The Best Local Strategies for Creating Effective Content Marketing Plans

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The scope is something to note if you're just getting started with content marketing; the scope is something to note. 

You may not know that content marketing can be more than just posting blog posts or articles on your website. You can also use content to attract new customers, drive people to your website, and build brand awareness. 

It's no longer enough to have a presence on the internet simply. You have to be actively building relationships with your target audience. More brands focus on creating a platform to interact with customers. 

Let's focus on a few methods businesses build their local audience. 

7 Best Local Content Marketing Strategies

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1. Identifying Target Audience And Needs

Local businesses often miss the mark when creating content that will connect with their target audience. They are either too broad or too narrow. They don't know where to begin. 

They often get stuck thinking that they need to create content that will appeal to the masses. 

Understand Your Audience

The key is knowing what your target audience wants. You can't just create content that you think people want. You have to create content that will resonate with your target audience. 

That means understanding your audience, what they care about, and what problems they have. This requires significant time and research on your part. But if you spend time here, you will save plenty down the line. 

• Brandwatch is a great platform to get more insights into your audience. For example, the target audience's behavior on each social media channel. 

• BuzzSumo also has a powerful insights section to get more data about your customers. 
• People Pattern is a newer tool that draws data from user social data. 

Read: How to Boost Audience Engagement with Local Email Marketing

2. Focusing On High-Quality Content Creation

One of the biggest challenges in local content marketing is finding unique content ideas.

The problem is that most businesses are familiar with a lot of the same topics and can easily find the same information online. That's where your content ideas come into play. 

Create Unique And Relevant Quality Content

Local content marketing can be a great way to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your business. But to get the most out of local content marketing, you need to make sure that the content you create is top-notch. 

You need to think about what topics you're passionate about and what interests your audience. Once you've done that, start looking for content ideas in those areas. This can help you flesh out new content creation perspectives.

• SEMrush Topic Research Tool is a great first step to finding content ideas.
• Google Trends is the obvious choice for SMBs and even enterprises in some cases. Just enter the keyword with location, and you’ll get what’s trending around your business location. 

• AnswerThePublic has a lot of valuable insights for content creation ideas.

3. Developing A High Productivity Content Strategy

The focal point of all content marketing strategies should be to engage users and be productive for the brand. Keeping this in mind, you need to develop a strategy covering these aspects. It can help you get the most out of your content creation process.

Streamlining Your Content Strategy

Your blog posts are essentially a form of content marketing. One way to create engagement is to create two types of content - informative and persuasive. Informational blog posts can include topics like how to make a better sandwich or why you should get a pet. 

Persuasive posts, however, are used to influence the reader to do something, like purchase your product or read your ebook. Both these types of content are critical to building your complete content strategy.

For example, the topics below persuade users to click and go through them.

• Ahrefs is a powerful platform that has strong content development tools.
• Grammarly and ProWritingAid are great for auditing written content. 
• Focus on creating visual experiences with Canva and Adobe Photoshop.

4. Deploying Intensive A/B Testing

A/B testing tests two different versions of a product or service to see which one performs better. 

As a local business owner, you can use this method to test your site's performance for each location you want to rank for. If you're not careful, you can get stuck with many bad data.

Most businesses deploy A/B testing in their Google advertising to save costs. 

Using A/B Testing Effectively

The way you deploy your A/B tests is really important. Let's assume you are testing multiple variations of the same page. You should ensure that your test and control groups are as similar as possible. 

It's a very simple process - just create two different versions of the same content and then share it online. The idea is that you'll get more clicks or sales if people read the version with a better design. 

• Google Optimize can help you get better testing methods and results. 
• Crazy Egg also has a powerful testing tool to deliver good insights about your business.
• HubSpot A/B testing Kit is also a great paid option for accurate results for testing. 

5. Implementing Result-Oriented SEO Strategy

A content marketing strategy aims to get readers to your site and convert them into paying customers. The need of the hour is to implement a strategy that will help you drive more traffic to your website.

You need to know your way around tools that can track and optimize the performance of your content. 

Focus On Results With SEO

SEO strategy is a good part of content marketing. To do this, you need to know what type of content works best with your target audience.

You need to use analytics tools to determine what works and what doesn't. Both are not mutually exclusive, and they depend on the other's strengths to get results. Ensure that your SEO and content pipeline support each other regarding quality. 

• Google's Search Console can give you a good start with optimizing your SEO strategy. For example, you’ll know the impressions and CTR of pages with GSC.

• Audit your backlink profile with Ahref's Backlink Checker. It has one of the most comprehensive backlink collections today.
• Moz Pro is another platform that can help build your SEO pipeline.

6. Engaging With Influencers And Thought Leaders

The importance of influencers and leaders in your niche cannot be overstated. 

Try getting your brand's message in front of people who matter in your niche. You have a better chance of doing well when you connect with influencers.

This is what influencer marketing is all about. Thus, brands don’t hesitate to pay hefty amounts for influencers to promote their business. 

The below screenshot shows a sports app partnering with Ronaldo as their business influencer.

Read: Leveraging Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing isn't just about reaching out to a few people who can help your brand. It's about finding influencers and thought leaders who will help reach your target audience. By doing this, you'll be able to get the message out there and start to build up a following. 

Once you have a following, you can use the same strategy to find even more influencers and thought leaders to help get the message out to even more people.

• Find the right influencers for your brand with Neoreach. It uses AI to find relevant leaders in the niche. 
• Influencity is another influencer marketing discovery solution for your business.
• Also, check out CreatorIQ for a more rounded experience when recruiting influencers. 

7. Building A High-Converting Email List

When it comes to building a high-converting email list, the more people you can get on your list, the better. That's because you can reach more of them with the same amount of content. There's also the benefit of sending out targeted, relevant emails.

Creating A Powerful Email List

If you want your email marketing campaigns to convert, you need to look at the email itself.

Mainly, identify people opening your emails and others who aren't. And then, you can start building a list of people interested in your product or service. 

The first step in building this list is to create a "lead magnet." This is short, engaging content that captures someone's attention and makes them want more. 

It could be a blog post, an infographic, a video, a free report, or anything else that grabs someone's attention.

• Sendinblue is one of the most powerful email marketing tools on the market. It helps create personalized, well-designed, and beautiful emails suitable for all your lead magnets at once. 

• Omnisend can integrate with all your marketing tools and improve your email open rates.
• Benchmark Email can deliver responsive email templates that are consistent across several devices. 

Key Takeaways

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• Using content marketing for local businesses is a great way to improve business.
• Ensure that you have vetted your email list.
• Create a solid content strategy that you can scale to your needs.
• Create an accurate buyer persona for accurate marketing feedback.
• Leverage influencer marketing for even better brand reaches and conversions. 
• Improve your local SEO with quality content marketing pipelines.