Big brands are looking for love in all the wrong places
It was supposed to be the great enabler: we were supposed to be able to order our whiteboards from Bali, our server racks from Slovenia and outsource our executive coaching to a dude in Belize. How is that going for you?
I thought so. Me too.
The truth is, an awful lot of stuff that businesses buy, work better when it’s local. I use code written in countries I can’t pronounce, and I have consultants and designers I’ve never met and I’m not really sure where they are, but for an awful lot of stuff, it just has to be local.Your keyword research is probably telling you, especially if you sell something that is either hands-on or subject to some kind of regulation, that your location matters. And you are probably stuffing your webpages full of just those location keywords but I think we’re kind of missing the point with the whole local thing.
For example, Google reviews are by location. If you have five offices across the country, your customers c
an rate each one on Google out of five stars. If you haven’t looked to the right side of your screen lately, you will want to check and see what that rating looks like.
Here’s another thing you may not be considering: local campaigns can be way cheaper than national or ge
otargeted online campaigns. Local sites, local business publications and even local newspapers are under lot of price pressure; you can get a big presence in some of these for a small budget. Geotargeted search is fine, but it’s harder to stand out if you aren’t also hitting email lists and some social.
One other reason we need to be thinking more locally in B2B is the competition. National brands, in particular, take their eye off the local ball at their peril. Consider that Amazon is now experimenting with local referrals like the one below, and it’s not just pedicures and burgers. It’s IT services, recruiting, plant ladies and more. Forty-four percent of American consumers start their product searches on Amazon; Google considers Amazon its biggest search competitor.
Amazon Business, at just over a year old has 9-million products and 300,000 registered business buyer accounts. If I were a low cost local competitor to a big B2B services brand, I would be calling Amazon. Just saying.
Here are other ways we should be spending a little more in local markets, even big local markets:
- Do super-targeted direct to one or two FSAs (that’s the forward sortation area or the first three characters in the postal code), and then get your field sales team knocking on doors
- Do an experiential thing in the business district – I had great luck a few years ago setting up free coffee in the lobbies of buildings in the FSA I had hit the week before with some postcards
- Send your Squirrels to chamber of commerce and board of trade networking events
- Sponsor an award or contest for local businesses
- Sponsor the heck out of local events, particularly at colleges and universities
- Get your PR guys to chase local, not national editors for interviews
- Buy display on the local business networking sites and apps
- Buy some OOH in a few smaller local markets to see what happens
- Radio is my favourite local buy: it’s easy to do A/B testing, generally not expensive to produce, and there’s usually lots of inventory – even one of those five second traffic sponsorships can work wonders
- Hold recruiting events locally, and tell the small business publications and sites a few weeks out; everyone loves a job fair
- Participate in the local charity events – races, leagues, fundraising contests and charity dinners are usually great value for money when it comes to local visibility; plus all those boards are just stuffed with decision makers
- Buy some local sports sponsorships – arena ads, trophy sponsorships, even display on the local team websites can be really, really cheap
- Get a few of your own Overlords on some of the local boards and advisory committees — board of trade, local hospital, even a posh golf and country club are great places to help your execs network and build the brand
- Join the local chapter of a trade association. Get your butt out to their meetings, pick up the cheque at the odd networking event and be sure you sponsor the dessert at the annual gala, even the really sad galas
- Make sure you’re on the radar of all the small business support organizations like incubators, funding groups, networking groups and economic development offices
Not sure where to start? Set aside some budget and pick one market where you need to build some share, where you have an active sales team on the ground and where it’s not too noisy. Smaller cities are good for this sort of thing. Test out a six-month lead generation campaign, with a few sponsorships to build the brand and some PR to highlight a couple of poo-bahs and you should be good to go.
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BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
Or follow me @bizmkter
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