Digital Marketing for Local Business — Why Is It So Important?

The numbers make the case on their own: the average internet user had three social media accounts in 2014, and seven by 2019. 22% of the world's population uses Facebook, and Facebook users spend 76% of their time on the app, versus 51% for Instagram. Google fields nearly 2.3 trillion searches a year. Mobile traffic accounted for 52% of online traffic in 2019 versus 45% for desktop. 72% of people visit local stores they found through search, 81% of consumers research online before big purchases, and 87% of smartphone users search at least once a day.

With that many customers already online, knowing how to use digital marketing tools well is what lets a local business reach potential buyers without spending a fortune on advertising.

Google My Business gives local businesses visibility to anyone searching for products or services nearby — often within a 5km radius — and listing is genuinely simple, with Google guiding you through it. Bing offers the same, and a GMB profile can usually be transferred over without much extra work. A Facebook business page reaches an audience of over 2.4 billion users, many of whom follow local businesses specifically.

Social platforms give local businesses free, ongoing access to an audience that's already active — sharing photos, posts, comments. Posting engaging content consistently (photos of your space, interesting offers) and scheduling it in advance keeps momentum without eating all your time.

YouTube alone sees over 3 billion searches a month, and it's not the only video platform worth being active on. Video is one of the easiest ways to demonstrate a product live and educate potential customers on why it's worth buying.

Free blogging platforms let local businesses with limited budgets and a small target area publish without building their own site from scratch — and blogs enable two-way conversation with readers through comments, images and visuals.

Participating in relevant online communities and groups puts you directly in front of people already discussing the products or needs your business addresses.

Tools like Google Analytics show who's visiting and how long they stay, while social media trends offer insight into what buyers actually want. Answering a few honest questions — who are your competitors, how do you reach your audience, what do your customers actually look like — is what lets you find your niche market and speak to it directly.

"Sale" is still one of the most attention-grabbing words there is. Weekend discounts, festival pricing, bulk-purchase offers — and social media is the fastest way to let your audience know one's coming.

Once you've collected email addresses from an interested audience, you can send timed, customised offers — gift vouchers, discounts — straight to their inbox. SMS marketing works the same way.

Mobile customers are growing every day, and they're frequently searching for something nearby they can reach on foot or a short drive. A campaign that isn't optimised for mobile is leaving a lot of that traffic on the table.

If your business is invisible to people searching for what you offer, you'll never get the traffic you deserve. Local SEO, done through a reliable digital marketing partner, targets local customers specifically and gets your site in front of them when it matters.

Digital marketing isn't expensive by default — if anything it tends to save money compared with traditional marketing, and you can start small and scale spend only once you're seeing results. It also takes far less time than traditional marketing to show returns. If you're running a local business without a real web presence, you're leaving the exact technology that would put you in front of your own target audience unused.