As your business grows in the current market, after a while, it will eventually reach its potential. Most of the strategies you are using are working optimally, so maybe it’s a good time to try something new. Normally, during the time of success, many decide to expand. It’s the logical step to avoid stagnation but it always comes with difficulties. And one of the biggest difficulties is usually the promotion.
Fortunately, expanding your digital marketing strategy to a new location is a good way to start your future operations. Because you already have a solid basis you won’t actually have to start from scratch. Furthermore, a carefully planned digital marketing strategy will help you fully take the advantage of fresh marketing opportunities.
According to SaaStopia, AI writer software makes adjusting your content strategy a snap. By utilizing the content suggestions these softwares provide, you’ll greatly speed up your processes to focus on what’s important.
How to expand your digital marketing strategy to a new location
Once you decide to set your business in a new place, it’s necessary to revise your website and potential marketing opportunities. Being one of the priorities, you will have to tailor a proper digital marketing strategy.
The way you set and launch your marketing campaign now will mean a difference between failure and success. Typically, it comes down to the targeted audience you are trying to reach, and the different marketing channels you will use.
To help you establish your business, seize potential growth opportunities, and boost your revenue, here are a few essential ways to expand your digital marketing strategy to any new location:
- Make adjustments to your website
- Verify new Google My Business location
- Create buyer personas
- Plan your content strategy
- Work on SEO with the location in mind
- Modify your offer for the new market
- Use PPC for local advertising
- Spread the word on social media
- Maintain customer relationships
1. Make adjustments to your website
While the visual appeal of a website is important, for businesses, nothing works without optimized content. Most businesses that operate in a singular geographical location create content specific for that area. From mentioning local events to filling the galleries with local images, everything is designed with a particular audience in mind. After all, it is necessary from both a business and SEO perspective.
Search engines use that local information when displaying results to searches with local intent. After which, people use the same information to evaluate you and make their purchasing decisions. But, now that you are expanding to a new place, it becomes necessary to make some adjustments. This is not an easy task, especially for businesses that expand to multiple locations.
First, you should create separate pages for each location. You will have to change your service pages, the about us page, and even some content on your homepage. As for the contact information, it has to be clearly divided for each location. Also, you will need to include images from the new place. One of the good tactics, for example, is to create separate landing pages for each location.
2. Verify new Google My Business location
The next step considers local SEO. There are numbers you should know that point out that Google accounts for the majority of global search traffic. Therefore, your starting focus should be on improving your visibility there. And conveniently, one of the best tools for local SEO is, no surprise here, Google My Business. Considering this, you probably already have a GMB profile for your current city.
But, because you are expanding your business to a new place, you will need another profile for that new location. While creating a GMB page for each of your business locations is easy, maintaining them is a completely different matter. If you remember all the effort you have put into winning high-ranking positions for local searches, it will be necessary to do it all over again.
Luckily, a carefully optimized GMB page for the new location is a powerful tool worth investing in. It will considerably boost your local visibility, reputation, and can be used to establish relationships with new customers. Just make sure information is accurate and up to date, and pay close attention to reviews.
3. Create buyer personas
One of the vital steps when entering a new market is to create authentic buyer personas. Since you are trying to do business in a different environment, you have to carefully think about your targeted audience.
In general, the buyer persona is your ideal customer. It’s the person that needs, can make use of, and wants what you have to offer. Making one requires additional effort for researching, interviewing, and surveying potential consumers from the new location.
It’s important that all the conclusions are based on real information, without any assumptions. This information includes, but is not limited to customers’:
- Location
- Demographics
- Incomes
- Preferences
- Goals
- Interests
- and many more
By combining all the research, and all the acquired information, you will create your buyer personas. And it will serve you as sort of a template for targeting the right audience.
4. Plan your content strategy
When planning your content strategy, ensure you are covering the right topics. While you can optimize almost any content for SEO purposes, it’s necessary that it’s the right content for the right audience. Otherwise, any information will be completely useless because it will “fall to blind eyes”. In this case, if you make content for the wrong audience.
In other words, you don’t want to try to sell or advertise the ice to people in Alaska. Before you decide on your content creation strategies, explore the local area and its market. See if there is anything unique people from the area are particularly interested in. Check which social media channels they are using, and what topics they discuss the most.
Explore their needs, search intents, common issues, and write about solutions. Don’t just create the content for the sake of creating. Generally speaking, write about the things they want to read about, not about the things you want to write about. This way, your content will be engaging and will definitely help your marketing efforts.
5. Work on SEO with the location in mind
Optimizing the content and online mentions is still a great part of SEO in general. For this, you will need the right selection of keywords. Previously, we have discussed intentions and interests. However, for the best results, you will have to also include localization in your keywords. Not only the specific terms people are searching online.
If you are offering gear for summertime activities in Miami, and want to expand your business to Tampa, for example, you will have to include keywords with Tampa beside. In the end, search engines will know what to rank you for, and you don’t want to confuse your potential customers. In addition, since you already have established SEO for your original location, you can easily link to new relevant content and further boost your efforts.
6. Modify your offer for the new market
Sometimes, the best way to improve your digital marketing strategy is to think outside the box, as the experts from Digital Dot can confirm. While having a strong demand for specific products/services is a prerequisite, it doesn’t have to be everything. There are cases where you can consider modifying your offer for a particular area.
For example, a software company has a scheduling app. It is specialized for dentists for making appointments with their clients. But the new market is a big city where beauty salons thrive. If possible, they will invest in modifying their app to serve the new purpose and advertise it as a different product. Which, it eventually is.
Another way is to modify your offer by combining the efforts with other local businesses. For example, if you are into business with transportation vehicles, you can find reputable local moving companies and rent vehicles to them. With such cooperation, not only will you achieve better business results, but you will also benefit from their local reputation marketing-wise.
7. Use PPC for local advertising
Speaking of local advertising, PPC can be a valuable contributor to your marketing strategy. After all the SEO efforts up until now, you can add PPC to strengthen your position at the new location. Basically, you can find local websites and places that offer paid advertising, or you can use Google, and social media ads, to display your offer on different local networks.
On top of it, you can go outside digital marketing, and pay for ads on local newspapers, radio stations, billboards, and other locations. In essence, anything that can build awareness about your business is welcome.
8. Spread the word on social media
Today, one of the most effective ways to increase awareness about your business is to use social media. They offer free means to spread the word and bring you closer to potential customers. With a carefully optimized social media profile, you can easily make your business stand above your competitors. After all, there is a reason why all SEO agencies offer social media maintenance as a part of their SEO repertoire.
Besides, social media gives you the opportunity to collaborate with influencers. You can outreach to local experts, popular people, and similar personas to further advertise your business in the new areas. Because of the lack of popularity since you are new, this is a great way to build your brand there from scratch.
9. Maintain customer relationships
Last, but not least, you will need to provide excellent customer support. Whether it’s a GMB profile, social media account, or your call service, customer relationships are key factors to get the trust and loyalty of customers. Not only will you be seen as someone who takes care of its clients, but it will also ensure much-needed customer retention.
While finding new customers is always beneficial, nothing will boost your revenue as a strong pool of regular customers. To make it work from the start, you can utilize special offers, discounts, different promotions, and giveaways. Most importantly, always pay attention to customer feedback and reviews. Even if they are bad, you can solve the issues and turn them to your own advantage.
In the end, expanding your digital marketing strategy to a new city can boost the power of your brand in general. With just a few steps, you can build a strong foundation for your business presence with ease. Just make sure to place your customers first and research them carefully, and you will have everything you need for a good start.
