Being a resident in a seaside town such as Skegness it’s easy for me to keep track of which small businesses open and close on the high street. Unfortunately for you (the local businesses) any visitors that come either on holiday or just for a day out will not have this knowledge.
However when I travel out to a city and I’m looking for a place to grab some food or check out the local amenities – where is my first port of call? Google. I have eaten, drank and enjoyed some “retail therapy” in many places that I would never have possibly found without it.
No matter what your trade is – if you’re not advertising on Google then you’re missing an incredible window of opportunity.
Non – existent or incorrectly managed online advertising?
Some local business owners still believe that their storefront itself will attract all the business they need but why not tap into another rich vein of customers through Google?
Lets say you’re visiting Skegness and are looking for a bed and breakfast for the night. You search on your phone via Google for ‘Skegness bed and breakfast’; you then see several ads related to that search.
If as a business you’re not using Google to advertise or your account isn’t being managed properly, then you just lost out on a customer.
Whilst your storefront is obviously incredibly important, increasing the reach of your business to significantly more people is a logical and generally profitable step forward regardless of whether or not you’re in a prime location.
More paying customers = more potential profit. It’s that simple.
Call only campaigns
A good place to start for small local businesses is the AdWords feature call-only campaigns. Phone calls are important for business. Customers can call you regarding just about anything, opening times, prices and virtually any other questions they may have by just simply clicking on your ad.
Call only campaigns are brilliant for certain businesses such a locksmith for example. If somebody is locked out of their house, they are likely to search for a locksmith via their mobile, then potentially click your ad and call you – bringing you business because you were there when they needed you, which is the exact reason Pay Per Click advertising is so effective.
According to Google 70% of people who search via mobile call a business directly from search results, that is an astonishing figure.
Location Targeting
A common mistake that is made across thousands of AdWords campaigns is that the area they are targeting is either too big or too small. For example if you are a local butchers that is running a national Ad Words campaign then you are definitely going to be receiving a lot of traffic that could never possible convert.
It can take time to find a perfect niche catchment area using location targeting, after all you do not want to be shutting out invaluable customers, there really is a happy medium to be found.
Conclusively
Take advantage of Google. Google AdWords is still in the very early stages with regards to maximising its full potential. It is vital that as a small business you grab any potential customers you can and if you don’t I almost guarantee one of your competitors will . Why let them have all of the fun?
