In todayโs technical age, many people begin their holiday shopping online. Some may โpre-shopโ online ads while others will use online searches to โmapโ their shopping route. Stores like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, easily find their way into the publicโs shopping excursions, but, how does your local business keep its edge? Learn the tools that could make the difference in your local businessesโ holiday success.
Ecommerce
Does your website make online shopping easy? One major complaint of doing business locally during the holidays is the difficulty customers have with the online purchases from local businesses. Shipping is often costly, and finding items or specifications may be close to impossible. However, if you want to compete with the big box retailers, you must make it easy for your customers. Make sure your search features are helpful in locating items that are advertised. Ensure ease of using discount codes by creating links to websites such as retailmenot. ย Keep shipping affordable. The easier the use of the website for shopping, the more customers will buy.
SEO and Pay-Per-Click Marketing
Most large retailers employ both SEO and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing techniques to help stay relevant to shoppers all year round. While SEO is a more organic type of marketing campaign, if paired with PPC properly, it can help your local business stay relevant and competitive. Research to learn the hot topics and items for this holiday season. Determine what shoppers are looking for and what they feel is important during the holiday season. Then, create your SEO marketing campaign around this information. ย Once you create your SEO marketing campaign based on your research, find the optimal keywords to create a pay-per-click campaign.
Google and Local Listings
Aside from making sure people can find your website, you want to make sure they can find your storefront. Google is ready to help! This holiday season, Google is enabling a new feature that allows businesses to list special hours based on their holiday specials and hours on their local listing. Now customers can see what your holiday hours are without you spending thousands of dollars in special advertising campaigns.
Once you have taken advantage of this, make sure you update all of your social media and local listings to link to your Google listing or include your holiday hours and specials. Sites like YELP, Yellow Pages, Facebook, Twitter, and Shop Local should include important information relating to your sales and holiday hours to let your customers and potential customers know you are a viable option for holiday shopping. Make sure you also take advantage of any town websites related to your location.
Let the Shopping Begin
By taking advantage of these free or inexpensive marketing tools, you are creating a competitive local business that is sure to be successful during the upcoming holiday season. ย Make sure to take advantage of digital marketing by utilizing social media campaigns, local listings, and other digital marketing tools. Using these techniques will help keep you relevant while allowing shoppers to shop local. And do not forget to take advantage of shop local campaigns that offer a digital media component.
