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Digital Marketing for Local Businesses

Marketing, social media, advertising

Lex DeVille

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The more I look at surrounding towns and what pops up on YT, the more I think there's an opportunity for agencies focused on helping local businesses capture the area audience.

If I type in the name of almost any town within 50 miles of my location, just one channel shows up repeatedly and dominates the top of search results. It's a real estate channel that shows people around with tours and talks about the good and the bad of living in the area. This, of course, funnels back to their website.

But that targets people who are not yet living here. How do you get visibility from the people who do live here? What topics make sense? How do you get the word out in the first place? People aren't searching for videos in their hometown, so what is the angle and how do you capture that audience if you want it to be valuable for local businesses?

Also, what if you don't want to do it for local businesses, but you want to capture the audience for yourself, so local businesses will pay you for sponsored ads (like they pay the news station for normally). What topics make sense then? Do you become a news channel focusing on real local news? A tour channel? An exploration channel? What would attract locals? What would attract locals and also be valuable for a broader audience?
 

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Lex DeVille

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I'm surprised how little our local news presence is on YouTube. Even though the area has probably 100k residents, and even though they have 39,658 videos, most of those videos have 0 - 10 views. Seems like a massive miss of an opportunity.

Looks like they just take regular news recordings and pop them up. What's weird is that I know there are local channels with millions of views. If the news stations adjusted their approach, they would add a major ad revenue stream from both YT and local businesses.

They only have about 1.2k subscribers, and their most viral video is around 100k views. They only have around 4-5 viral videos on the whole channel.
 
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Mathuin

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The more I look at surrounding towns and what pops up on YT, the more I think there's an opportunity for agencies focused on helping local businesses capture the area audience.
This is similar to what Grant Cardone did for his business in Undercover Billionaire S2.

 

Andy Black

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The more I look at surrounding towns and what pops up on YT, the more I think there's an opportunity for agencies focused on helping local businesses capture the area audience.

If I type in the name of almost any town within 50 miles of my location, just one channel shows up repeatedly and dominates the top of search results. It's a real estate channel that shows people around with tours and talks about the good and the bad of living in the area. This, of course, funnels back to their website.

But that targets people who are not yet living here. How do you get visibility from the people who do live here? What topics make sense? How do you get the word out in the first place? People aren't searching for videos in their hometown, so what is the angle and how do you capture that audience if you want it to be valuable for local businesses?

Also, what if you don't want to do it for local businesses, but you want to capture the audience for yourself, so local businesses will pay you for sponsored ads (like they pay the news station for normally). What topics make sense then? Do you become a news channel focusing on real local news? A tour channel? An exploration channel? What would attract locals? What would attract locals and also be valuable for a broader audience?
I’ve thought of county websites before, but hadn’t thought of YouTube for county news and info. You’ve got my wheels turning…

You could go round local attractions and businesses with a camera and mic and do short videos of their business then add them to your channel. You could give those videos to the businesses to put on their website, and also put them on your county directory site.

Hotels, gyms, kids play dens, creches, schools, local attractions, whatever.

What a great way to help and get to know local business owners, serve the local community, and build an asset you control.
 

Andy Black

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I'm certain there's an audience for it, but I'm not certain how you get them there in the first place. Maybe it's as simple as getting started, focusing on interesting topics, and building through word-of-mouth.

I still have a 1k+ member local FB jobs group that has sat dormant for the last several years. FB groups might be a way to attract the right people, but moving them from FB to YT isn't always easy since FB doesn't let you play YT videos through their site.

There's always the paid ads route, I suppose. Those would be highly targeted on FB, so they should feel super relevant.
Loads of people search in Google for "things to do <location>".
 
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BizyDad

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"Great Phoenix Stories". I've thought to do something like that.

A YT channel that is just jam packed with interesting, awesome, suspenseful, epic or heart tugging stories. Each of these categories can be its own sub channel.

Just find people with stories to tell and tell their stories. If it's short, throw it on tik tok, if it's longer, edit it and throw it on YT.

Sure you can go the "business story" route or the "attract search engine traffic" route, but none of that goes viral. Who's really going to watch a 1 minute long video about a restaurant you're thinking about going to? I don't know...

Find the spookiest stories in your town. Find the interesting history of your town. Do a "where are they now" piece about famous or interesting citizens. Find the town's oldest veteran and tell his story. Find the sweetest love story and dub them "Our town's most romantic couple". What is the town's oldest tree and what happened there? Go to local museums and get those folks to tell stories. Take any local tours you can.

These are just ideas that've been floating around in my head. I'll probably never do it, so hopefully someone will take this and run with it. I imagine you can change the perception of a community or a region if you do it right. Or maybe the ideas are terrible. I don't know, but I'd watch at least a few if it was Phoenix focused.
 

Lex DeVille

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I’ve thought of county websites before, but hadn’t thought of YouTube for county news and info. You’ve got my wheels turning…

I'm certain there's an audience for it, but I'm not certain how you get them there in the first place. Maybe it's as simple as getting started, focusing on interesting topics, and building through word-of-mouth.

I still have a 1k+ member local FB jobs group that has sat dormant for the last several years. FB groups might be a way to attract the right people, but moving them from FB to YT isn't always easy since FB doesn't let you play YT videos through their site.

There's always the paid ads route, I suppose. Those would be highly targeted on FB, so they should feel super relevant.
 

Lex DeVille

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Loads of people search in Google for "things to do <location>".

That might be the way to go. There's one big blog here that covers things to do but it specifically focuses on one town and it doesn't do anything on YouTube. Beyond that, it's major websites like Trip Advisor that come up first in search results.
 

Andy Black

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I think a good way to “learn” YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email marketing, web design, etc is to create a local resource. Learn, help people, build a local brand, get to know local businesses. Take it from there.

The next time someone asks me how to get started with business or digital marketing, I’m going to tell them to start a local site and email newsletter … and grow it via a YouTube channel and/or Facebook page/group.

A related thread:
 
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woken

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Also,

Handles(@village) of smaller cities and villages have a high chance of still being available on different platforms.

Once you have that you’re closer to being an authoritative source for the locals.
 

Lex DeVille

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This is similar to what Grant Cardone did for his business in Undercover Billionaire S2.

I haven't watched that yet, but I guess I should get to it! :D
 
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Andy Black

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That might be the way to go. There's one big blog here that covers things to do but it specifically focuses on one town and it doesn't do anything on YouTube. Beyond that, it's major websites like Trip Advisor that come up first in search results.
Not just "things to do <location>", although that has high volume.

"restaurants <location>" has probably the highest local searches by location.

Then there's all the "hotels/b&bs <location>" etc.
 

Andy Black

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I've moved your conversation to its own thread and out of the "chat" thread.

@Andy Black @Lex DeVille @Mathuin
Thanks @MJ DeMarco

I think this could be a nice hustle for folks.

I’ve not done this but I imagine it could go something like:

Go out with a smartphone/camera and shotgun/lapel mic. I suspect having a camera around your neck adds a certain legitimacy to your visit. The more kit you bring the more you look like a techie not a salesman.

Pop into businesses and see if you can speak to the owner.

Say you’re doing free videos of businesses to promote the town. Ask if the owner would be interested in getting a free video listing on a new town directory and YouTube channel. Tell them they’d get a copy of the video for their own website/Facebook page/etc.

You could even say you’re studying film production and editing. Which you probably will be if someone says yes.

There’s probably some contract/privacy stuff to sort out.

Arrange a time to pop in, or do something there and then. I expect you’ll be looking at their website and trying to write a script with the business owner.

To interview someone just ask questions and have the phone/camera pointing at them when they answer. Make it friendly and conversational. Edit out you asking the questions.

Do some talking head interviews and record the shop/business.

Create the best 1-2 minute video you can for their website, and also for your town directory, Facebook page, and YouTube channel. Maybe you can upload to a Instagram page, Twitter profile, etc too?

You’re approaching businesses with an offer they almost can’t refuse. Who knows where it could go.

I know someone who got quite a big grant to buy video equipment to do this for hotels. I must check in with him.
 

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