2023 Local Business Marketing Strategies for Your Small Business Growth in Kenya
Find out local marketing strategies that can be used to find nearby clients. In this article Mr Fredrick, CEO & Founder SEOProof Limited examine the latest Local business Marketing Strategies for your small business sales growth in Kenya.
What is local Business marketing?
Targeting local audiences means targeting people who live in the same city or region as your company. It is aimed at people who live close enough to where you’re physically located so they could potentially buy your products or services at any given moment.
If you’re running a restaurant in Westlands Nairobi and want to drive traffic from Nakuru County, then it won’t help you much. Instead, you need local marketing techniques to ensure that most of your audience is actually close enough that they could potentially visit your restaurant or place an order for delivery.
A local marketing strategy aims to spend your advertisement and marketing budgets more efficiently. Digital marketing is an important part of any business’ marketing strategy. However, if you’re a local business and you don’t get any traction with a local audience then your advertising expenses are wasted. Not all visitors are created equal; a local marketing strategy ensures that you’re targeting an audience who might visit your store.
What types of businesses benefit from local marketing Strategies in Kenya?
Local business owners can benefit from local advertising, but there are certain types of companies where local advertising is essential. Restaurants are an excellent example because they’re physical locations that offer dining-ins, takeouts, or deliveries.
A good example of a business where local marketing would be useful is a retail shop. Even though most retailers now have online stores, local business owners can use local advertising to boost their store’s visibility and local brand recognition. It’s especially important for smaller, boutique retailers who compete against larger chains.
Likewise, law firms and accounting firms should use a local marketing strategy. It may be more appropriate to cast an online regional net for these services but it is important for professionals to reach out to a largely local audience. There are some notable examples of companies that don’t need physical offices, including digital marketing agencies. However, nothing beats face-to-face consultations.
Local Business marketing is not just for small business owners who want to attract new clients; larger companies should implement local marketing too. Even if a local strategy isn’t one of your top priorities, you shouldn’t rule out trying to capture a broader audience in the town or city where your company is located.
4 Local Business Marketing Strategies you can start today
Start by implementing these simple local marketing tips today. Here are some quick and easy ways to help your business grow locally.
1. Optimize your website (and localize it).
Optimizing your site for local searches is important, but is your site optimized for local searches? You shouldn’t just focus on optimizing your site for search engines; you should also ensure that your site provides an excellent user experience across all devices.
More than half of the traffic to websites comes from mobile devices. If you have a web page that’s easy to navigate and has large text for people to read on a small device and big icons to easily tap, you’ll be able to attract more local business.
Besides these recommendations, your site should also be localised. That means determining keywords by looking at local SEO – asking yourself, “What is the local marketplace searching for?” A good rule of thumb would be to frequently use words related to your community or nearby communities when writing content. If you’re targeting an international audience, think about including languages like “served in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.”
You can get even better results for your local SEO efforts by using free keyword research resources like Google Analytics, Google Trend, and Google Search Console to help you identify exactly which keywords you should be targeting. Localizing your site means making sure that your pages are optimized for local searches.
2. Update title tags and meta descriptions.
Another thing to consider when optimizing for search engines is whether your site’s titles and meta descriptions are updated regularly.
There are several different types of metadata, but most webmasters only need to be concerned with the meta description and title tags.
A title tag is the first thing that appears when someone searches for something online. Keep your title tags short and relevant to your brand and business, but not too long.
“Research has shown that a good meta description can increase click-through rates.” For example, if you’re running an online store selling clothes, having a phone # in the meta description is important because it helps potential buyers know they can reach out to you by calling.
3. Set up local landing pages for all your business locations.
If your business has several locations, you should set up separate pages for each one so that you can localize them individually.
“There will usually be websites with lots of different stores, but they don’t always provide information on those different stores on their website,’’ he added. “Those sites should provide information for each location, including directions on how to get to them, and what times they’re open.”
Fredrick added that these pages should include specific content about your business. For example, a real estate agent based in Parklands, Nairobi, shouldn’t just list on their website that they are a “real estate agent.” Instead, including the key phrase “leading real estate agent in Parklands” signals to search engines where the agent is based and helps serve results to a local audience. It also considers how people are searching for real estate agents; they don’t just want anyone, they want “the best” or “leading” real estate agents.
4. Claim your Google My Business listing.
Claiming your Google My Business listing is one of the easiest and most immediate ways to get started with any affective & successful local business marketing strategies in Kenya. Google My Business allows people searching for local businesses to get information like your address, phone number, opening times, and more right from the SERP.