So you survived Halloween? Too much candy or not enough? Since Halloween has passed, now here we are with only a few days to go until it’s time to vote. Then we got Thanksgiving. Then all the kids are home for the holidays up next. We’re also a little under 2 months away from a whole new year. What a crazy year it’s been so far. We’re bearing witness to one of the worst economies we’ve had since the stock market crash of 1929. Many of us in the industry are watching clients tighten their belt, less budgets opening up to hire on SEO talents, and most telling is the general consensus of “how can we afford marketing in times like these” coming from businesses varying in size. Undeniably, that is a very legitimate concern.
I work with a number of small businesses both locally and back on the mainland and the story is the same in terms of their concerns. But there is something that I’m seeing that might be able to counteract the downturn in prior marketing efforts that have lost feasibility; local marketing has taken a high priority for business owners and rightfully so. And guess what; you can be their lighthouse in the storm.
What’s Old Is New Again
Sure we’ve all heard about local search marketing online, but what I’m talking about is a marriage of traditional local marketing (manning the phones, pounding the pavement, etc.) and integrating it into your online arsenal. Over the last 7 or 8 years it was all about getting market share against the competition, and whoever gains the largest chunk of ground usually gets the most profit. Well now we have a new element added in which changes the whole game. It’s still all about trying to get the market share but the market is shrinking around us. Whoever gets the most doesn’t go out of business. The urgency just got turned up a few hundred degrees.
So how can we be there to help our clients be successful? Simple. Keep the online side of things involved with their local marketing plan.
- Do they plan on doing a big mailer to local companies? Be sure to include the address for a custom landing page on the mailer. On the custom landing page make the call to action to be the only option the visitor has. ANALYTICS is a must!
- Are they looking for new companies in the area to do business with? Play gopher and get as much info as you can about the companies and get it back to your client.
- Have they identified some local targets but don’t know how to get their foot in the door? Google search hard to look for anything published in papers or perhaps industry events which talks about the department head, or at least someone close to them. Now you got a name and a target.
- Would your client feel comfortable about bringing local business contacts to their workplace for an event? Craigslist, local forums, Chambers of Commerce, online press release, printed flyers, even consider some kind of air time on talk radio.. promote promote promote!
Local News Is Your Friend
Even if you live hundreds or thousands of miles away from your client, it’s good business etiquette to be on top of things that affect your client either by knowing something about their industry, or something about the area they do work in. Local news is really good for this kind of information. But in this case, we’re not here to talk about the weather.
It’s pretty common for newspapers to have some kind of section devoted to business in the area, or at the very least, community events and who is sponsoring them. And most, if not all of these papers have an online version, and most if not all of those offer RSS (Don’t forget about picking up the feeds for neighboring areas!). See where this is going right? You could even take it a step higher and make yourself a custom Yahoo Pipe along with a Google alert to get notifications that are very fine tuned.
Armed With Optimism
Uncertainty is dragging us all down from time to time. Simple fact. But we all seem to respond positively to anyone who is showing strength and resolution to see things through or just take the hard times in stride. Even if your client is chronically grumpy, or you’re the grump, this is the time to change the sales pitch and attitude in general. They need to be confident and optimistic. Who wants to do business with a person who is giving off a sense of dread and dissatisfaction with life and business?
So how can you help? INFORMATION. At my old job, I used to be the guy that would arm commercial real estate brokers with more information, statistics, media, and company schwag than they knew what to do with when they were going to meet with a potential client. They walked out of the office knowing that no matter what kind of questions were lobbed at them, I had probably already considered that question and prepared materials to address it. I gave them confidence. I gave them solidarity by showing I was behind them every step of the way. In the end they would often came back with a contract in hand or at the very least, a scheduled meeting in the near future to get things going. This is your role.. keep your client focused on how to sell themselves and show them that you are in their corner all the time.
Conclusion
Look I’m not gonna lie to anyone here; the country is in bad shape and it’s rattling all of our cages from time to time. And I know how hard it can be to get up and give a damn about most things and hope that it’s sincere enough to pass. At the end of the day, we call to our family and friends to help us finish off the day on the best note possible. Your client and you need to be able to prop each other up right now as well to weather these times. I promise you that it will all be worth it in the end after we all walk out the other side of this storm together.
