SCORE Minnesota

Just Getting Started in Business? Use Your Local Internet!

June 14, 2011

If you are just getting started in business, you have heard all of the advise about having a website to promote your business on the internet. Part of your business dream might be visions of your business being seen by millions of potential customers on the internet. Unfortunately for most start up businesses, the internet dream becomes a nightmare of wasted resources.

If you are lucky with your website you may appear on page 205 of a Google Search. Unless you are one of the first ten businesses on the first page of a internet search, you don’t exist for potential customers to ever find. If you have been at your website for some time, you realized there is no way you can ever make it on page one. You don’t have enough time, money or skills to climb this mountain.

Don’t give up, there is an internet marketing alternative. Think locally with local search marketing. In this post, I will share ideas and reasons why thinking locally can actually produce more customers for your start up business. Enjoy and prosper.

Why Thinking Locally Will Produce Internet Results

Thinking world-wide web did not produce the new customers you were promised. Why will thinking locally change your results?

Buying Preferences

The most fundamental reason thinking locally will produce results is because customers have changed. They are now thinking locally. One out of every five internet searches looks for a local business, a local product or service. That’s a significant change from the past.

As more people use the internet to assist their shopping, they use it like they did the former yellow page books. They look for a local business that can help solve their problem. Given a level playing field, they would rather buy locally then deal with strangers in a foreign country because it’s safer and easier. Getting your local business to show on the internet for a prospective customer’s local searches is critical for your business success.

Search Engine Changes

When customers change, search engines change. Increasingly, the search engines are creating ways for local shoppers to more easily find businesses in their towns and communities. Search engines like Google are now catering to local searches. They are putting local searches above organic searches. I am sure you have seen the local Maps with businesses pinned to a geographic location. With their algorisms, search engines present local business sites even when the searcher has not typed in a geographic reference. This is a significant shift for search engines.

Less Competition

Your competition has just shrunk. Instead of competing against thousands of other websites on the world wide web, with local search marketing, you can now compete against just local businesses. Do you think this will improve your odds of getting more customers from the internet?

Mobile Marketing

Beyond the above reasons, there is the fact that 30% of today’s searches are using mobile marketing (I will deal with this in a future post). If surfers and mobile phone shoppers can’t find your business on local searches, you don’t exist. Mobile marketing is the future of internet marketing.  Mobile marketing is local!

Think Locally Not Universally

The first step in this process is to adjust your thinking. You thought universally when you created your first website to get customers from the world-wide web. In those early days, you were willing to take “anyone” as a new customer to your website. Your site was designed to appeal the widest variety of potential customers. Start thinking locally!

Area You Serve

What local area do you serve with your business? How do people identify this area? Do they use Zip codes or other ways of identifying their areas? Do they use local terms like “The Westside” or “South of the River”?

Who Are Your customers

Your web content will be different if you sell to blue collar workers verses customers with college degrees. What are their incomes? Where do they spend their money? What is the personality of your local community? Does your web content reflect your local community?

Bryant the national furnace company tells its dealers use the term “Comfort Systems” instead of heating and cooling systems when describing furnaces. Comfort systems may sell in California. Here is Minnesota, “Comfort Systems” has nothing to do with heating and cooling systems. Heating and cooling systems are common words for Minnesotans.  Think locally!

Every locality has its own way of talking about a business and products? Do they call it “pop” or do they call it “soda”? Which business terms are most common for the geographical area that you serve?   Here’s an example from Steven Pierce: different age groups looking for sneakers.

• For ages 10-18, they are looking for “cool sneaker”
• Ages 18-39 “sneakers, unique limited edition”
• Ages 39-59, “sneakers”; ages over 59, “a good pair of sneakers”.

Many suggest “to go green”. Saving energy is a high priority. A local furnace business says that being green is the only the third reason for new purchases. It lags behind being comfortable and saving money. For that reason they don’t use going green as the marketing focus.  If you want to attract local customers which motivation will resonate with your local customers?

Part of the Community

Instead of thinking globally, think locally about your own community. This is your market. You don’t need special training to understand your market. You are part of it. You understand the personality of the local community. You understand its language. You understand its buying preferences.

Being part of a local community is a lot more exciting than being part of a vanilla favored global community. It feels more real. Your business is part of something real. It’s more fun and it’s more profitable.

Conclusion Local Search Marketing

The key to successfully local search marketing is to match your local population preferences—a population you understand from having a local business. You will find this effort more useful and a great deal more profitable and fun. You have a good understanding of your local community. It offers far less competition than the world-wide web.

Share your comments and ideas in the comment section below.

Al Hanzal is a SCORE Mentor in the St. Paul area.

Al Hanzal,
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Filed under: Business Planning

Tags: entrepreneurs, small business