Small businesses sometimes get the short end of the stick when it comes to digital marketing strategy. Without the size of national corporations or the capital for huge marketing campaigns, it can feel like you’re relegated to old-fashioned marketing techniques to bring in a steady trickle of clients and customers. But before you give up on digital marketing as a whole, you should know that the tactics used by larger companies can be harnessed for local SEO and applied to small businesses for huge results. Here are some of the best tactics to make sure your company gets the local exposure it needs to be successful.
According to MediaBistro, a whopping 98 percent of companies already use some type of email marketing. But while newsletters and promotions might help drive traffic to your company, they can also seem impersonal – particularly when you’re trying to grow a local audience. If you do plan on utilizing email marketing, try dividing your email contacts by national customers and those who are local. After all, some services – a nail salon, for instance—won’t make much sense on a nationwide sphere. By targeting only those who live within your service area, you spend less time clogging up email inboxes and more time extending offers to those who are most likely to patron your small business.
If email marketing is the most broadly used type of digital marketing strategy, then social media is the friendliest. Social media gives customers the chance to get to know your business on a more casual level, and shouldn’t be skipped. Whether you start a Facebook page, a Twitter feed or have chats on your company’s LinkedIn profile, social media gives customers a chance to get to know you. Even smaller local businesses can gather “Likes” on a Facebook page that lists your business’ hours, location and even reviews all from one place. And, the bigger Web presence you have, the better chance at scoring customers and getting feedback.
While marketing is sometimes seen in a negative light, content marketing has changed the face of digital marketing strategy completely. Instead of advertisements being sent to prospective customers, content causes customers to actually seek out your business using articles, videos and other digital content. Whether it’s a funny video on your site or an interesting article that incorporates some of your services or products, content allows you to offer something to your customer: Information. It’s a simple way to drive local traffic to your site, particularly if your content is targeted to a local geographic area.
Of course, content marketing could be a moot point if you don’t optimise your search options. By applying local SEO strategy to your website, social media and overall brand, you help searchers find exactly what they’re looking for— you. The right keywords make all the difference in the SEO sphere, so making sure your content is location-rich and utilizes the places within your service area helps improve search results and eventually, website traffic. Small businesses can look to an SEO agency for help to choose the right type of content and best keywords for search optimization for the best results and biggest bump in traffic.
Along the lines of SEO, a carefully structured local PPC strategy will provide a low-cost alternative to help direct target customers right to your website using local keywords. These types of keywords tend to have a lower cost per click, therefore local business with moderate marketing budgets can leverage this avenue as well. In addition, PPC will also help your business understand which keywords work best to draw traffic to your website before investing time and resources into ranking for a given keyword in organic search.
While it may seem like a brave new world out there for small businesses, what may seem like a daunting menu of marketing options can actually serve up success for local companies. By detailing your marketing strategy to include content, SEO, PPC and social media accounts, you’ll gain local attention fairly quickly—and new customers.
With a wide range of products, applications and service offerings, HCL could be seen as demanding. Yet, by integrating segmentation techniques on company size, sector and purchase history, we are able to choose the audiences to send emails to, and uncover what works.
Each email is scoped, the audience identified, professionally written, designed and then integrated with tracking from within the email as well as through analytics.
High-value, low-volume email marketing requires a specialised approach. One that speaks the right language to partners, clients and prospects, whilst underpinning the values that make Unloq’s services unique.
With split lists, containing some shared and some unique content, we have created variety without the overhead of coming up with three completely new emails every time. Precise, targeted and confident – just like our client.
The ability to persuade visitors and generate leads in a field as challenging as mergers and acquisitions needed a very careful and considered approach. Attention to detail and the use of the right language are crucial to gaining the trust and confidence of the audience.
We worked closely with the client, embedding ourselves in their business so that we could learn more about the M&A marketplace, we mapped their audience and delivered two websites with specific strategic goals for their business. They remain the main lead-drivers for this rapidly growing enterprise.
How to prepare a structural engineering practice for growth? Firstly, make the website have real quality and impact. To communicate the values of the business as well as match the expectations of the target property owner and partners for the business.
The eventual site focuses on the outcome of working with our client, high-end solutions to reinvigorate homes to fit with a luxurious London and Home Counties lifestyle.
It should be simple to find leads for EV charging in the South East of England, but sometimes what looks easy is, in fact, a real technical challenge.
Firstly, whilst there is a lot of searching for EV points, we only want to target those who want an installation. Secondly, we also need to avoid congested areas where there is only on-street parking. Finally, they had a preference for commercial, not residential installations.
Not so simple, but we plugged away and found a steady flow of electric leads.
We’re familiar working for clients with complex audience requirements. For Technical Resources it is a constant balancing act between job candidates and employers. If you don’t have enough flow of each, then the business struggles.
We helped them create specific sections with unique messages for each audience to give them the best chance of generating leads. Each section is then tracked independently so that we can get the client to candidate ratio just right.
Whilst Nautilus is setting the standard for real-life skippering courses, they recognise there is a substantial audience for online learning.
Having established their new website, we integrated their online courses and set up several routes into registering or trying their online masterclasses as well as tracking paid enquiries into the system to measure relative performance.
If you’re challenging an established industry where cost, supply chain and value is a mystery, then what better way to differentiate than do the opposite.
We created transparent pricing, clear discounts, delivery expectations and global dispatch. Each product had about a thousand combinations, so clients could order exactly what they wanted.
With an increasingly global customer base, a broad range of client needs, and a growing internal team overseeing proposals and quotations, HCL were in need of consolidation.
We helped them bring together all their prospects and clients in one place and recommended ways of segmenting the customer base. They are quoting more often, more quickly and closing more business and, by attaching the CRM to their email platform, also being able to build more repeat business.
The practice had just recruited a manager and was looking to bring together all their enquiries and proposals into one place. We recommended, configured and launched a CRM for them that gave them visibility over all their leads.
As they developed their services, and added to their team, we let them adapt and shape the process to remain ahead of the pack.
An engineering firm wanted to build business but also be equipped to grow. With a new practice manager in place who was committed to digital transformation, we integrated CRM, task management and project tracking systems to create a system that works for them.
It now tracks quotes, commissions business, pushes through deadlines, keeps clients aware of progress and helps them deliver high quality structural engineering projects on time and on brief.
When we first started working with Domin, we introduced them to Airtable and also recommended a CRM to streamline their account management. It was the start of a beautiful relationship.
They now use Airtable effectively as an ERP system for their order management and global supply chain, and the CRM drives the growth in sales and clients across the world as they add to their product lines.
Offering short leases and contracts to small and startup businesses leads to challenges for Flexspace. Every unit is up for renewal every year. Furthermore, with standard attrition within small enterprises, there is always space coming available.
Yet, with a building database and a ready list of prospective, as well as existing clients, we have advised them on systems and strategies to convert more of their database and to see problems for fill rate before it becomes a critical problem.
With a growing reputation, but skippering being seen as a one-hit sale, it seemed that repeat business would be a challenge. However, Nautilus had two strategies we were able to support with very effective marketing campaigns.
Firstly, they now have an Alumni network called ‘The Tribe’ who regularly go on flotillas with each other, coordinated by Nautilus. Secondly, they have catamaran deliveries where different teams are assembled to take their boats point to point, often across oceans – another level of experience!
Our client had already adopted some systems, and whilst using cloud-based technologies, it was still mainly mail, calendar, documents and spreadsheets.
We worked closely with them first putting in place a CRM, then a no-code platform to run their projects and have continued to make them more efficient, paperless and collaborative than ever before.
When we initially worked with Nautilus, they had grown successfully on an inbox and a spreadsheet. For a small business, that makes sense and keeps it simple, but it becomes harder the more conversations, quotes and bookings are managed.
It became clear that they needed to collaborate and track more.
With an envious Tripadvisor rating, their customers expect the perfect experience. Having scoped out their requirements, we helped them choose the right CRM and then helped scope it out to fit their needs perfectly. Now their office team of four can work together, using a range of communication channels to get the job done.
One extensive website with an enormous range of pages and content, where offers adapt every month to the demands of the clients, and capacity changes meaning that conversions never stay the same.
So, we report and analyse every month, understand how the different areas of the website are performing, receive briefings from our client and adapt for the month ahead.
Two websites offering a wide range of services, where quality leads are of high value, but there are large volumes of time-wasters, it is vital to ensure that every lead is accounted for.
Our ‘secret source’ for them tracks from Ads, Organic, Google Analytics 4 and in their CRM to make sure that we know exactly the cost of every good opportunity. In that way, we can flex accordingly.
It’s always a challenge taking an established business, with all the heritage that comes with the old. However, backed by a supportive client, we took them from a ‘WordArt’ style to something that is as flexible as their clamps!
You can see the nod to the product range, but this is such a versatile logo, portrait, landscape, white out of colour. It allows imagery, buttons and offers to pop as it has clarity and style.
Taking on an unexpected full rebrand in thirty days was not necessarily part of the remit, but we’re always up for a challenge.
New iconography in place with a subtle and yet distinct nod to hydraulics and the ‘D’ for Domin. We also founded and formed a proper brand book to ensure that consistency remains in place for cross-media activity.
It’s too easy to be carried away by the lifestyle and adventure of the Nautilus crew, from the Pacific to the Med, they deliver award-winning sailing experiences.
However, we are not helping them sell holidays, they sell skipper courses so that clients can sail their own yachts and catamarans. So the content is geared around this. It’s still beautiful, but it speaks to the right audience.
What is there not to love about kids and garden play? The photos are great, settings wonderful and the structures are pretty awesome. But, to be honest, you can’t have photos of children included and then all the structures are based around the same ‘ingredients’.
So, you need to become storytellers, as tree houses and adventure play is about the joy and fun to be had by small and large adventurers as their ideas spark into life. It’s the story we tell!
The most valuable aspect of Domin’s products is hidden in the ‘secret sauce’ of how they build the most efficient and compact hydraulic systems. The products are well-engineered, but the outcomes
Mergers and acquisitions marketing imagery rife with stock photos of business meetings, office blocks and cityscapes. But Unloq is different. The name is the focus: to unlock opportunities, unpick information and open up value for clients.
So the imagery is simple, clean and relates to the process of unlocking rather than the environment. We recommended striking black and white imagery that nails the brief, engages the viewer and turns attention to messaging and actions, whilst complementing the brand palette.
With a wide range of products, applications and service offerings, HCL could be seen as demanding. Yet, by integrating segmentation techniques on company size, sector and purchase history, we are able to choose the audiences to send emails to, and uncover what works.
Each email is scoped, the audience identified, professionally written, designed and then integrated with tracking from within the email as well as through analytics.
High-value, low-volume email marketing requires a specialised approach. One that speaks the right language to partners, clients and prospects, whilst underpinning the values that make Unloq’s services unique.
With split lists, containing some shared and some unique content, we have created variety without the overhead of coming up with three completely new emails every time. Precise, targeted and confident – just like our client.
When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, clarity of message and presentation is paramount. We worked closely with the client, writing a script, choosing a voice-over artist, stitching together images, video and illustrations.
The two videos were short enough to share on social media, but professional enough to take pride of place on the website – raising the profile and credibility of Unloq and with more to come.
How best to display some of the finest tree houses and climbing frame builds in the UK? We used a combination of close-up and drone footage to showcase Gardenatics’ custom builds.
It makes the website stand out, differentiating from the competition and justifying the quality and value on display. It has helped them continue to win new clients across England and Wales looking for that premium option.
One extensive website with an enormous range of pages and content, where offers adapt every month to the demands of the clients, and capacity changes meaning that conversions never stay the same.
So, we report and analyse every month, understand how the different areas of the website are performing, receive briefings from our client and adapt for the month ahead.
Two websites offering a wide range of services, where quality leads are of high value, but there are large volumes of time-wasters, it is vital to ensure that every lead is accounted for.
Our ‘secret source’ for them tracks from Ads, Organic, Google Analytics 4 and in their CRM to make sure that we know exactly the cost of every good opportunity. In that way, we can flex accordingly.
It’s too easy to be carried away by the lifestyle and adventure of the Nautilus crew, from the Pacific to the Med, they deliver award-winning sailing experiences.
However, we are not helping them sell holidays, they sell skipper courses so that clients can sail their own yachts and catamarans. So the content is geared around this. It’s still beautiful, but it speaks to the right audience.
What is there not to love about kids and garden play? The photos are great, settings wonderful and the structures are pretty awesome. But, to be honest, you can’t have photos of children included and then all the structures are based around the same ‘ingredients’.
So, you need to become storytellers, as tree houses and adventure play is about the joy and fun to be had by small and large adventurers as their ideas spark into life. It’s the story we tell!
An engineering firm wanted to build business but also be equipped to grow. With a new practice manager in place who was committed to digital transformation, we integrated CRM, task management and project tracking systems to create a system that works for them.
It now tracks quotes, commissions business, pushes through deadlines, keeps clients aware of progress and helps them deliver high quality structural engineering projects on time and on brief.
When we first started working with Domin, we introduced them to Airtable and also recommended a CRM to streamline their account management. It was the start of a beautiful relationship.
They now use Airtable effectively as an ERP system for their order management and global supply chain, and the CRM drives the growth in sales and clients across the world as they add to their product lines.
With a number of local teams, we needed to come up with an ad strategy that ensured that the value of the job, and the journey time would make profitable commercial and residential enquiries for Chargebase.
A lightweight, geographically tight, precisely worded set of campaigns was plugged into the business. And the lights went on!
The challenge with Nautilus isn’t the product, it’s amazing! The test is to avoid sailing enthusiasts and drill down to their audience: people who want to learn to skipper.
We have worked closely with Nautilus for over ten years distilling down a range of very precise advertising campaigns to deliver exactly what they wanted. A flow of future skippers looking for adventure.
Working in a high ticket specialist field means that every visit has value. Rather than focusing on volume, this was a more meticulous project which was driven by quality of enquiry as well as volume.
We recognised that there were certain keywords which significantly outperformed and provided the kinds of leads Unloq were looking for. We split the proposition into two websites for different audiences and focused each website for different keyword clusters. Client acquisitions soared.
Having worked with Flexspace on two iterations of their website the biggest challenge has been leveraging their sites and types of property to build a range of keywords to reach business owners.
Whilst the first website was effective in building traffic, we learned so much from that process that round two (six years later) was another step uo. Structure and internal linking was optimised for a wide range of relevant keywords which built a steady flow of converting organic traffic to Flexspace.
Tree houses and climbing frames are really easy to share, every family loves some active play. However, for Gardenatics we needed to make sure that we selected the right strategies for the right platforms.
In particular, the Pinterest channel we created for them gave great scope and leverage for the brand, as photos of builds were pinned far and wide and, given the bespoke nature of the constructions – future customers knew the best brand to help them with their garden was, of course, our client.
Unloq’s aim is to stand out and be different in the M&A world, but at the same time, to give confidence in the services they offer. They have to both be confident and discreet, persuasive but measured.
Our social media strategy is to ensure that we use a combination of videos, stings, dynamic messages and text to continue to reinforce the values and services which make our client the best route to inorganic business growth.
Intent led, tracked and accounted for profitable marketing spend
Motivated enquiries, in the buying cycle, who fit your ideal target market
Make processes more efficient, thorough, predictable and measurable
Fast and reliable cash-generative e-commerce and lead generation websites
Rankings with purpose, targeting your converting keywords
Modern, digital, flexible brand, guidelines, messaging and identity
Short, sharp videos designed specifically for the right media channel
Smart, precise imagery demonstrating design with purpose
A clearly segmented customer base with fine-tuned strategies for repeat business
A connected analytics layer providing confidence in tactical and strategic marketing work
Refined, considered and targeted persuasive copy with calls to action
Well-considered, precise, relatable and polished content
Focused varied marketing content, adapted to suit customer profiles
A store where the stock, turnover, margins and yield dwarfs the marketing spend
Win and retain more business by selecting the right CRM and systems
Joined up, cloud-based systems which optimise operations