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As of March 2024 we have renamed Apexchat to Blazeo. We are excited to share the next part of our journey with our customers and partners.
The name ApexChat implies that we are primarily a chat company, which is no longer true. Now we have many offerings, such as call center services, AI, Appointment setting, SMS Enablement, Market Automation, and Sales acceleration (Q2 2024), that go beyond chat. The new name will not only allow us to convey the breadth of our offering but will also better convey our company’s mission and values.
Blazeo, which is derived from the word Blaze, evokes a sense of passion, speed, and energy. A “Blaze” is captivating, illuminates, and represents explosive growth. Blazeo encapsulates our mission to ignite such growth for our customers and partners by delivering innovation with passion, speed, and energy.
6 min read
In order for local businesses to survive in modern markets, new marketing strategies are needed to better target consumers’ wants and needs.
The sad truth is only 33% of small businesses reach the 10-year mark. The rest of these businesses fail.
Marketing strategies should always be evolving over time. If you are seeing a decline in sales or plateau in revenue, it’s time for you to rethink your marketing strategy for your business.
But with so much information being shared every day, how do you know which strategies are right for your local business?
This guide will help modernize your marketing strategies to prepare you for the future.
Ask yourself this question: How are new customers able to find your business?
Some traditional ways could be through print ads, direct mailing, word of mouth or radio promotions. While these are good, they don’t target prospects that use the internet to find local businesses.
Google My Business is a powerful tool that lets you engage with customers on Google for free. By setting up your Business Profile, you can easily connect with customers across Google Search and Maps.
In fact last year BrightLocal reported that 64% of consumers have used Google My Business to find contact details for local businesses.
Setting up your Google listing will make it easier for consumers to find you when they search for terms related to your business. By default Google asks for the following information:
A Google My Business listing also localizes all your customer reviews of your business and assigns a star rating. Your star rating is the number one factor used by consumers to decide whether they’ll buy from your business.
We recommend you encourage your pre-existing customers to leave a review on Google My Business. Positive online reviews make 73 percent of consumers trust local businesses more, so by improving your review rating you are appealing to new and old customers.
Once you have your business account set up, you can also start running Google Local Service Ads to better target your local audience and appear at the top of Google search rankings.
Read more about how your business can leverage Google Local Service Ads here.
Blogging is a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader online while helping your SEO strategy in the process. Frequent high-quality posts will result in more website traffic, followers and potential leads that will translate to increased profits.
Blog posts you publish on your website increases your chances of ranking higher on Google search rankings.
We recommend you research what other competitors in the area are writing about to understand what’s trending.
These posts will also contain valuable keywords that prospective customers will be searching online. The more content you publish, the more likely you are to establish a steady group of readers who are more likely to convert.
Your local community is the lifeline of your business, which means you need to give back to the community in a thoughtful manner. Consumers want to know the companies they buy from support charitable causes.
A study by Cone Communications found that 90% of consumers want companies to tell them how they’re supporting charitable causes.
This same study also reported that 91 percent of customers say they are willing to switch brands if it means supporting one associated with a charitable cause.
Try researching the charities in your local area to see if there may be opportunities to partner with them. You can also run special promotions that donate a certain percentage of sales on a particular day or week to the cause of your choice.
Every business should strive to provide the best customer experience possible. Regardless of the products or services you provide, creating a smooth customer journey will improve retention over time.
One way to identify weaknesses in your customer experience strategy is by communicating with your customers through reviews or surveys. Offer a small reward for anyone who fills out a survey or leaves a review of your business online.
Cox reports that 90 percent of U.S. consumers frequent small businesses at least once a week. Furthermore, 63 percent of the respondents said that they feel a strong need to support local entrepreneurs.
The convenience that small businesses provide to customers is a major selling point. Small businesses can leverage this by offering exemplary customer service, convenient operating hours, and a welcoming atmosphere.
You can also include customers’ opinions and feedback into your strategic decisions to keep customers invested in your business’s future.
A business is nothing without its customers, which makes customer success management one of the most important investments your company can make.
Brands should identify customer expectations and reward them for shopping at their business.
It’s actually cheaper, in the long run, to focus on getting existing customers to spend more money. Invesp found that it costs five to twenty-five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one.
Rewarding customer loyalty with discounts and free gifts will build brand loyalty and increase sales. BRP Consulting found that consumers prefer personalized rewards for their loyalty to a brand, with 68 percent indicating they would shop at a store offering them over one that did not.
Need help starting your customer success program? We got you covered. Check it out here.
Social media works in tandem with reviews of your business online. A strong social media presence tells customers you are providing relevant offers and deals they can use at your business.
Clutch found that two-thirds of small businesses (66 percent) use social media to monitor their online reputation, and nearly half of these small businesses (48 percent) use social media with other platforms to round out their monitoring efforts.
As part of your market research, you should consider social media channels that directly engage with customers in your local audience. These channels should be easy to monitor and update with new content.
If you cannot reasonably provide enough up-to-date content across all your social media channels, consider scaling down and managing platforms with the most engagement.
We don’t expect you to implement all these tactics overnight. What you can do is go through our list and prioritize the tactics you need based on your business.
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