LOCAL STORE MARKETING

LOCAL STORE MARKETING:  LEARN HOW TO TURN YOUR NEIGHBORS INTO CUSTOMERS

Too many local businesses – from restaurants and bakeries to dentists, lawyers and auto mechanics try to copy the marketing tactics of large, deep pocketed national chains and brands. That's dumb for two really important reasons:

  1. Mass media advertising (TV, radio, newspaper, print and billboards) is ineffective.  It's dead.  There's way too much competition for your attention as a consumer that any one ad doesn't reach its target and convince him or her to buy.  So then why does every national chain use it in their marketing mix, you may ask?  National chains use it because they have the budgets to afford it, don't have the requirements to justify a return-on-investment and don't have the chief marketing officers who know any better.
  2. As a local business, you likely have one of the strongest and easiest ways to differentiate your business, simply by being a neighbor.  Smart local marketers don't try to advertise tens of miles away from their location.  Instead, they create low cost word-of-mouth marketing and only target those people who live within 10 minutes of the business.  They focus on turning neighbors into customers.

So if you shouldn't use TV, radio, print or billboard advertising, what should you use?  I define local marketing as a combination of:

  1. Retail marketing (most local businesses are brick and mortar) +
  2. Online marketing +
  3. Guerrilla marketing

When you can combine all three of these elements with a geographically focused area of not further than 10 minutes from your location, not only do you get a much more affordable marketing program, but you build trust with the people most likely to want to support your business – your neighbors.

There are two rock solid principles that I believe are the strategic foundation of local business marketing.  

  1. Your marketing is targeted at people within a 10 minute drive radius of your business;
  2. Your marketing is "neighborly" – You create and leverage personal connections among the people who live near your business and people who operate businesses near yours. 

 

I've seen too many local businesses and franchisees fall in love with the medium instead of the message.  They get lured into wanting to hear their ads on the radio or to see their ads on TV.  Unless you know how to create really strong direct response advertising, you're likely wasting your money.  Stop having lunch with your local radio station salesperson.  They don't have your best interest in mind.  They have their own best interest in mind.  They will try to sell you on the idea that all of your friends, and neighbors WILL hear your ads and you'll get lots and lots of attention.  But you know what?  The purpose of marketing is NOT to get attention,  It's to GET CUSTOMERS.   

Here are my posts and information about local marketing:

How local businesses can win against the national chains

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