I’ve already forgotten about you. Are you going to be following up with me on a regular basis? Are you going to follow up with additional information to educate me on why you’re the best and to showcase your knowledge and position as the leader OR are you just going to bombard me with sales pages and attempts to close me? How you follow up and nurture me at this point will play a big part in my impression of your business and whether I go directly to you when I finally decide to make that purchase.
- Convert! The magic happens. You got me.
I worked hard for this money in my pocket and I’ve chosen to give you some of it. Of all the competitors in the market – I chose you! Great job!
- Deliver on Promise: I’m so excited. You did an amazing job of getting my attention, building trust, keeping in touch with me and ultimately getting me to take action!
I cannot wait and I’ve even brought my friend with me. I’m ready to brag to my friends and go online and tell others they can trust you.
Is your company ready to deliver on what you’ve promised me? Are you really the best, most efficient, friendliest, tastiest, highest quality, most secure, best trained and so forth? You promised me you were and now it’s time to show me. Deliver and we will be on our way to a long term relationship that includes me telling my friends, family and others looking to spend their money with you. Disappoint and I will either do nothing and maybe never return OR worse yet, tell others of my experience and warn them not to trust your promises. Ouch!
- Wow Factor: Nicely done! I’m a satisfied, or really happy customer. Either way now is your opportunity to turn me into a raving fan.
You can move me from satisfied to impressed or from really happy to evangelist by how you handle the follow up after the close. I’m not expecting anything so you don’t have to do anything special. But will you?
Will you send me an unexpected follow up, handwritten card inviting me back or thanking me? Will you give me something FREE just to say thanks? Will you leave something unexpected to show how much you appreciate me? If you do…..magical things may happen. It’s up to you.
- Upsells and Referrals: I’m busy and distracted, remember. Heck, I have 1000 channels, the internet, my phone, my kids, my job and my hobbies. Who are you again?
Are you going to stay in touch with me or just hope you wow’d me so much that I’ll come back even if you ignore me now? It’s up to you. I have friends who need what you offer and I’ll probably tell them if you just ask me to. Are you going to remind me of the experience and ask me to tell others or just hide from me and hope I do all the heavy lifting for you?
Fail to put an upsell and referral/follow up system in place and you’ll be missing out on some really incredible business my friend.
Take a close look at your sales and marketing to see if you’re trying to skip steps in the communication process. For you to be as successful as you deserve to be, you can’t skip steps. It’s like trying to build a high performance auto engine and hoping to get away with not adding a spark plug. Every part plays a role in your local marketing success.
Now go out there and build something remarkable!