Local Marketing in This Economy

Last night, I was asked to speak at an event on local marketing, so I pulled thoughts from across our team and I thought I would recap some of them here for small business and franchise owners. My company, Balihoo, is a Local Marketing Automation solution provider to franchises with local marketing needs. As a result, we end up working with thousands of local franchise businesses across the US to help them with their media and marketing efforts, which means we have an interesting and broad perspective on the local marketing situation.

Local Marketing Tips for franchises in THIS Economy:

1. Be a Purple Cow (reference to Seth Godin). If you're company/product/service is just like all the other cows out there, you will not be successful. You must find what makes you remarkable and embrace that in your marketing and advertising.

2. Branding is more than just your logo. As a franchise, you get significant value from the corporate brand. However, you must carry that brand concept through everything you do as a business - from how you answer the phone to your your invoicing to the attitude of every employee. It's critical that you capitalize on the value that exists in your brand.

3. Clearly identify your target market. Discover who your most valuable customers are. Give them a name, a profile. Find out who they are, how old they are, what they do in their free time. Once you've clearly identified who they are - it's easy to go find more of them.

4. Leverage Your Existing Customers. The old adage from Bain & Company that states that it's 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer is more true than ever in this economic situation. Dedicate yourself and your staff to retaining your customer base and you'll reap the profits. Give them something special and make sure it's easy for them to share this with their friends and family.

5. Integrate your campaigns. Don't allocate all of your media and marketing dollars to a single medium or channel. In this fragmented environment of media consumption, you need to vary your communication methods. Integrated campaigns drive synergistic results that are greater than the sum of the parts.

6. Buy media (don't be sold). Strategically approach your media buying efforts. Don't just listen to the people that call or knock on your door - make a list of all the media outlets that can reach your target market and listen to them all. Approach your media buying critically and be most concerned with the cost to reach your target market (not just cost-per-thousand).

7. Now is the time to renegotiate. If you have existing contracts with media vendors or contracts coming due soon, now is the time to renegotiate. Demand is down for their products, readership/viewership is down in many places, it's now the time to reevaluate what you're paying for your media. Consider it a partnership (don't take advantage) but make sure you're getting the best deal possible.

8. Market - Measure - Optimize - Repeat. It's critical that you measure your marketing activities. You need to know what is driving traffic to your store, calls to your sales reps or visits to your website. Nirvana here is that every transaction has a "source" attributed to it - giving you complete ability to understand the return on investment of your marketing dollars.

9. Don't Forget Digital. Online banners, search engine marketing and websites are critical to any business. Consumers and businesses alike now research purchases on the web more than any other source. You have to be found online and represent your brand and your product appropriately.

10. Get Social. Social media (blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook) are increasingly important, especially for local businesses. These outlets are your opportunity to have a relationship with your customers outside of the time of sale. It's your chance to deliver true value to your customers.

Hope this helps!

Shane Vaughan
Balihoo (www.balihoo.com)