Hey, there! I’m Nick Ponte. As a digital marketing specialist, I work with new business owners every day to help them build thriving companies.
Here’s something I observed: Many people have amazing ideas they bring to the world and hope to build a business with. Over the years I’ve spent working with clients, I’ve encountered a wide range of personalities and mindsets. Entrepreneurs obviously have big dreams and high aspirations. Many want to take on the world with their ideas!
Big dreams are great. With the right strategies, tools, and consistency, you can make your ideas go far. But here’s a professional secret… As you get started, you’ll find the best success on a small scale.
Specificity is Gold, So Niche Down!
I offer services to businesses anywhere they exist, but I really aim my content at local businesses in my backyard. Why? I’ve got a few reasons… Thousands of digital marketing agencies exist out there, and I don’t need to compete with all of them. I specialize in helping small local businesses broaden their reach and expand what they do best. Think of it like a shark hunting in a blue ocean instead of a red one.
So, I get the opportunity to flourish as the big fish in a little pond, rather than flounder as a medium-sized fish trying to swim the seven seas… okay, enough fish metaphors.
Bottom line: While everyone else fights for attention on a broad scale online, I get people’s attention right outside their front door.
As a local influencer, you get a much clearer picture of your customer’s needs because they immediately surround you. If your product or service is truly helpful, people begin to ask about your services organically. Plus, people love to support efforts that add value to their own community. Building a good reputation for quality products and customer service is all you really need to gain momentum with your customer base.
If you’re unsure about the steps you need to take to establish yourself and your business as locally influential, I’ve written out three of my top tips, below.
3 Ways to Get Established as a Local Influencer
Here are the steps to take to dominate in your local area:
1. Be the best in your sphere of influence.
In your business efforts, aim for excellence. That means you should strive to offer the best value for your market: a quality product at appropriate prices. It also means you need to offer exceptional customer service.
Another thing some entrepreneurs sometimes forget about: healthy organizational management. You need to hire quality employees or contractors, and you need to manage your office well. If you have a lack of consistency in services, or you mismanage your finances, all of your other efforts will struggle. Regularly take courses to sharpen your knowledge and skills in all these areas—you won’t regret it!
When you take care of these basics really well, you’ll flatten the local competition.
2. Offer (free) value to your community.
Whatever your ideal customer, consider giving away a service for free. This might be a consultation or free introductory instruction. A free, no-risk offer draws in consumers who might be interested but want to first see if your product or service will actually help them in some way. Then, you get the chance to show them how your product or service will solve their problem or enhance what they have.
If your product or service calls for it, offer something to local businesses in your community. My company offers a free consultation to businesses who want to know more about our services. We offer a valuable service to help clients get started with us, and they are free to decide if they want to continue services or not. Either way, we leave them with the information they can use to improve their strategies.
When I first started, I connected with the businesses in my city and gave away free resources to help them build their website and bring their businesses online. I did it all for free, but it led to many people asking if they could use my paid services, too.
Keep track of the free services you give out. This will give you a list of “warm” leads: people who have benefitted from your services and who might be interested in working with you in the future. You can make offers to increase services at a later time, and some will certainly say, “Yes!”
Once you’ve given something to a receptive audience, they’re also more likely to spread the word to people in their network. This way, you build even more goodwill with the customers in your area.
3. Get feedback from consumers.
Ask satisfied customers for feedback on your services. You might do this in the form of surveys or follow-up communications. Take what they say and adjust or expand as needed in your business practices and in the services and products you offer.
Also, take the opportunity to ask customers for reviews online. The more you get, the more your business will improve its ranking on search results pages, and the more future customers will see high ratings. Asking for online reviews typically has a low response rate… to counter this, make sure you ask everyone.
If you want to learn how to build a recession-proof, automated business, check out our FREE, 15-minute training and start generating at least $8k per month in weeks.