5 Questions To Start 2023 Right By Growing Your Business Through Local Digital Marketing

A new year is a great time to start a local digital marketing strategy for your business. The hardest thing about digital marketing is sometimes knowing where to begin. Many business owners are familiar with the many local digital marketing strategies available. They aren’t certain which ones will be most effective for them.

It can be difficult to prioritize these tactics which might stop business owners from implementing their best online marketing plan for their company. If that’s you, we can make 2023 the year that you transform your business online with a little help.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed, you can create and implement local digital marketing strategies that will help your business succeed. Knowing which local digital marketing strategies are available for your business is the first step. Next, you need to know how to prioritize these tactics in order to achieve your business goals.

What are the most effective local digital marketing strategies?

There are many local digital marketing strategies that you can choose from. These are the most popular and effective local digital marketing strategies for small businesses looking to increase visibility.

Local & General Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Google Business Profile Optimization (plus Bing, and Apple)

Link Building

Review Generation

Citation Building

Website Speed Optimization

Marketing via Pay-Per-Click

E-Mail Marketing

Content Marketing

Video Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Retargeting and Social Media Advertising

You should be familiar with all of these methods. You should be able to understand the costs involved in implementing these methods, as well as what audience they will appeal to. The questions below will help you to identify the most important ones for your business.

What local digital marketing strategies should I use for my business?

There are so many options for local digital marketing strategies, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’s unlikely that you have the energy, time, or money to do all of them. You will need to prioritize where you put your resources.

These are the five questions you should ask yourself:

1. What are your business goals

Now is the time to be specific about your goals. You can choose an actionable goal that your company will achieve in 2023. Some great local digital marketing goals include:

• Increasing your local search visibility to drive more local customers/clients to your business via inbound website traffic
• Increase online omnipresence to improve brand awareness by expanding your online footprint through digital assets
• Inform potential clients about your services through your Google Business Profile and social media

Knowing your goals will help you focus your efforts for more effective results. It can seem overwhelming at first to build out your online presence. It’s a good plan to have a plan whereby you focus on one project at a time.

A combination of strategies including Google Business Profile optimization and review generation should be a top priority if you want to appear in the local Google Map-Pack.

Bottom line: For your best 2023 results, align your goals with your plans for growing your business through digital marketing.

2. What is my digital marketing budget?

Generally speaking, 10% of revenue should be spent on marketing with a portion of that earmarked for digital marketing depending on your niche, location and goals. If you are just starting out, then your initial services might run higher because you have to establish your brand.

Likewise, if you are in a very competitive niche or area, you may need to spend more on a few services to see meaningful results in terms of lead generation.

3. Who is your target audience?

You can learn the best way to reach your target audience by knowing who they are. Look at the data of your current customers to determine who is most likely become your customer. Are they younger or older? What is their online time? What are their favorite places to be online? What are they doing online? These questions will help you determine which digital marketing strategies are most effective for your company.

It’s likely that you have multiple target audiences. So, create as many buyer personas and as many customer personas as possible.

Let’s say, for example, that your target audience is married mothers between the ages 30 and 50. Facebook, Instagram and Google Business Profile are great platforms for reaching your target audience. This will help you define the best methods and budget allocation to reach your target.

4. Which marketing foundations are you using?

Consider what foundations are already in place to support your marketing efforts. This will allow you to play to your strengths and reduce the cost of a new marketing campaign.

If you have a large mailing list, then email marketing can be a great way to market your business.

Focus your energy and time on social media if you have a large following. Other foundations may be a longer-term goal, but it is a lower priority. Nevertheless, it is important to ensure that your business is digitally sound. Take stock of what you already have and identify what you need in order to build your digital foundation.

5. What’s your competition doing?

It is important to know the digital marketing strategies used by your competitors. It could work for you if it works for them. Competitive research can also be used to identify the weaknesses of your competitors and give you an opportunity for them to improve.

What can you do to match their marketing efforts or even beat them? You might be showing up higher on search engine results than they are so you should focus on SEO. Maybe their viral video marketing is inspiring you to create your own content. You can build on their success to help you launch your own marketing campaigns.

Is it better to outsource your digital marketing or do it in-house?

You will need to decide whether to outsource your digital marketing or keep it in-house.

While it may be cheaper to do it yourself, you won’t have as much expertise as a digital marketing manager. They can manage your digital marketing so you can focus on growing your business and your customers.

Consider the pros and cons to outsourcing your digital marketing and determine which option is best for you and your company. If outsourcing is the right choice, get in touch with our digital marketing team to create a plan that meets your goals for 2023 as well as brings you new growth.

No matter what, get clear on your goals and take some action. It’s far to easy to get lost in over-analyzing your digital marketing options but then see another year go by without an improvement in leads, revenue and ROI. Make 2023 a fresh start!