Small business owners have a small ecosystem within their own communities and surrounding communities to attract visitors to their brick and motor store fronts and websites. Understanding your our own community and surrounding communities is paramount to your localized success in whatever business you’re in for long lasting foot traffic and web for their success. A recent study found that most “niche” small business sites get 11 times more traffic than there large competitors by focusing on their niche and customers.
The small business community has a great opportunity to build a long relationship with their customers by understanding where they live, what they need and how they shop. By utilizing social media to get your customers involved with your products is so much more important than in it was 20 years ago because people get text messages, offers and news directly to their phone. Most small businesses don’t have the time to learn everything about social media and how to drive traffic in just a couple of days. One of the biggest things a small business owner can do is understand how people interact with them locally and how they found their business.
Here are some ways to help you understand your customer base and drive customers via web and to your store:
1. Ask them how did you find out about our store?
2. Where do you live?
3. Can you share your e-mail?
4. Have small 4×6 flyers that offer your physical address, twitter address and Facebook address. Offer them a small coupon for a “like” on your Facebook page.
5. Once you understand where your customers are from create a “blog” on your website or through Blogger on Google.
6. Write articles about your industry, products or services and link the article to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This will help create a local presence.
7. Each month sent out an email with a coupon to your customers. This will create more foot and web traffic. Within the email add a code they must bring with them or add in when they check out your site.
8. Once you understand which customers are engaged you then can offer them ways to spread the word through their Facebook and Twitter accounts and have them share those coupons with their friends of friends to have them stop by your site or store.
What you now have created is a wheel of local and regional business that can affect your business daily. Most successful small business owners will tell you by engaging your most active customers by offering them deals to share with their friends could have a 25% to 30% lift consistently in their business.
Being a small business owner is challenging every day but if you are on the right side of online and traditional marketing those days become easier because you are constantly engaged with your best customers who have the ability to share your business with their friends by incenting them to share your success.
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