What is one growth strategy to increase local market share for a small business?
To help small businesses increase local market share, we asked consultants and small business owners this question for their best insights. From intentional hiring to customer retention, there are several growth strategies that may help your small business increase market share and drive new conversions.
Here is what 15 thought-leaders had to say:
- Be Intentional With Hiring
- Treat Customers as Special Guests
- Invest in Social Media Presence
- Get Publicity in Your Local Media
- Competitive Pricing
- Partner With Other Locals
- Advertise Locally
- Networking
- Refine Your Brand Image
- Grow in Conjunction With a Partnering Business
- Develop a Positive Reputation
- Engage in Local CSR
- Collaborate With Micro-influencers
- Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB)
- Prioritize Customer Retention
Be Intentional With Hiring
While it is important to stay nimble, be innovative, and be diligent in strengthening your relationships with your clients, small businesses can increase their market share through smart hiring practices. Being intentional and focused on the roles you are looking to fill and crafting the job descriptions to include the competencies required for each position will help to attract the best candidates. Another useful tool is to use a competency-based assessment tool, like Reveal, to help strengthen your hiring efforts and your teams.
Linda Scorzo, Hiring Indicators
Treat Customers as Special Guests
Treat every customer you come across as a special guest, which they are for visiting your business. You need to make them feel like their presence, and not just the money they spend is valued. This attitude of friendliness and gratitude can lead to repeat visits, and word-of-mouth referrals from these customers to others they know. By building up a satisfied, loyal customer base, you’ll be able to steadily increase your local market share.
Henry Babichenko, European Denture Center
Invest in Social Media Presence
You can grab a significant piece of the local market share pie with your social media presence. Awareness is a key stage of the sales funnel, and local consumers are more likely to visit a local business they know is in their area. Use your social media accounts to build a local following, highlighting your integration with your community and participation in local events. You’re bound to be rewarded with more business and repeat customers.
Randall Smalley, Cruise America
Get Publicity in Your Local Media
Publicity is called ‘earned media’, advertising is called ‘paid media’.It is earned for a reason – because you (or your publicist) write a good enough story to get (free) coverage from a journalist. This is sometimes called ‘traditional PR’, (but all goes digital now) and it is still the most powerful way to reach your audience because this type of publicity creates credibility where advertising does not.
Some tips to do it yourself:
First research the media outlets you want to be in. Find the journalists that write about your industry or topic. Write what is interesting about your company and be sure it would be interesting to their audience. Send them a pitch with a great title, personalize it to them specifically. Follow up four days later with an email or even phone call if you can find their number. Happy pitching!
Ellie Lowney, Creating Buzz Public Relations
Competitive Pricing
Flexible, competitive pricing can be a very effective way to increase your local market share. Take a look at your competitors, and see if your prices are competitive. If not, don’t be afraid to adjust if you feel that’s what it will take to have an edge in your field. Price-matching can be an incredibly effective tool to win over customers, keep them coming back, and grow your business.
Chris Abrams, Abrams Insurance Solutions
Partner With Other Locals
While most of our training can be done virtually, we are also localized in the Atlanta market. Over the years, Atlanta has grown in the tech space so increasing market share here is important. One of the strategies we’ve used to increase our local market share is by partnering with companies and organizations like the Atlanta Tech Village, Boys & Girls Club, and Terminus, to name a few. By increasing our local network of partners we are able to increase business through referrals and other great opportunities.
Nick Santora, Curricula
Advertise Locally
If you want to increase your local market share, you have to advertise locally. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do this. You can just go door to door, leaving flyers or business cards on people’s doors. Even if you don’t grab direct conversions from your efforts, you may get referrals from those who heard about you and mentioned you to others.
Vanessa Molica, The Lash & Sugar Company
Networking
One growth strategy to increase local market share for a small business can be something as simple as introducing yourself and your business to other local businesses and local people. If you’re in the restaurant business it’s grassroots getting out there and saying hello, offering a coupon or a flyer.
If you’re in the consulting business it can be networking, guest blog posting, or being interviewed by a podcast or local radio station.
Amanda Russo, Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting, LLC
Refine Your Brand Image
Sometimes your brand image can be what makes or breaks your market share. One way to improve sales and encourage growth is to refine your brand and focus your advertising capacity.
As cheesy as it sounds, people still judge books by their covers. When comparing two small businesses, your average consumer is more likely to choose the brand with which they feel aligned. There are small but effective methods for improving your business face as simple as being cleaner-looking than your competition.
Your advertising efforts make a huge impact on how many consumers you can reach. One way to gain the edge over competitors is to simply produce more, or better, advertising for your business. You are guaranteed, at minimum, to be reaching more potential customers which is the name of the game.
In the end, it is a sort of game to be played to win out over the competition. With a professional look and some solid effort, you can secure your share of the community.
Zach Goldstein, Public Rec
Grow in Conjunction With a Partnering Business
We began our business in conjunction with Tony Robbins’ upcoming book on health. We share a passion for maximizing good health and we wanted a brand that could help us raise our profile. Tony gives us exposure. He is familiar around the world. It was a perfect marriage.
That works well for small businesses, too. So many businesses work in step with existing companies. Find a business that is adjacent to yours and exploit that partnership as much as you can.
You want to sell your brand of tartar sauce? Get it in restaurants, grocery stores, retailers, seafood stores, and more. If one business dominates a particular market in a space that you don’t directly compete in, look for strategic ways for it to help your business. The exposure potential could be immense.
Joel Jackson, Lifeforce
Develop a Positive Reputation
In order to grow your local market share as a small business, you have to get your name out there and prove that you’re worthy of people’s attention and money. You can do this by providing excellent products or services on a consistent basis. Stay the course, develop a reputation for quality and consistency, and more business will come to you. This is the best way to sustainably increase your local market share.
S. White, Novus Maintenance
Engage in Local CSR
For small businesses and solopreneurs, word-of-mouth referrals happen quickly by engaging with your community. In a business capacity, when you support local fundraisers and events or help out in community projects, it shows your customers that your brand cares about them and the place in which you all live and work. And when community members share your efforts on their social media channels, they validate your good works and provide the social proof that can influence potential customers to like and trust your brand and purchase your products. This helps to grow your audience and drive more foot traffic to your business.
Daniel Tejada, Straight Up Growth
Collaborate With Micro-influencers
While small businesses may face competition from larger corporations when it comes to working with online influencers, collaborating with micro-influencers is an option to consider. According to my observations, influencer marketing is growing more popular than ever… Micro-influencers will be the ideal alternative for small businesses because they are less expensive and more willing to collaborate with them. Growth will not be difficult in 2022 with a couple of these tiny influencers assisting [your firm] in reaching specialized audiences.
Rameez Usmani, PureTuber
Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB)
Google My Business (GMB) is a free local business directory provided by Google. You’ll need a GMB profile if you wish to appear in Google’s local search results as a local business. Consistency is crucial when it comes to developing and enhancing your GMB profile. Because Google uses your GMB profile data to populate search results, everything you provide in your profile must match the information on your website as well as your NAP citations around the web. When your information is consistent, Google will recognize you as a real company. Your profile will appear better in search results if you submit more information.
Salvador Ordorica, The Spanish Group
Prioritize Customer Retention
One understated way of increasing local market share is by maintaining the market you already have. By prioritizing Customer Retention Rate (CRR), you’re feeding customers through the steps of the marketing funnel and creating advocates. Sometimes, for small businesses, aggressive techniques to increase market share are overstated, and organic growth is your most consistent and cost-effective.
Michael Williamson, Hoist
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