2014
Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
Today’s Local marketing must bring together and blend both traditional, internet and mobile marketing strategies.  It needs to be a comprehensive plan that works to drive traffic within a specific geographical area to your business where a specific product or service is offered.Local Marketing is not just an event or a campaign, but instead should be a continually evolving process. Local area marketing gives your brand the opportunity to leverage your messages to create a solid community of loyal customers who live or work close to your market area.
Advances in integrated digital technology have provided business the tools to directly market through their own websites. Â The process of executing your marketing campaigns has never been easier, faster or more cost-effective. Marketing Automation allows businesses to use their site as the center for conducting all their marketing initiatives to make them more efficient and give them more control over their initiatives, save time, and reduce the need to look outside for solutions.
Local area marketing provides the best opportunity for your business to connect with your customer base off and onsite and through your social media channels to show them that you actively support and give back to the community and are concerned with your customers’ needs by promoting workshops on product and service related topics and by posting relevant content to educate, inform and answer questions regarding your products and services.
It is knowing which messages to market and where to market to your customers based on local knowledge and trends. This is the key to Local Marketing that turns campaigns into success stories. A great resource for obtaining this knowledge is within your organization-your employees.
First, you need to determine all of the local keywords for your business. These keywords need to be specific to your geographic area. This is also known as location-based keyword usage. Your site should have keywords that include your city, county or other relevant geographic information.
Keywords and phrases need to be included on every page of your website to increase your site's SEO ranking when potential customers perform local searches.
Next, promote your team. People like to do business with local people- and be consistent, reinforce your marketing messages, have a local marketing program in addition to your stand-alone campaigns.
Consider an onsite social network. Companies with private social networks can experience better employee relations, customer service, reduced customer complaints and increased brand loyalty. Think of having a central place in which to read and understand your customers’ concerns, wants, needs and expectations.
Part of your integrated platform solution for your site must also include mobile. Fully integrated sites that include a mobile solution attract more visibility and therefore more traffic compared to using different solutions and vendors to fill your needs – And with mobile it is widely expected that in the near future, local searches will account for the bulk of all mobile searches annually. If you don’t already have a mobile solution integrated into your website's platform you’re losing ground every day.
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And let’s not forget another very important ingredient that provides for local businesses to get found and that is listing in online directories. Listing in online directories is not complicated and by listing in as many as you can you will exponentially increase the probability that you get found in online searches.
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These are some of the reasons that your business needs to have a comprehensive local marketing strategy in place to compete in today’s marketplace. What can you add that will help in forming a successful local Marketing solution?
 William Cosgrove
(Photo Courtesy of ADXmedia)