Digital Marketing - Ready for Wall St Renaissance

Wall Street. The Market Soars. SMB Sour.

While the financial markets have been enjoying an amazing run, the business that depend on the daily Wall Street foot traffic have not. Given the lower levels of residential living space in the commercial district that surrounds Wall Street, this region has been hit disproportionately hard. Work from home has meant no work for them.

After nearly a year of silence, the rumored return of office workers is in the air. The Mayor has set a date of May, 2021 to have people back in Government facilities. The financial firms seem to be following this trend. With the vaccination rates in the city and at large increasing, a summer renaissance may be in the cards.

For those businesses, who have hung on, kudos to you. Now, it's probably wise to start to begin to plan for what the return to the office mean for you.

How to Use Local Digital Marketing to Stand Out

Being online is a necessity for any business large or small. Otherwise, you will lose out on a large and growing market segment. Local digital marketing is the key to standing out, especially for local businesses, who don’t have the budget to compete with national brands.

If you want to increase your business chances of being successful, it is worth the investment in time to learn how local digital marketing can help.

“Near me”, the Most Powerful Words in Local Search

“Near me”, these are the most important terms in local search and digital presence. Those two simple words can mean so much in terms of traffic. In fact, interest in those two paltry words has quadrupled in the past 5 years of google searches.

Besides those two brief words, I would like to add the element of time. Potential customers that are looking to fill a need immediately or within 24 hours.

According to Google, near me now has almost doubled in the past two years. They also report a nearly tenfold increase in the growth of mobile searches for ‘near me today/tonight’. Finally, Google cited a two-fold increase in ‘near me open now’.

These factors go into why local digital marketing is critical for small businesses. You have increasing demand for local results that can satisfy the local customer’s needs in a very narrow window of time. If your online presence is weak, that demand is likely going to your competition.

Target Customers are Doing Their Homework

According to a study by GE Capital, 81% of shoppers research their product online before purchasing. This is up two points, from 79%, versus last year. You will want to make sure that you can be found when customers are looking for solutions. If your business is not visible, then you missed the sale.

Mobile Search is Strong Signal of Purchase Intent

According to a study by Google,

“People rely on their phones to help make the best decisions at the moment of purchase. In fact, 70% of smartphone owners who bought something in a store first turned to their devices for information relevant to that purchase. And when people search on mobile, it leads to action: 92% of those who searched on their phone made a related purchase.”

Therefore, having a strong local presence is key to attracting a target audience willing to buy.

Case for Local Digital Marketing

The case for local digital marketing is solid.

1. Consumers are looking for businesses in their local market to solve their needs, but also, if they are open when they need them.
2. Consumers research purchases on-line. If you are not there, you cannot be in the consideration set.
3. When they search locally on mobile, they are ready to buy.

Why Digital Marketing is Important in Wall Street Right Now?

To be honest, it will be first time that many of these potential customers or previous customers have been in the neighborhood in probably a year or more. They probably don't know who survived. It's the perfect opportunity to introduce or re-introduce your business to them. Even if they were a loyal customer to a competitor, that competitor may not here to help them. As sad as that is, it is also an opportunity to reach some new.

1. Local digital marketing in Wall Street is about targeting. We need to decide who to reach and why we are right for them.
2. Once you identify who they are, it is important to raise awareness among them that your business exists.
3. Local digital marketing lets your target these customers when they are nearby searching for an answer. It so much easier to get a customer in the door when its around the block.

How to Leverage Local Digital Marketing

There are three key tools you can use to maximize the effectiveness of your local digital marketing.

Google My Business (GMB)

80% of all searches in the US are on Google. When you search “_____ near me”, you will be shown what is called the Google Local Pack on your search engine results page (SERP). The Google Local Pack looks something like this:

Google automatically returns the top 3 ranked businesses, which are restaurants in this example. If you click on one of these businesses, you will automatically be shown its GMB page. GMB is a free resource that is easily accessible to any business owner. The process is simple. First, you have to go to the GMB page.

To start, you would click the Manage now button in the upper right hand corner of the page.  You will then have to choose “Add a Business”, which will take you to this screen.

Here, you enter your business’ name. If it is an existing business, you can claim that business. If it is not an existing business you can create one.  There are too many steps to cover in one post, but if you would like more information, you can read the GMB FAQ page for a more step by step guide.

Flawless Mobile Website Experience

Earlier we discussed that 80% of customers search online before they decide to make a purchase. Today over 50% of device use is mobile. Given 9 out 10 mobile searches lead to a sale, you want your potential customers to search for you on mobile.

The fastest way to lose that potential customer is to have a poorly designed mobile website experience. There are two areas that are a must if you want to succeed in providing a flawless mobile experience.

Page Speed

Bounce rates go up dramatically if a site takes longer than 3 seconds to load. It pays to run a speed test on your site. I recommend Google PageSpeed Insights. They are a tough grader, but it is better to know what great looks like, rather than to settle for mediocre.

If you find your site is working optimally, it is probably due to your web design, and more specifically your CMS. While I can’t cover all the details here, I wrote a post on the impact of CMS on Pagespeed that can help.

Website is not Truly Responsive

Many themes claim that they are responsive. However, a truly responsive site provides a seamless experience regardless of device. Few themes can actually deliver this type of experience without causing problems with page speed.

To avoid a poor mobile experience, it is helpful to be aware of some of the built-in biases in web design. The most important is desktop design bias. Most developers design using a desktop. Unless the developer actively checks his or her work on a mobile screen setting, design errors can be introduced.

This is why we always recommend that you design for mobile first if you are not doing a custom build. For a more in depth explanation of these issues and how to manage them, you can read my guest post on SMBCEO.

Local Search Advertising

Finally, local search advertising is something worth considering, as those mobile searchers are very valuable. The ideal path would be to rank highly enough on organic SEO that you would warrant a listing in the local pack. However, when that is not possible, paid search can still return a solid ROI if executed appropriately.

In Summary

When it comes to being successful in digital marketing in [location], there are three things I hope you remember.

1. Consumers are looking for businesses near them to solve their needs, make sure you are seen by them when they do.
2. 90% of mobile searches end in purchases, so make sure that your site doesn’t hinder you.
3. Ensure that you are visible on local listings like GMB and others that are relevant to your neighborhood.

If you need help with local digital marketing for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us.

See more about Small Business Marketing in Financial District. If you are more interest in the borough, you can see our Small Business Marketing in Manhattan. If you want the full city, you can see our Small Business Marketing in NYC.

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