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How to Promote Holiday Offers Free on Your Local Google Listing

Did you know you can post expiring coupons, videos, and update posts on  your company Google My Business listing?

Did you know that you don’t have to pay for online advertising to benefit from local search traffic?

Your Google My Business listing is the ultimate key to driving more local traffic to your store. It’s free to have: you’ll soon notice a rise in online traffic when you create your online listing.

The best thing about your local Google listing is that you can change it whenever you want. That means you can use it to make the most of seasonal promotions so that anybody looking for your services in the area will immediately be tempted by your offers!

This quick guide will show you how to get your free listing – and how to use it for seasonal promotions, too.

How to Claim Your Google My Business Listing

There are just a few quick steps to claim your free online listing:

1. Visit www.google.com/business and select the Start Now button.

2. Create or sign in to your Google account for your business.

3. Follow the instructions step-by-step to create your listing.

4. Verify your listing to make sure you appear in local searches.

When you’ve completed the above, your free local listing is live!

Everybody Loves Something for Free

The great thing about using your local Google listing to run holiday promotions and offers is that both you and your customers benefit!

Your marketing budget is kept low and your customers will receive money off (or free gifts) when they make a holiday purchase. It’s a win-win situation!

Some businesses feel that running offers can devalue their product offering. This can be true if your shop always has some discount area or constant sales.

However, irregular seasonal offers can be a great way to tempt back wayward customers as well as finding new ones. Customers feel they’re getting a bargain when they see discounts or special offers and that can be enough to help them choose your shop over another.

With that in mind, let’s look at how to boost your holiday offers without spending any extra money on marketing.

How to Promote Seasonal Offers on Your Local Google Listing

Now you’ve got your online listing it’s time to make the most of the free marketing opportunities.

1. Add a Post About Your Seasonal Promotions

You can add an offer in your post as an update, or specifically as an OFFER.   Update your Posts by going into your Google Business account and selecting “New Post” on the left-hand menu and choose the “Offer” tab in the new pop-up.  Add an image, and in “offer title” and “details” give information that is memorable and grabs attention as this is the first thing people will see of your offer.  You can add a start and end date, an optional coupon code, terms and conditions, and a link to your offer redemption page.

If you do a regular update post instead of offer, it’s similar. Add in a short amount of text and an image that shows off your related promotions. For example, if everything is ‘buy two get one free’ in a certain range for the holidays, include this in your post. You may also include coupon codes for your online store.

Once the post is published it will show up under your Google My Business listing when a related search is made.

2. Promote Your Holiday Event

Are you open late for a special evening shopping event? Do you have a special networking dinner for your business customers?

You can use the Posts function to add a new event, too. In the pop-up, just choose the “event” tab. Add the details, such as date, location, and start time, and hit publish.

Users will be able to click on this promotion to book their place on the event. This will help you to manage your attendee list so that you know how many to expect.

You can also create a list from those who have expressed an interest in the event to send further targeted marketing communications about the event and related products.

3. Shout About Your Seasonal Products

There’s one more function of ‘Posts’ on your listing: the What’s New section. This is the perfect place to shout about your holiday-related products.

Add a post as above: the What’s New posts have more space for additional information, images, and even videos. This is a great way to tempt local shoppers to visit your website and your bricks-and-mortar store during the run-up to the holiday season.

Ask an Expert to Help

If you’re having trouble setting up your local Google listing to make the most of free seasonal marketing opportunities, it’s time to speak to an expert.
free offer in GMB
A GMB and local SEO expert will be able to use the perfect keywords, based on customer psychology and keyword research, to make sure your free online promotions are effective in boosting sales. Get in touch with our team today to find out more!  Need help?  I will post your offer FOR you – not cost or obligation.  Just book a call time here.

Here’s a sample of a posted offer in GMB.  Take advantage of our special offer we posted on our GMB listing.

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5 small business marketing essentials

5 Essentials of Small Business Marketing to Keep You Ahead of the Competition

Small business marketing is not for the faint of heart, but if you’ve been in marketing for longer than two seconds, you know that. Marketing your business is dependent on doing some key factors well and these items can make or break a small business in this dog eat dog world we live in. Competition is fierce and learning how to make the most from your web pages is tricky.

Here are five important actions to keep you ahead of the competition!

  1. Create a Marketing Plan – Don’t leave anything to chance. Construct a well-thought out, concise plan that maps out every one of your marketing elements along with what you need to do to make it work. Make it as detailed as possible. At the very least fill in the broad strokes.  But don’t just plan blindly, base it on research.  How do customers typically find and choose a business like yours?  No point planning a direct mail campaign if most of your audience prefers to look online
  2. Social Media Marketing – 91 percent of experiences social marketers generate improved website traffic and 79 percent generate more quality leads according to MediaBistro.com. How do they do this? They don’t waste time with their social media marketing. Map out a plan for social media an stick to it.
  3. Build a Mailing List – MarketingProfs.com reported emails averages a ROI (return on investment) of $40 for every $1 spent. This far exceeds keyword ads ($17) and banner ads ($2). Don’t be misled into thinking collecting and building an email list is dead. If you don’t build a list, you’re failing to build your business!  You just cannot afford to leave such a large source of potential profits for your competition.  Build an email list above all things – it’s worth gold.
  4. Video Marketing – Research shows a video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google than any other text page! This really is too good to pass up. Small businesses can engage in this by video marketing. The video market is still relatively untapped and having a simple video advertising your wares can gain you loads of Google traffic along with authority.
  5. Have a Mobile Presence – Ensure your site is optimized for mobile, as more than half of all searches now are emanating from some type of mobile device. Microsoft reports that mobile browsing is projected to overtake desktop browsing by 2014. Having your pages mobile optimized can help improve your reach, and also corral impulse buyers.

Don’t Be a Superhero and Do It Alone!

None of us can do it all, particularly when it comes to the constantly changing world of online marketing. Find out what’s working now, learn from the best you can afford, and hire the best outsourcing you can get. It will pay off handsomely in the end!