What Is the Best Marketing Opportunity for Small Business

Let’s see if you can guess what I believe is the best marketing opportunity for small businesses. I’ll give you 5 helpful hints.

Don’t cheat! See if you can guess before scrolling all the way down for the answer at the end.

Hint #1: Fast Results

With this marketing tactic, I’ve seen clients generate sales in as little as 30 days from launching the campaign. That’s not as fast as Google AdWords advertising, which can generate sales in a matter of hours, but a month is still pretty fast.

We just ruled out AdWords advertising. And if you’re familiar with SEO, then we pretty much ruled that out as well. It typically takes months to even years before you can get your website to rank high enough in Google’s search results to generate sales.

Any guesses at this point? Don’t worry, we have 4 more hints to go…

Hint #2: Low Competition

This is one of the main reasons why this is such a great opportunity for small businesses. Right now, there is not a lot of competition in most industries. For some reason, your competitors are dragging their feet to launch a campaign like this.

That’s great news for you! If you take the time to get this set up, then you’ll have a huge competitive advantage. That’s because early adopters have the opportunity to secure their business and make it more difficult for competitors to overtake them later.

Luckily, getting set up is not hard, which brings us to hint #3.

Hint #3: Simple to Set Up & Maintain

I don’t consider myself lazy, but I do take pride in finding the fastest solutions to problems. One of my favorite classes in college when I was studying engineering was the Introduction to Optimization Methods class. That class was all about how to find the optimal (often fastest) solution to complex business problems (think UPS Logistics). I’m not saying I aced the class, but I did enjoy it. :)

I think you’ll agree that choosing the best marketing tactic on a limited budget, and with limited resources, is a complex problem! But here’s the thing: it’s not hard to set up this particular marketing campaign. That means you’re not going to invest a lot of time and resources into getting started.

We already eliminated SEO and AdWords at this point, and I think it’s safe to say we’ve eliminated Social Media as well. Setting up and maintaining and effective social media campaign is far from simple.

Any good guesses at this point? There’s still time and this next hint is a big one.

Hint #4: You Don’t Need a Website

I want to be crystal clear that I 100% recommend all small businesses create a website. However, if you don’t have one yet, or you have one that you know needs to be redesigned, then don’t worry. You can launch this type of campaign (and get results!) before investing in a new website design and development project.

I told you this was a big hint. I bet you have an idea at this point, but I’ll throw one last hint.

Hint #5: It’s Free

There’s no catch here. It’s 100% free to set up and maintain this type of marketing campaign. There are no hidden fees, no premium upgrade fees, no subscription fees, and no pay per performance fees. It’s free.

Think of it like ranking #1 in Google organically (not paid advertising). If you rank #1, then prospects can click on your website, learn more, then buy from you, and you don’t ever pay a penny for those sales. It’s just free. :)

The Answer

I trust you didn’t just scroll down here quickly before reading the 5 hints, right?

I’ll give you one last chance before I reveal the answer. Go on, take a guess.

The best marketing opportunity for small businesses is…

…

Local SEO!

Wait a minute, didn’t I said it wasn’t SEO?

Yes, I’m not talking about traditional search engine optimization (SEO) where you’re getting your website to rank high in regular search results. I’m talking about Local SEO, which is the process of ranking your Google+ Local profile in Google’s local search results.

To see this in action, search in Google for “dentist,” “chiropractor,” or “plumber” and you’ll see a map in Google’s results that ranks the local businesses in your area. Plus, you’ll see on the 1st page, front and center, the information for these local businesses so you can get directions, see if they’re open, read reviews, and call.

As long as you serve local customers, then YOUR business get a spot on the 1st page of Google if you follow Local SEO best practices. As I already highlighted above, it’s fast to get results, there’s low competition, it’s simple to get started, you don’t need a website, and it’s free!