As mentioned in a previous post on marketing, we know how challenging for small businesses to do it successfully.

There are literally a million things one can focus in order to help grow your business by attracting more customers and improving your bottom line.

One useful thing I learned recently is the concept or idea of hyperlocal marketing.

This type of marketing is ideal for businesses who want to generate foot traffic and bring in visitors. It has become even more necessary in the aftermath of COVID-19. The pandemic really accelerated a desire by consumers to support local businesses.

What Is Hyperlocal Marketing?

The Wordstream website and blog defines hyperlocal marketing as the “process of targeting prospective customers in a highly specific, geographically restricted area, sometimes just a few blocks or streets, often with the intention of targeting people conducting “near me” searches on their mobile device.”

Got that? That’s a big mouthful there but essentially it means helping local businesses find customers or people who may not know about them when the person may need their service and they are close by.

The Near Me functionality alone in Google is a must for any local business whether you are a restaurant, grocery store or other type of business someone may need.

Ranking for Google Near Me Searches is really an art and a blog post in itself.

Why Use HyperLocal Marketing

The whole point here is though is that hyperlocal marketing can be used as a great way to get people to your store or eyes on your online listing.

The Wordstream piece also noted that “near-me searches grew in volume by 130% year-over-year between 2014 and 2015 alone, and since then, Google users are using near-me searches to find everything from post offices to New Year’s Eve fireworks celebrations.”

That is significant then even prior to the pandemic for any business then as there may be people close to you who are part of your target audience that need your services and don’t know yet that you exist.

Will Google My Business Help?

Google My Business is another key element in marketing a business and it’s really critical for hyperlocal marketing for a number of reasons.

The Social Pilot blog notes that “Google has reported that 46% of all searches have local intent and that business location is the main piece of information sought by local searches.”

Google My Business allows you to maximize that by having a listing for your business that contains important information about your business as well as a key component which is allowing customers to leave reviews.

Reviews can be tricky though as negative reviews can affect your business but potential customers will most certainly look at previous reviews of the business to determine if they might go with you.