Location Based Mobile Marketing for Small Businesses

Location based mobile apps such as Foursquare and SCVGR are another way for small businesses to reach customers that are actively using their mobile devices to update friends and followers about what they are doing including being your customer. Whether you want your business to be included in location based mobile applications or not, it is highly likely that your business is already listed as these mobile web apps pull information from popular business listing sites including Google places.

There are several marketing strategies that a small business owner can implement to make the most out of these types of mobile marketing opportunities. Creating formal and informal specials to customers using these apps can help increase your company’s exposure through their viral nature by getting more customers to check-in and share comments, reviews or basic information about your brand or company with their friends through social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Sponsored Deals

Businesses can work closely with a location based app company such as Foursquare to promote a special deal to customers directly through the app. This can be a very effective way of marketing to potential customers that are near your business. People in close proximity will receive information about your promotion. This type of paid advertising promotes the deal to all users in the region and requires a person to click the check-in button in order to receive the coupon which will in turn provide your business with demographic details about the people visiting your location for the advertised special.

Special Location Based Promotions

Another strategy that can be less cost intensive is to provide discounts or special deals for customers that choose to check-in through any number of different mobile apps. Simply create a nice marketing flyer and place it near the cash register or online check out cart that proclaims “Check-in on Foursquare” or “Check-in on Facebook” and receive “XYZ” discount or special offer. This can help a business quickly begin to trend in the local area making other users of these apps more likely to see your business.

This type of marketing is relatively inexpensive and customers generally have no problem saying something nice about a business they frequent that is also giving them a deal on one of their favorite products or services. One of the keys to being successful at marketing as a small business owner is to keep looking for trends such as location based apps and thinking how to tap into those communities of users without having to shell out the big bucks that a formally sponsored marketing campaign would cost.

Give location tagging apps a try for marketing your business to local customers and get them engaged with the brand online by actively supporting the company simply by checking-in or making a nice comment about your products or services.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Build Local Demographic Reports to Attract New Business

joint venture marketing

joint venture marketing

If your company is entering a new market with a joint venture partner, maximize the deal by doing your due diligence in building local demographic reports about the business and consumers so that when you attract new business they align with the focus of the company. It’s wise for companies that are selling products and services to a consumer as well as to businesses to know the market in detail and where the products will be offered. This data can be integrated into planning marketing efforts which will be required to reach and close the customers. Focus the joint venture partnership to seek out the most valuable demographics based on your report in order to see immediate returns on a new business relationship.

An important step to understanding a new geographic location is to understand the end customers for your business in the area. Regardless if your business services individuals or companies or a combination of both, the information that is required is similar and easy to acquire. First, ask your new business partner for any relevant business intelligence that they have on the local markets. It’s important to always double check partners work, gather additional details that are important for your decision making, and provide your analysis and ideas to your business partner. Sometimes you may encounter after the fact a business that doesn’t have much detailed information or it is outdated and needs to be done over.

There are many important factors to be gathered when creating a local demographic report. Each company will have to determine the items that are of most value to them and adjust according to the industry.

Basic Details

The basics should include the high level characteristics of the people and the business that are in the area. In the case of consumers, understanding details such as age, gender percentages, education levels, income levels, size of families and monthly spending budgets is very important. Creating a map of businesses located in a territory is essential to visualize the distribution of customers. Create maps of specific neighborhoods when approaching local consumers, as many neighborhoods will be different from one another despite being in the same city and relatively close.

Business reports may differ in the data collected. Identify prominent industries, specific companies by sector, such as transportation, construction, manufacturing, medical, education, etc.

Match With Existing Business Strategy

The purpose of conducting a basic market research study of the local area that you’re considering doing a business deal in to attract new business should be to execute a specific business strategy that includes forming joint venture marketing relationships to grow into new markets. During company planning, the target customer should be discussed on a regular basis. When conducting your assessments of an area, be sure you are confirming “yes” or “no” for the areas of interest to you.

It’s worth the time and resources if necessary to conduct surveys and contact potential customers in a specific area that you are considering doing a business deal for. Don’t always trust a potential partner’s interests in wanting to do a business deal, make sure the area will be a good fit for your products and services by researching yourself.

Business to Business Demographics

If your company does business directly with other business for a majority of the revenue made during the year than it’s important to take a slightly different angle on this task of reviewing new local markets. As a business owner that is negotiating a joint venture partnership with another company, it’s important to conduct your own in depth analysis. Call companies that you think might be potential clients for you and your JV partner in the area and see if they have any opinions about the company, positive or negative. Make sure that you take the time to review a company’s profile on Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and other business review sites.

Companies with lots of negative issues that seem potentially harmful should be included in your decision making of whether to do the business deal or not. At the end of the day the point is to attract new business, so adjust and align with partners that have maintained strong brands in their local markets.

Review and understand the markets that you are doing business in. It may be necessary to create a binder of all the information on a specific location, but if it helps identify the right joint venture partner that attracts new business it’s worth the effort. Expand your business by doing deals with companies that have strong positions in their local markets that fit your criteria.

christian fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A joint venture marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more joint venture marketing Strategies join his free report on joint venture marketing.

joint venture marketing

joint venture marketing

Leverage Positive Reviews on Local Web Pages to Attract New Business from Joint Ventures

Businesses that service a defined region need to be very conscious of their online reputation and maintain strong profiles on sites like Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and many others in order to attract new business from the local community. These local focused sites are in essence, an online business directory that has social components built in. When a customer leaves a review and then shares the review with their Facebook account, not only have they left a permanent record about their personal experience with a product or company, but their entire network of family and friends also are informed.

A business can benefit greatly from a strong online reputation and just as easily fail miserably because of too many vocal customers that were upset about a product or service and leave negative reviews and poor ratings. Not only can a weak online reputation limit a business’s ability to grow in a community, they can harm the potential for a successful joint venture partnership from ever getting off the ground because no established brand wants to associate their product with a company that is seen in poor standing. Achieving a great reputation online allows you to not only demonstrate to a partner the ability to provide excellent service to customers, but it’s a great asset that can be leveraged to close the deal when a business attracts new customers.

These are highlights of what to do in order to have a successful local company profile page to attract new business.

Setting up a local page

• Complete the profile including the address, this is critical because users may be looking for plumbers in New Jersey and if that’s you, then you need to show up. This also allows for the business listing to be displayed in Google Maps and other location based services.

• Maximize the category and sub categories for your business. In many of the local business directory websites on the web the profile section will include a place for selecting the industry and any related sub categories. Maximize the number of selections as long as they are relevant to their business.

• Upload the company logo for the main image for the profile or a quality picture of the outside of the office / facility. If the business is a consumer facing business with a retail store it’s important to have the front of the store as the first picture and several pictures of the inside as the secondary pictures.

• Send instructions to your website developer to place icons on your home page and “contact us” page that lead directly to the profile on Google Places and Yelp. If the business is a member of the Better Business Bureau, then also link directly to the business profile on the BBB’s website using their seal of approval logo.

Get Positive Reviews

• Reach out to three customers that have been loyal to the business. If this is a new business, then work hard with your initial customers and ask them to follow the same steps. Send the 3 customers the link to one of the online local web pages and ask for a positive rating and review. It’s best to spread these emails out over several days to stagger the reviews so they appear more natural. Then reach out to three more customers and repeat with a different website. In the course of a couple of weeks, the business will have several very unique and positive reviews across several different local websites.

• When sending follow up messages to customers have a script already written that asks for a positive review on a specific site or you can list the sites with all of the links and ask for a review on one of the sites. Most business owners don’t recognize how many customers truly appreciate the hard work and would give them a great review, but will not do so unless they are encouraged to write the review, so start encouraging the best customers to help attract new business by writing a positive review.

Leverage a Positive Reputation

• Show the positive reviews that are being written about the business when in discussions with new potential partners. This helps alleviate fears that they may have about how their customers will be catered to when they refer them over.

• Utilize the links to the review sites like Yelp and Google Places when sending out marketing collateral in attempts to attract new business from existing client bases of new joint venture partners. This demonstrates the commitment to servicing each customer and the business is open and transparent about its interactions with customers.

Many companies try and hide from local web pages because of the potential for negative reviews that is why it is so important to leverage positive reviews and a strong online reputation when attracting new business. It can be easier for a mid-level person inside of a business to sell a new joint venture partnership to executives when the potential partner company is capable of providing the value that they are looking for and maintain a strong reputation in the local community for providing excellent service.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Find More Clients Being Active in Local Business Communities

Small business owners can find more clients by becoming active members in the local business community, whether by joining a local business chamber of commerce or through industry groups, or just attending business social events and local trade shows. By interacting with local businesses a small business owner has the best chance at locating companies that can be excellent joint venture partners that are currently servicing their exact demographic. The following, highlights a few of the most important aspects of developing joint ventures through participation at local business community events.

Find Industry Groups / Business Owner Gatherings

Determining the type of companies and people that are required to develop the relationships needed to create successful joint ventures is the first thing required before identifying where to meet them. There are lots of places to find information about local business groups and trade shows for industry groups. A few Google searches for trade shows and a specific location will result in lists of venues and upcoming events. Attend relevant events that would be interesting for pursuing companies and individuals of interest to your business. One good source for finding local events is Meetup.com where there are plenty of business / entrepreneur focused groups where business owners get together to talk about business topics as well as industry groups that are interested in a specific niche, like software developers that get together to talk about industry topics.

Develop Relationships with Business Decision Makers

When at business functions and events as a small business owner it is best to focus energies on meeting and spending time talking with individuals that are decision makers. At business events and trade shows time can be wasted interacting with a sales rep that is just looking for sales opportunities. This can be good if there is an existing customer base for your business that aligns with their product or service, but if the desire is to locate new existing customers for a business through joint ventures, spending time with executive management is key and it’s best to avoid the typical sales rep just pitching products and services.

Establish Joint Venture Partnerships with Local Businesses

Reaching out to local businesses to become joint venture partners is a proven way to find more clients in a specific region. For most small business owners the focus is on servicing the local community with a product or service and so developing partners with other local businesses can quickly expand brand awareness to the right demographic of customers. Local business owners will be easier to develop relationships with regardless if a business is planning on only servicing a local region or planning an eventual national or global launch. It’s important that each joint venture is successful to build momentum in the market and maintaining strong communication between partners is more easily done when decision makers for each business are close enough to meet in person.

Don’t Sell – Find Champions Who Sell

When meeting business executives and business decision makers it is important to not spend lots of time selling a product or service, instead develop relationships with others that can become a champion for your product or service to their existing customer base which will lead to your business finding more clients. Build a personal relationship first even though attending business related functions, the business part will always come, but learn the kids and spouse’s names and other details through the conversation to be used in later conversations to develop a personal relationship with a potential business partner. By the time a partnership agreement is on the table and discussions about how to implement the marketing strategies for promoting the joint venture the terms will always be more favorable than if approaching joint venture partnerships from a strictly business perspective when dealing with local business owners.

Find more clients locally by becoming engaged with local business activities such as small business owner events, chambers of commerce, and other business related activities such as industry trade shows. These venues provide the capability to meet with local business decision makers and find individuals that can help really drive a successful joint venture marketing partnership for the long term.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.