Bright Scribe Media

Mastering Local Marketing: Strategies for Building a Strong Community Presence

Margo Upson — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 11:32:26 +0000

In an era where you can find everything online, and shopping is a mostly impersonal task, the charm and impact of local marketing cannot be overstated. It’s a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal, one that brings you closer to your community, helps forge stronger bonds, and ultimately, boosts your bottom line. But what exactly is local marketing, and how can you use it effectively? Let’s dive in.

Understanding Local Marketing

At its core, local marketing targets potential customers within a specific geographical radius of your physical business location. It’s about making your brand a familiar, trusted name among the locals, turning neighbors into customers, and customers into advocates. Unlike broader marketing strategies that cast a wide net, local marketing zeroes in on the community around you, offering personalized, relevant content and interactions.

Why Local Marketing Matters

The benefits of local marketing are plentiful. It’s about leveraging local identity and pride, creating a personalized shopping experience that resonates with your local community. This approach can lead to improved customer loyalty, higher engagement rates, and an increase in word-of-mouth referrals. Businesses that excel in local marketing enjoy a prominent place in their communities, often becoming the go-to choice for residents.

So, how do you leverage a local marketing strategy to grow your business?

1. Leverage Local SEO

Optimizing for local search is crucial. Start by claiming your Google My Business listing, ensuring your information is accurate and comprehensive. Use local keywords in your online content, and don’t forget to encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews.
2. Engage with the Community

Be seen as a community player by hosting or participating in local events. Sponsor a little league team, run a booth at a local fair, or collaborate with local charities. Forming partnerships with neighboring businesses for cross-promotion can also broaden your reach within the community.
3. Utilize Social Media Wisely

Social media platforms are perfect for connecting with local audiences. Use geotags to make your posts discoverable in local search results and include location-based hashtags. Engaging with local followers, sharing their content, and posting about local events can further boost your local presence.
4. Create Locally-Relevant Content

Your content should reflect local culture, landmarks, or celebrate local heroes and stories. This not only increases your relatability but also boosts your local search visibility. Encourage your customers to share their own content using your products or services to foster a sense of community and authenticity.
5. Invest in Local Advertising

From local newspapers and magazines to targeted digital ads on social platforms, local advertising can be highly effective. Tailor your messaging to speak directly to the local audience, focusing on how your business meets their specific needs or contributes to the local economy.

Local marketing is more than just a strategy; it’s a commitment to being a valuable part of your community. By focusing on the people around you, you can build a business that’s not just successful, but also loved and respected by those it serves. Start with one or two strategies, see what works, and always stay true to your brand’s voice and values. The journey to becoming a local favorite starts with a single, community-focused step.

The post Mastering Local Marketing: Strategies for Building a Strong Community Presence first appeared on Bright Scribe Media.

Email Marketing for Small Businesses

Margo Upson — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 10:03:57 +0000

Email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach customers. Unlike traditional marketing methods such as print or television ads, email marketing allows businesses to reach their customers at a fraction of the cost. With the right email marketing strategy, small businesses can achieve high ROI (return on investment) while spending a fraction of their marketing budget.

Email marketing can also be personalized to suit the specific needs and preferences of customers. By segmenting their email lists and sending personalized content, small businesses can improve engagement rates and build long-term relationships with their customers. Personalized emails have been found to have a 29% higher unique open rate and a 41% higher click-through rate than non-personalized emails.

Where email marketing really shines, however, is when it is used to drive conversions and sales. By including calls-to-action (CTAs) in their emails, small businesses can guide customers towards taking specific actions such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. Email campaigns can be designed to lead customers through the sales funnel, from initial awareness to conversion.

So, how do you use email marketing effectively?

Build a quality email list: The success of your email marketing campaign depends largely on the quality of your email list. Build your list by asking customers and prospects to sign up on your website, at events or in your store. Access to a lead magnet (a pdf guide, webinar, free consultation call, or a checklist, for example) can be a great incentive for someone to offer you their email address.
Segment your list: Different subscribers have different needs and interests. Segmenting your email list allows you to send targeted and relevant messages to each group, increasing engagement and conversions.
Personalize your emails: Personalization can boost your email open rates and click-through rates. Address your subscribers by their first name and use dynamic content to tailor your messages to their interests and behavior.
Create engaging content: Your email content should be informative, valuable and visually appealing. Use a mix of text, images and videos to make your emails more engaging and memorable.
Optimize for mobile: More than 50% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Make sure your emails are mobile-friendly with a responsive design and a clear call-to-action.
Test and analyze: Test different elements of your email campaigns such as subject lines, email copy, images and calls-to-action to see what works best. Use email analytics to track your performance and make data-driven decisions to improve your campaigns.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful ways for a small business to convert leads into sales and grow their business. The first step is to sign up for an email service (We love GetResponse!) and write your first welcome email.

Want to try GetResponse for yourself? Sign up through our link and we’ll both receive a $30 credit!

The post Email Marketing for Small Businesses first appeared on Bright Scribe Media.

Why Business Owners Can’t Ignore Content

Margo Upson — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 18:08:57 +0000

Your Content Tells A Story

Why does what you do matter? How do you take your clients and customers from where they begin–struggling with their problem–to where they are going? How does their life look once they’ve worked with you? When you share content, whether it’s through social media, a video, your website, or even in a live speaking engagement, you’re able to create a story that your audience wants to be a part of.

It Also Builds a Connection

Content is a powerful tool for creating a better connection between a business and its customers. Here are some ways in which content can help businesses build stronger relationships with their audience:

Builds trust: By creating valuable content, businesses can establish themselves as experts in their industry and demonstrate their knowledge and expertise to their customers. This can help build trust and credibility with their audience, which can lead to increased loyalty and repeat business.
Demonstrates value: Content can help businesses demonstrate the value of their products or services to their customers. By creating informative and educational content, businesses can show their customers how their products or services can solve their problems or meet their needs.
Engages customers: Creating engaging and interactive content such as quizzes, polls, and surveys can help businesses connect with their audience on a deeper level. This can foster a sense of community and create a more personal connection with customers.
Provides personalized experiences: By tailoring content to specific customer segments, businesses can create personalized experiences for their audience. This can help businesses better understand their customers’ needs and preferences and create content that resonates with them.
Increases brand awareness: Creating content that is shareable and easy to consume can help businesses increase their brand awareness and reach new customers. By creating content that is valuable, informative, and entertaining, businesses can attract new customers and keep their existing ones engaged.

And that’s just the beginning.

Well-written content can also improve SEO, increase website traffic, build brand authority, foster interaction, and even help drive sales. Creating valuable and relevant content can help your business connect with your audience, build trust and authority, and make it easier to sell with confidence.

The post Why Business Owners Can’t Ignore Content first appeared on Bright Scribe Media.

Seven Things Every SaaS Marketing Strategy Needs

Margo Upson — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 21:51:43 +0000

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies offer essential services in an increasingly digital world. Businesses rely on SaaS companies for things they do every day. If you’ve sent a newsletter, updated your blog, managed payroll, or chatted with your team on Slack or Zoom today, you’ve used an SaaS product.

Of course, if you’re running a SaaS company, you don’t need anyone to tell you how valuable your service is. What you might not know is how to communicate that value with your audience.

SaaS companies face increasing competition. No matter how incredible, ground-breaking, or just really, really useful your offering is, it’s not going to sell itself. You need to have a strategy that can help get your product in front of the right people, with the right message, at the right time. You need a robust marketing strategy.

But where do you start?

If you’re a DIY, or if you want a framework for bringing in a marketing strategist, these are the seven essential areas any SaaS marketing plan needs to address.

Social Media

Whether it’s organic or paid, getting in front of the right people on social media is a key factor to your success. Your strategy should cover the best social media channels for your brand, how to target the right audience, and how to leverage your following for the best results.

SEO

Your product solves a problem. When the people who need your solution turn to Google for help, how likely are they to find you? When you implement SEO tactics into your strategy, you help Google and other search engines understand what you offer, what your site is about, and how useful your site is for those looking for what you offer. Do it well, and over time, you’ll perform better in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Paid Media

Whether it’s Google Ads, social media ads, or both, you need a way to get your product (and your company) in front of your audience. Not everyone will find your business through organic means. Ads allow you to get in front of the right people at the right time through careful targeting (and retargeting). They’re an essential part of any sales funnel, and help with reach and awareness, affinity, and the actual conversion.

Reviews

No one wants to be the first to try out your product. You need to be able to prove that you have happy customers in order to gain more happy customers. Encouraging reviews and testimonials provides you with social proof, one of the key elements to successfully marketing your SaaS business. Once you get a few customers who have seen incredible results from your product, build case studies to increase your business’ authority.

Referrals

Related to reviews, having a referral program allows you to leverage current happy customers to make more happy customers. When you think about the customer lifetime value (or CLV) of a new client, what is that worth to you? How much are you spending, on average, for customer acquisition? Developing a referral program can reduce acquisition costs, help keep current customers happy (by rewarding their loyalty), and should absolutely be a part of your marketing strategy.

Lead Nurturing

Most people won’t sign up the first time they come across your business. They need to make sure that you’re the right solution for their problem, and that takes a bit of effort on your end. As potential leads work through the sales funnel, you need to guide them towards the next step. That takes knowing what information they need at each stage and then providing it. This could be in the form of website content, reviews and case studies, emails, podcasts, trials, or any number of other tactics that build trust and affinity and remove objections.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

So, you got someone onto your site, but they bounced within 10 seconds. Or you’re getting people to sign up for your lead generator, but no one is following the funnel long enough to convert. It’s frustrating, but it’s fixable.

Conversion rate optimization involves taking all of the steps along your sales funnel, from first awareness to conversion, and fine-tuning it for better results. Having an idea of what to look for and what improvements can bring the biggest impact definitely helps here; if you don’t have that experience or knowledge, this is something you can bring in a professional to help with.

Of course, ideally your SaaS marketing strategy will be a bit more robust than this, but if you’re just starting out, focusing these seven high-impact areas can get you headed down the right path.

Not a DIYer? Contact us for a complimentary discovery call to see how we can help!

The post Seven Things Every SaaS Marketing Strategy Needs first appeared on Bright Scribe Media.

Five Things Every Small Business Needs to Know About Marketing

Margo Upson — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 10:29:47 +0000

Businesses Need Marketing

If you want customers or clients, you need to find effective and meaningful ways to reach them. If you’re not experienced in marketing, or if you don’t have a lot of time, there’s sometimes a tendency to just try stuff out, see what sticks, and try to stay consistent with what works.

Or, you do what a lot of other new businesses owners do–you try to do it all, and then it all falls apart.

There’s a Better Way

Marketing is more than just posting stuff here or there on social media, and hoping something resonates, but if you’re running your business AND your marketing campaigns, sometimes that’s what you end up doing. If that’s where you’re at right now, that’s okay! You’re not alone.

But, marketing is an investment: of time, money, or both. You have to put something in to get something out, and you need to be strategic about it. If you’re struggling to get your marketing up to where you need it to be, or if it feels like you’re just aimlessly spinning your wheels, keep reading. This post is for you.

There are five things small business owners need to realize about marketing:

1. You Need to Have Goals

Why do you need marketing? Hint: the answer isn’t because everyone says you need it (even if they’re right). Before you begin, you need to know what you want to accomplish. Is it:

More Sales?
Better Earnings?
More Leads?
Greater Awareness for your Business?

If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, it’s hard to get the results you’re looking for. And if you do have a goal, is it a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goal? You want a goal that is realistic, that has defined parameters, and that is measurable.

2. You Need to Know Your Audience

Are you selling to soccer moms or CEOs? Small tech start-ups, or Fortune 500 companies? You need to know who your audience is, what their needs and pain points are, and how you can best solve their problem.

3. You Need a Strategy

How are you going to meet your goals? How are you going to reach your audience? What’s your plan? It doesn’t have to be a dozen pages of details, but you should have a roadmap that leads you through the steps you want to take.

4. You Don’t Need to Do It All At Once

Once you have a strategy, break it down into the things you need to do right away for results, and the things that can be spread out over the next several months. Get one tactic going really well before you add in another. It’s not a sprint; it’s okay if the most you can handle is a weekly social media post and a twice-monthly blog post or newsletter when you’re just starting.

5. It’s Okay to Ask for Help

You owe it to yourself, and your business, to know when you can handle your marketing alone, and when you need to step back and let someone else take the reins. Hire someone who can help you build a strategy, help with the marketing tasks you’re juggling, or just lend a hand when you need a little extra support.

The post Five Things Every Small Business Needs to Know About Marketing first appeared on Bright Scribe Media.