How To Market My Local Business - How To Get Started

I'm not even sure where to start. That is a question that came up I saw in a feed on digital marketing the other day and I thought, you know, this is something that surprised me because this was coming from a person who says, I am starting out a digital marketing company and I'm not even sure where to start marketing my company. And when I saw this, I thought, wow, this is pretty interesting because here's someone who's going to ask you, as a local business, to give them money, and yet they're not sure where to begin to market their own business. So I decided to take the range and say, you know what, I'm going to do my part, however little or big that is, and I'm going to share some insight to local business owners who may be struggling with that process of going from. I used to put ads in a newspaper or thinking about the radio, and now everything is digital. All my customers are online, and how do I communicate with them? It can drive someone crazy. And here's the thing, it's changing all the time, so don't feel bad. But the cool part about it is starting today, you're already so far ahead of anyone else out there in your local community in using digital marketing, if we just apply some simple steps. So before we get started, my name is Jeff Harris. I own a company called Swing Point Media, and we help local businesses do exactly this. We help them with either a full done for you package or we also offer a done with you package that I'll talk about towards the end. But today is all about you and helping you get some information that will help you as a local business owner figure out, hey, what are some of the first things I need to get started? Now? I want to share with you something that's called the curse of knowledge. And this is where people, it doesn't matter what field you're in, you can think about what you do and all the knowledge that you've learned. You kind of assume that, hey, everybody knows this. And so you kind of think, well, who am I to share information? Well, here's the thing. There are a lot of people out there think about climbing a ladder and you're three steps up the ladder. Well, there are two extra steps back there that people have not achieved yet. But we think because of the curse of knowledge, geez, everybody knows that. So we don't think about that being something we want to share with people. Well, after 14 years of doing this, there's a few things that we've shared and I'm not Saying I'm at the top of the ladder, by no means. But what I am going to share are some things to help you get started as a local business owner, to figure out, hey, how do I start using and leveraging these tools on the Internet without losing my mind or blowing a bunch of cash and be effective. So the first thing I want to talk about today is it's called the 7114 formula and what that is, there was a study done and it said, hey, if we are going to create a relationship and it's going to be online, we need to probably spend about seven hours with someone. Now, this is personally, this is online. So as an example, think back of somebody who you might have met at a party and it was just an acquaintance, and then you met them again, and then you decided, hey, let's go out for coffee. And then you participate in something and next thing you know, after about seven hours, you have seven hours of commitment with these people and you have now a friendship, a relationship. Well, the same is true when it comes to online, because here's the facts. 92% of us, before we ever make a buying decision, we will go online and we will use that powerful tool called Google Search to help us determine what is our next step. I want you to think about the last time you decided to buy something of any significance. I'm not talking about a pack of gum. I'm talking about something of significance. Before you made that decision, you probably went online and you did some searching. Because we all have questions in our minds that we need to have answered before we can move to that next step. Some of them, we don't even know if they exist. So we might start out and asking that question and we're not sure if there's even a solution. And then that that video or that article comes up and we read about it and we become more aware of it. Well, here's the thing. If you think about your business and you don't have at least seven hours worth of, I'm going to say, digestible content out on the market, the chances of you building some really good relationships with your potential customer are against you. The odds are greatly against you. Because what's going to happen is you are going to maybe have a few pieces of content out there and it warms these people up. It makes them aware that, hey, I'm not the only one out there without that with this problem and there are solutions. And now when I start searching for solutions, and if you don't have additional information but your competitor Does. Guess what? You've kind of already teed me up to buy from your competitor. So basically you should be asking your competitors for a referral. I'm just kidding. That's probably not going to happen. But the program is, this is, I call it breadcrumbing. And it's basically putting out enough content to lead people from the awareness stage, like I didn't even know that that existed, to a consideration stage, to a decision making phase. And each piece of these, of these three areas, it's a little bit different content. I'll give you an example. An area that we work heavily in is in H Vac companies, heating and air conditioning. And one of the, one of the questions, and I'm not going to go through all of it, one of the questions that a lot of people will have, in fact, I just saw something over the weekend that led one of our clients, new customers, to them. And the question was, why is my air conditioning blowing hot air? Now, here's the thing. They went online and they searched for that answer and when they went to Google and the answers came up, there's an article there and there's also a video from one of our clients. So what it did is it started like a dating company. It connected the two people, the two together, the individual looking for the problem or for the solution, and the company with that solution. And then without doing any heavy selling, it went through a process of, hey, these are some of the reasons why your air conditioning may be blowing hot air. And just like we're doing now is we're giving you answers to things. And then if you want more, hey, click a button or give us a call, whatever it may be. This may be the awareness stage. Well, if you don't have a lot of these questions already answered out there, then you want to make sure to start doing this. Now. Some of you might say, well, how do I know what my customers want? Well, a good place to start is ask your customers and hey, what kind of questions do you have that you need answered before you can make a decision? Another place is ask your staff. If you, as an example, in this H Vac company, they have technicians in the field every day, they have people answering their phones. What are the most common questions? What we found is, and it's not a rule, it's just a guide. There are about 20 questions that the average set of customers tend to ask that need to be answered. Now, rarely will they have to go through all 20 before they move to the next stage where they may just pick up the phone and call because now they're satisfied with this. But just like anything else, if someone that you just met suggests a remedy for you and you've just met them, how much trust and authority they have. Well, not a lot, right? But if you read another article from them, watch another video, your trust starts to build. And to take that to the next next level, you might move then to what we call the consideration stage. And this may be, well, well, let me check out that, that company, let me go to their website, let me look at some of their reviews. What are their past customers saying about them? Well, they're really good. They've got a thousand five star reviews. All of a sudden the consideration or the confidence in that customer goes way up. And when that happens, you're now in that stage where you're really building on that 7 hours at 7114 formula. So 7 hours is what you really need out there. If you don't have that, start thinking about that. The questions you put together, the content you put together, are the ones that answer those questions. I want to make something very, very clear right now. This is not an opportunity to beat on your chest and say how great I am. If you've noticed in this first nine or 10 minutes that we've been online together, I've not told you how great I am.

You don't care about that. It's called what's in it for me. I'm here to help you. And so if I can help you become more successful, I become more valuable to you. Well, the same thing is true. And I don't care what you do in your business. If you're a local business, the more you create value, the more people know, like and trust you. But now let's talk about the next one. Seven. The next one is 11. That's 11 different instances where they may have contact with you. And this is why a lot of times we've gone from saying, hey, we're just putting content on your YouTube page. That's all we're doing. Well, that's one location we're going to try to make it where we have 11 different contacts. Now, it doesn't mean you're on 11 different platforms, but it may be one of those things where you say you're producing enough content that's answering and helping your ideal customers that over the course of a, let's say a week, I might have 11 different contacts. Now let's play this out a little differently. Let's use a customer that is a client that is of ours. They'll have five different social media posts every week, but they'll do that on four different platforms. So that's literally 20 different potential touch points. Each platform, even though it has a similar type of post, will be customized for that platform. In other words, a LinkedIn post will be much different than a Facebook post, which will be much different than a TikTok post. But it will all basically be the same as far as what is the message for the day. So there's 20 different potential opportunities. Then we'll take that same piece of content and we'll send it out to them via the email. And in this particular case, let's say they have 5,000 people in email database. We'll send that out. The next one will be, well, what about YouTube? YouTube is another great opportunity. So we have, we have social media, we have YouTube, we have.

Their, their emails, but what about their website? Well, that's another great place to put the content. Well, all of a sudden, if somebody comes to your website because let's say they saw a video that said, hey, how come my air conditioner is blowing warm air? And it takes them to that video, they watch it and they click on to their website. And on the website they decide to watch a couple more videos, maybe read two or three more articles. What has that done to the relationship? It's made it stronger, it's made it more confident. Now, I want to ask you a question. As a business owner, how much are you involved in that conversation? I mean, like, you had to be there. You didn't have to answer a phone, you didn't have to answer an email, but this was working for you all the time. So that's really, really important. So 7 hours, 11 different contacts, and 4 means on 4 different platforms. This is why we choose different platforms. We choose a lot of times for local businesses. Google business profile, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. So there's four or five locations plus YouTube. I think I said YouTube. So there's about five different locations. So if they go from one place to another, they're going to see you. And in their mind they say, hey, this business must be everywhere or they're everywhere. It must be somebody I want to take more or give more attention to. So that's a 7, 11, 4 formula. So I want to take a second.

Excuse me. I want to take a second and talk about expectations from a local business owner.

And I want to set this properly because as a digital marketing company, we do two types of marketing. One, we do content marketing, and the other, you do paid advertising. Now, content marketing is like you're planting a shade tree, you're nurturing it, and it's growing. The difference is we're putting a lot of shade trees out there, and next thing you know, you wake up and you have an orchard full of shade trees and you have plenty of shade forever. It takes a while to build that. So for content marketing, if you're starting to do content, please don't think, hey, I'm going to put out one video and I'm going to be a rock star, and all of a sudden people are going to be beating my door down to do business with me. It's just not the way it is. I want to be completely upfront. So if somebody does say that, sorry, that's not the way it works. If you're starting from ground zero, I don't care how good you are. Even Mr. Beast said, hey, don't even come back to me. Mr. Beast is one of those guys who, he hit the market about five years ago, and he does hundreds of millions of views on his YouTube videos. He'll tell you, hey, before you even talk to me, go make 100 videos. So if you're thinking, hey, one is going to be a home run, probably not going to do it. But what I found is local business owners, they want some now money while they're waiting for the future. Money that comes from paid advertising. Paid advertising is like, okay, you create a piece of content. Let's say you put out that video. Let's go back to that. Why is my air conditioning blowing hot air? And you have a post, let's say, on Facebook. Well, to get more people to see that. Here's a little inside bit of information. Those platforms are really pay to play platforms. In other words, if I pay, I will be shown to more people and it'll be more visible to my potential customers. So what I'll do is I'll take that particular video or a post about why my air conditioning is blowing hot air and I will boost it or I will run an ad to it. In other words, I put a little money behind it. And all of a sudden, now that video that might have or that post that might have gotten, let's say, 25 to 30 views that week, now it's being shown to several thousand. Well, the chances are if you're standing in front of a thousand people versus ten people who know like, or excuse me, are in that situation where they're going to need some help with air conditioning, I'd rather be standing in Front of a thousand, because the chances are I'm going to get more business. The difference is on your content, it's constantly out there attracting your ideal customer. Paid is going out there and getting those ideal customers. The moment you stop paying, the moment we stop running the ads for the customer, guess what? It goes back to 25 or 30. It doesn't sustain. The flip side of that is with content marketing, it continues to build. So the goal today was to understand a couple things. One is manage your expectations. You have to put content out there and the type of content we're talking about, it doesn't have to be high production value anymore. It can be as easy as pulling out your phone. In fact, it's really good. It's called user generated content. It's one of those things where you can open up your phone and if you're in the service industry, it doesn't matter. Let's say you're a carpet cleaner. Well, you walk into someone's home and say, hey, I've just arrived at a client's home and here's a picture you're seeing of the carpet. We're about ready to clean and you can see there's some, there's some, you know, walkways that are very dirty. And, and as we move the couch, we're noticing, wow, there's quite a difference in the color. Our goal today is to get it back to that color. Stay tuned for the second portion of this and then you post that. And then when you're done, guess what you do. Hey, I'm back. And we're, I'm going to show you the difference of, after we did this, what this carpet looks like. Now, when you pull the couch back, the same color carpet exists on both underneath the couch and in the walkways. That's the value of what we do. If you're interested in making sure your walk walkway is clean and people aren't concerned about your carpets being dirty, call me. My information is on the screen. Whatever it is, that's how you can do this. People like, this is very authentic. If you notice, I don't have any fancy backgrounds. I'm just basically in my office and we're just shooting this video. I'm having a conversation with you, hopefully giving you some value. So the other is don't let the curse of knowledge hold you back, thinking, oh my gosh, everybody knows. Everybody knows what I know. Why would I waste my time sharing this? Remember, you only have to attract a person who's one, one ladder or one rung of that ladder below you. And they'll say, oh my gosh, this is great information and I would love to do this if you are not sure where to begin because this came up about a week ago. I said, listen, I want to create a piece of content and you know, for lack of better terminology, it's an ebook and I want to share it with you. Now I'm going to put it in the comments section. There's, I don't need you to, I don't need you to opt in. This is just something you can download. And we put together a guide that basically it's, it's here to help you for a local business owner on how to do digital marketing. Now, I've only touched on the very, very simple stuff. Right before I go, I want to talk about making sure you're communicating with your audience properly. And that's going to wrap it up for today. First of all.

And I know it's going to, this is going to come to some people like, you know, you're kidding me. I'll sometimes talk to a business, always talk to business and say, tell me what your, who your ideal customers are. And they say male and female. I say, okay, well at what age do you, do you deal with? And they say, well, you know, 18 to 55. Wow, that is a big, big audience to talk, talk with. I want you to, for just a second imagine you have a room and the audience in the room is between 18 and 55. And you have to figure out how to communicate with every one of those age groups. And I'm not saying, you know, every individual age, but you know, there's, if you're some talking to somebody who's 15 to 20, there's probably a communication level and there's terminology and there's dress and there's colors, there's slang words, the same thing throughout all of that. So I want you to break this down and especially if it's men and women, I want you to answer this question. Where does 80%.

Of my business come from? And what you'll probably find out is this, you'll find out that all of a sudden it's like, wow, it's 35 to 40 year old women and not the men. That's where I'd like you to start. Where's 80% of your revenue coming from? And get good with that and then take this next step. What's the language that they use? What's the music they listen to? What are the, what are the, the magazines, if they read magazines, what are the magazines they read, what TV shows they do, they watch. And all of a sudden you start saying, hey, when I create content.

It integrates their language. Because what this does is when people are scrolling through their, through their news feeds and they see something that looks and feels like them and connects with them, they're more active to stop. I'll give you a perfect example of this. I'm on a bus several years ago and I'm in New Jersey. I'm on a bus and there's a lot of people there and someone overheard me saying I was from California. From near the back of the bus, someone yells, hey, I'm from California. Where are you from? Now, I don't know if you realize this, but There are about 40 million people in California. What's the chances of knowing each other? But they stopped what they were doing. Why? Because there was some familiarity. They were in New Jersey, I was in New Jersey, we're both from California. There's a commonality when you try to talk to everybody on the bus, nobody listens. So I want you to think about who on that bus is your ideal customer. Produces 80% of your con of your, your sales. That's where I want you to start. Speak to them as if they're 35 to 40 year old women. Make sure you use the right colors, reference the right type of programs that they watch, the books that they read, all that type of stuff. And what you'll see is your communication will go up dramatically and the chances of you probably making better sales, higher quality sales are going to be better.

That's really what I wanted to share with you today. I'm going to be back, so don't, don't say oh geez, you didn't cover it. There's a lot to cover. The big things I wanted to be sure today is, hey, I'm not even sure where to begin. Begin by understanding who your ideal audience is and create that demographic of who they are. And then I want you to download in the comments the free book that I put together that details exactly how to do digital marketing for a local business. And then I want you to join me again. Next time you can DM me and say, hey, when's the next show? And I'll let you know and we'll talk a little bit more about this. Thanks again for joining me. My name is Jeff Harrison. Again I'm with, with Swing Point Media and I appreciate you giving me your time today. Let me just turn that off. Again, my name is Jeff Harrison, Swingpoint Media. We are a local business marketing agency. Been doing this for about 14 years. Started back in 2000. What was that? 10? So we have done this a little bit. Doesn't mean we're an expert. I call myself a practitioner. Every day I'm learning how to do this better. And I'm just sharing that with you today. So don't let your curse of knowledge stop you from being better. Thanks again for joining me. Have a great day.