There are several reasons a “local business” has difficulty reaching a local market by using the web. Let’s say, for example, you are an accountant, dentist or real estate agent. Or perhaps you own a restaurant. Your prospects (potential customers) are about 98% “local” – which means they are all within easy driving distance of your place of business.
Relying on a blog or website to reach these people is almost guaranteed to be ineffective. Why? Because there is no way most of them will ever see your blog or website.
Of course you can advertise your web address. But if you’re going to do that you might as well just advertise your business. The whole point (or at least one of the points) of having a website is to avoid having to use expensive paid advertising – either the traditional kind, or the Pay Per Click kind.
But the only way you can get web traffic without buying advertising is by relying on Search Engine Optimization and Online Social Networking. And the truth is, neither of these do a very good job at reaching your (usually) narrowly targeted local market.
Both of these (SEO and Social networking) are attempts to capitalize on relatively large numbers of web surfers. They are targeted to broad ”niches” of people (like sports enthusiasts, movie goers, music lovers, health nuts, etc.), not individuals.
You, on the other hand, want to reach individuals – your already existing customers, contacts, prospects, etc. – and narrowly defined niches – small business people in your town or city, movie goers in your town or city, etc.
So no matter what you’ve been told, don’t expect that you can throw up a website, do some kick butt SEO work and expect hundreds of prospective customers to visit your site every day. Unless you have a very unique product or service and can build some buzz in your community, it just isn’t going to happen.
The Blog and Mail Solution
So if SEO and Social Networking are not the magic solution so many hypesters claim they are, what is the solution?
I call it Blog and Mail Contact Marketing. This is a concept I have been wrestling with and developing for about 5 years.
First you need an interesting website or blog with regularly updated content. For example, if you are an accountant use your blog to discuss some topical, relevant tax issues your local clientele would be interested in.
Or if you own a restaurant or hair salon use your website to publish articles that would be of interest to your current and potential clientele. You can also run regular specials.
But that’s only half the battle. The “Blog” half.
The other half is the “Mail” half. That involves developing a solid mailing list of clients, contacts and prospects – what is usually called a “contact list” or just a “list” – and then discipline yourself to send a regular email message to your list at least once a month.
Your email messages should not just be a series of promotions for your products or services. You can use you email promotions to drive traffic to your website or blog where you can introduce them to more detail about current specials while dazzling them with the brilliance of your written material.
For example, say you’re a GM dealership. Instead of just promoting a “$20 Off Brake Service” special you can write a blog post about “What the Future Holds for GM?”. Then in your email message you can include a short excerpt along with a link to your blog. Of course you can mention the brake special too.
Do you see the advantages of this over much more passive SEO techniques? With SEO you wait for people to come to you (good luck!). With Blog and Mail Contact Marketing you go out and get them.
To see how we have implemented this for Real Estate Agents go to Blog and Mail Contact Marketing for Real Estate Agents.