Can a Local Business take Control of their Marketing? – Awareness/Advertising

A business will never get new customers unless people become aware of said business. Awareness can occur in so many different ways.

A person can drive by a business or walk past them in a downtown area. A close friend can tell them about the business. They can hear a radio ad or see a commercial on the TV. A person could read an article released by the business, etc.

Everything I mentioned above is how marketing used to be done. These were the only avenues available to businesses. Fifteen years ago the biggest concern most businesses had was if their competitor showed up earlier than their business in the newspaper.

In this day and age Local businesses have to worry about businesses on the other side of the country who have an e-commerce website and sell the same product. If this competitor does a better job of making people aware of their business in your local area, your business will lose a lot of traffic.

So how do Local businesses get people to become aware of their business? The most effective method is digital advertising on major search engines and social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn depending on their business model.

93% of adults use the internet on a weekly basis. There is NOTHING else in the world that can even come close to allowing a business to reach that much of the US population.

The internet is vast and if you don’t know how to reach your ideal audience, a business’s advertising can get lost amongst everyone else’s advertising on the internet as well.

To be able to properly advertise to your ideal audience, a business needs to understand their ideal audience. What are their demographics:

Gender

Age

Interests

Income level

Location

Language

Device they use most

Where they consume content

Google and all major social media platforms have advanced demographic algorithms that allow businesses to filter to whom they send their advertising.

Every single one of these platforms will walk a person through how to advertise to their ideal audience.

If a business doesn’t feel that they understand their demographics well enough, there is another route they can take.

Most businesses have a database of customers they have serviced. If they have the name, email address and phone number, they can upload this information into Google or social media platforms and do what is called a look-a-like campaign. These platforms will take these individuals and find as many of them as possible in their platform. They will then analyze these people and then find other people that have similar characteristics.

With the ideal audience figured out, a business can concentrate on creating the message and visuals for the advertisement or advertisements.

People use the internet for 2 reasons:

1. To solve a problem or problems
2. To satisfy a need or needs

When creating an advertisement understanding these two points is important. Then the messaging and visuals should tease the fact that you can either solve the problem or satisfy the need.

Now the person is interested in the fact that you can solve the problem or satisfy the need, which generates awareness and drives them to find out more information.

These are the basics of advertising that any local business can use to take control of their advertising.

In our next issue in this series we’ll be discussing the Findability phase of the Customer Journey.