Local Marketing Services (The Popular Ones)
There’s a lot of services you can offer.
Some, like web design and SEO, are really popular. But you don’t want to be the same as everyone else, do you?
Owners get pounded every day by marketers pushing the same services.
You’ve got to stand out.
Everyone thinks that means you have to sell things that are more complex, but it’s the opposite.
You need to sell things that are EASIER for owners to grasp.
“I think a simple rule of business is, if you do things that are easier first, then you can make a lot of progress.” – Mark Zuckerberg
The Formula For Quick, Easy Sales to Cold Prospects.
Selling to cold prospects is more difficult than selling to warm prospects (like referrals or existing customers). You have to capture their attention quickly and make it dead easy to purchase. If not, you’ll lose them in a heartbeat.
I have a simple formula. If what you’re selling meets all five criteria, you’re golden.
This is my five-point checklist:
- Does it pack a lot of value?
- Does it stand out from the crowd?
- Is it easy for prospects to grasp?
- Is it easy to fulfill?
- Is it easy for people to buy?
If even just ONE of those qualities is missing, I guarantee you’ll struggle to get any clients. Meet them all though, and it’s easy.
Ninety percent of marketers are out there trying to sell things that are difficult to explain, don’t pack value, are a bear to fulfill, and are tough to afford.
Popular Services
Web Design
By far the most common local marketing service offered. The wide selection of pre-made themes and simple needs for most business owners make web design an easy thing to start with. The problem is everyone and their brother are also doing it.
Besides the fact they’re a bitch to fulfill and maintain, it’s near impossible to stand out. A lot of owners now even make their own sites.They use Drag & Drop builders like Wix and Squarespace.
Web design isn’t a bad service to offer, it’s just really difficult to get your first clients with because of the competition. I do however like unique solutions like this one.
If you do want to offer web design, my favorite resources are:
- X Theme and Pro for WordPress — extremely versatile, well supported, and beautiful theme that can mimic almost anything needed
- StudioPress for WordPress — very stable and well supported, great theme selection.
- Stablehost for hosting — dirt cheap, fast, great support
For fulfillment, as tempting as it is to want to design sites yourself, I strongly suggest hiring a well-rated outsourcer from Upwork, Freelancer, or even Fiverr. You do not want to be manually building sites yourself.
Social Media
Most business owners don’t have the time to create regular content on social media channels. There’s a lot of opportunities for you to help but it can take a lot of manual work, so you ABSOLUTELY MUST have strong outsourcing in place. Or be willing to put yourself into some slave labor.
Facebook Messenger marketing is also growing very fast and deserves a mention as well as Facebook advertising. The main challenge is simply to get business owners to understand the value.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile use has overtaken desktop use. Everyone’s on their devices these days, but few local businesses are taking full advantage of it. Offering to redesign non mobile-friendly sites using responsive wordpress themes is better than trying to sell sites cold.
You can also help owners market through SMS, where they can instantly send offers by text to everyone on their list. This is especially good for restaurants and shops that see frequent visitation. The downside is it’s all still a very new technology and isn’t easy for owners to comprehend.
As a newbie, it can be challenging to explain, let alone assemble all the right moving parts together to fulfill, so I’d also steer clear of it for starting out.
SEO
SEO was, for quite some time, the biggest goldmine for local marketers. Not that long ago you could catapult almost any site up the rankings using keyword stuffing, private blog networks, link wheels, and various ‘black’ or ‘gray’ tactics.
Today Google is notoriously unpredictable and nearly impossible to “game”. They’ve gotten so smart that there just aren’t ways to buck the system anymore besides creating truly valuable, authoritive, and updated content. AKA a hell of a lot of work.
I’ve seen marketers wiped off the map overnight after even minor Google algorithm hiccups that destroy their clien’ts search positions. I’d HIGHLY recommend you stay away from SEO as a newbie. Plus, good SEO outsourcing is virtually impossible to find. Stay away!
Reputation Management
This local marketing service uses SEO for the purpose of fixing damaged reputations. Basically, you target businesses with bad reviews and attempt to flood Google with a mix of good reviews, content, and lots of web properties in hopes of pushing the bad reviews down.
Because of how irritating a nasty review or two can be, Reputation Management can make a great opportunity.
But ONLY if you’ve got astoundingly good outsourcing in place who are experts at it. And most likely if you’re starting off, this will be way beyond your head.
PPC (Pay per click)
Pay per click advertising is a great service to offer but requires a solid understanding of how Google Adwords, Bing Ads, and/or the Facebook ad platform.
It’s not an easy sell though. It requires a healthy monthly budget from your client as well as some very good patience. It’s a good local marketing service when done masterfully … but not the best service for the newbie.
Lead Generation
This can be a pretty substantial moneymaker and can be a core service that stands on its own legs. If you can generate leads – whether it’s through Facebook, SEO, Adwords, Direct Mail, or any method … you can sell them for profit.
Essentially, you generate leads yourself and client’s pay you either per lead, per sale, or on a contract basis. Some marketers even build lead-generating sites and rent them out for a monthly fee.
This is a fantastic service to offer, but for the newbie it invovles skills that you may not have acquired yet. And, because of the unpredictable nature of Facebook and Google, it’s pretty risky. Especially considering you’ll be putting so much of your own time and money into it.
Email Marketing
Surprisingly, few marketers think to make email marketing one of their local marketing services, but I think it’s a great one.
I think it’s just that email isn’t as “cutting-edge” anymore. I’m a huge proponent of email marketing and I think virtually every local business out there should be taking advantage of it.
There are so few businesses that know how to communicate with their list (let alone even build a list), and you can be the one to help. Services like Aweber, Drip, Mailchimp, and Constant Contact, allow you to easily capture opt-ins even from paper opt-in forms like “fishbowl” contests and satisfaction surveys.
The tough part is that it’s so hard to sell to cold prospects. I’ve only ever sold email marketing as an upsell.
What’s the Best Local Marketing Service to Start Off With?
In the next chapter, you’re going to learn exactly what I recommend.
These Sparkers, as I call them, are methods that meet all five “easy sale” qualities.
They’re perfect for landing your first deals and they’ll do it in record time.
Let’s dig in …