You’ve bought a couple of training courses, read some articles here and there and are subscriber of one or two email lists? Well, I have good news for you. I hereby declare you an local marketing expert.
Expert… me…? Yes, and this is why: Expertise is a relative measure, and you know a ton more about online marketing than 97% of the small business owners in your town. So here are some ideas to start with:
1. Offer local business to list them in Google local for let’s say $50 a piece. That will take you 30 minutes the first couple of times you do it, but by third or so, less than 15 minutes.
2. Set a squeeze page and autoresponder for them… let’s say, $100 a piece. The traffic whould come from their current advertising. They just need to forward a url to you and that will provide them a new way to measure the response rate of their current marketing budget.
3. Setup a Facebook fan page for $100 a piece. This is great for the hospitality and services industry. You can combine this with other discounts, freebies or current promotions, or make something special for the Facebook fans.
4. Make some video content (you know, the flip cam you bought “for business” and haven’t used) and charge them $75 per video uploaded to the “very own” Youtube channel. Video testimonials are great for a Youtube channel, viewers care for what the product or service can do for them, not how many years your customer has been in business.
Any route you choose to take will require the same basic elements:
1. Professional looking forms to collect the customers information.
2. Business cards. Include the words online (or internet), marketing and consultant, advisor. Something along those lines.
3. A small 3 to 5 minutes presentation of the service you are offering. Don’t overuse techincal jargon. Just outline the features and explain the benefits.
Getting customers
The best source is the either the local newspaper or the phone book. Look for businesses that have a website listed and visit the website before contacting the customer. Write down a few improvement tips to share during the conversation.
You can also start with people you already know and ask them for referals. This is the best way to go if the idea of “cold calling” freezes you.
Here is a good rule of thumb when it comes to contacting potential customers: The first contact should be always over the phone. If you try to contact them via email, you will just be “another” marketer, not the local expert.
If face to face deals are not your thing -and many people go to online marketing for this exact same reason-, you can always partner with someone to close the sale for you… you know, the social butterfly type. Remeber, the more people make money on the process, the bigger your business will get.
You get the idea… you are way ahead of the local business owner. Set goals, make a plan and… Take action!
