To help you create an effective content strategy for your local business, we asked marketing professionals and business leaders this question for their best insights. From applying local SEO to understanding your target audience, several ideas may help your local business develop effective content strategies to increase its market share.
How to Create an Effective Content Strategy for Your Local Business
Apply Local SEO
Before creating a content strategy, it’s important to understand what local SEO is and how it differs from traditional SEO. Local SEO is the process of optimizing your online content so that you can be found more easily by people who are searching for products or services in your locality. It’s a form of search engine optimization (SEO) that specifically targets local searches. There are several things that you can do to optimize your content for local SEO, but one of the most important is to make sure that your website and all your online content include your city, state, or region. This will help when potential customers in your area are looking for businesses like yours.
Natalia Brzezinska, PhotoAiD
Anchor Keywords To City Search Volumes
One way to create a content strategy for a local business is to use the home city as an anchor for keyword analysis. Using tools like Google Trends, you can see what kinds of online searches folks in the area conduct most often, and then narrow that scope to focus on customers that fall within your niche. For example, if you are promoting an area restaurant and notice that “festivals in CITY” is a popular search term in the summertime, then you can plan a blog post that draws traffic to the site.
Michael Alexis, TeamBuilding
Promise Rewards With Actionable Content
In preparing localized content, speaking the language of the audience is an advantage as well as a challenge. But when you make your content actionable, you give your content the unique and universal advantage of gaining maximum attention and response. From early bird rewards to special hours, put to work every strategy your brand allows. You can also leverage the advantage of knowing how the local community will react to each reward system and concentrate on the ones that offer the most traction.
Richa Nathani, Dialed Labs
Relate Content To Local Community
Think of the needs of those in the particular community where your business is located, and incorporate those needs into your content. For example, if you own a clothing store in a city with a lot of cold weather, you could focus mainly on warm clothing such as coats and hats in your marketing, even if you also sell other kinds of clothing. Make your content relatable to those who live in a certain local community so that they will feel more connected to your business.
Nick Shackelford, Structured Agency
Follow a Content Calendar
One step to creating an effective content strategy for a local business is to come up with a content calendar. This will help you map out what content you will create and when you will publish it. By keeping to such a calendar, you will be able to better measure the performance of your content and make necessary adjustments along the way.
Matthew Ramirez, Paraphrase
Target Your Audience Through Identified Channels
Creating an effective content strategy for local businesses can be a challenge, especially when competing with larger companies. One content strategy to increase local market share is using alternative channels of communication. In the growing age of digital media, everyone consumes content and purchases differently. It is important to understand where your target audience consumes media as well as where competitors are dominating the space.
Reaching target audiences and allowing them to easily purchase your product is vital to the growth of local businesses. Social media, email marketing, and business websites are great places to start. Once you figure out where your content is being consumed you will get a better sense of where to pursue your online presence on channels that bring the most exposure. This will ensure you can communicate with the right audience at the right time. Expanding channels will also ensure customers can shop with ease.
Jeffrey Pitrak, Transient Specialists
Collaborate on Content With Local Businesses
If you want to get noticed in your community, then work with other local businesses to create shared content. This could be in the form of blog posts on one another’s websites, where you link back. It could be through similar collaborations on social media. Or, it could mean partnering on a local contest or event that the community will find valuable and creating press releases and other content to promote it. When you work with others, you share your pools of customers, influence, and traffic, you can amplify each other’s business more than by doing everything on your own.
Dennis Consorte, Snackable Solutions
Use Community Influencers for Reach and Impact
Identify the influencers in your community and reach out to those who match your brand’s identity. From here, it’s all about using the existing reach of these influencers to promote your content. You can ask them to vlog reviews, write guest blogs and exchange links, and feature specific content built around their personas. They can also participate in giveaways on your platforms or host them on their channels, helping you gather more content to promote.
Mary Jurgensen, Gary and Mary West PACE
Define and Sell Your Uniqueness
When you’re creating a content strategy for your local business, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Where do you start? How do you make sure that you’re creating content that will resonate with your reach? It’s more simple than you think! You start by focusing on what makes you unique. What are the aspects of your business that set it apart from any other store or restaurant or service in the area? Find those things and help them shine.
One of the best ways to showcase those unique aspects of your business is through video content. Video is one of the most shareable types of content today, so it’s a great place to focus some of your efforts. Video also helps show off the culture and atmosphere of your company and lets people see what sets you apart without having to visit in person.
Nick Cotter, newfoundr
Understand Your Target Audience
Creating an effective content strategy is essential for your business. Start by identifying your target audience. Reference your business plan, as you’ve likely already completed this step. Research your audience by listening across social media channels. For example, if you own a local boutique jewelry business, find + follow a few industry influencers on IG and Twitter.
Research and follow the top industry hashtags, and also look for the “sweet spot” hashtags with 1K to 100K posts on IG and use them correctly to help the algorithm recognize your brand. Create a list of topics and consistently publish content that attracts people to your brand. Be sure to include user-generated content (UGC) in 50% of your content. Build relationships where you mutually benefit from cross-promoting your topics and be sure to recognize your brand influencers regularly. Use a scheduling tool to help you post consistently, and you’re on the right track to a winning local content strategy.
Natalie Figueroa, Peerlogic
