The Hawaii community loves to support locally owned Hawaii businesses, but connecting with local customers is a two way street. If local businesses aren’t getting in front of their local customers, they will be forced to choose a mainland company out of necessity.
Sometimes national businesses like Yelp, Home Advisor and others simply play middle man against local Hawaii companies because there isn’t any competition.
In the graphic below you’ll see that there aren’t any local companies competing for the search term entered, meaning the big guys can gobble up all the website traffic for cheap and resell the leads to the local service providers at a premium.
Hawaii loses when locally earned money is sent to a company that is based somewhere on the mainland, so how can local businesses make sure that they are getting in front of their customers and being competitive?
We’ve outlined a few ideas for you below.
Establish a Solid Digital Presence
Even if your business isn’t the most photogenic, you can increase the size of your online footprint by claiming all of your social media accounts, entering a descriptive bio, and making a few posts that show your business in it’s best light.
You should make sure that you have your Name, Address and Phone number correct on all of your digital properties.
Have a System for Generating Reviews
Review sites like Google My Business, Yelp and TripAdvisor can be frustrating to manage, especially when you receive a negative or false review, but they can also be used to build your reputation online and bring in new customers.
Ensure that you have a process in place for capturing reviews from your happy customers and over time you will build a solid review ecosystem.
Use Local SEO
This one might sound like a no brainer, but in our experience with companies in Hawaii: many websites lack even the basic elements of good SEO like meta-tags, connecting their Google Search Console, and keeping their business info up to date.
Google will pull information from your website and your Google My Business to generate results for people searching in your area, so make sure that the information matches and your website copy includes details about your business.
Personalize Your Marketing
You are not a one-size fits all company. As a local business owner you have the ability to develop a deeper, stronger and more personal relationship with your customers. With a little bit of work you will be able to segment your customers and target audience into distinct groups in order to serve them better.
Customer Loyalty Program
One of the best ways to increase customer lifetime value is to implement a loyalty program that keeps your customers coming back. They can feel good about supporting a local business while getting something in return. Its a win-win situation.
Improve Your Messaging
It is important to know what your competition is doing in order to stand out from the pack. In terms of local marketing, make sure that you are amplifying your unique characteristics and expertise in your ads. Big box brands will typically have generic copywriting and imaging, giving your business the edge.
Work With A Local PPC Ad Agency
Competing against big brands isn’t easy. You have to:
- Know what your competitors are doing.
- Understand your competitive advantages.
- Communicate those differences in your ad messaging.
- Monitor your data and test new ideas.
Without a dedicated digital marketing team, it is almost impossible to compete against big brands and high end digital agencies.
By working with a local agency they will be able to give you more personalized attention with better results, because they are familiar with competing in the local advertising space.
Have a Professional Website
We can’t stress this enough; if you want to compete with big brands, your website needs to look clean and professional.
A website needs to inspire confidence before customers will feel comfortable working with you. This means that your website should be modern, mobile friendly, functional, and look good.
If your site hasn’t been updated in some years, this should be among your top priorities.
Even if you run amazing ad campaigns that draw lots of clicks, you will lose conversions if your site doesn’t build trust.
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