I’m from the Louisville area, and I often take for granted what a big deal the Kentucky Derby is to local businesses. The influx of tourists spells revenue opportunity for retailers, hoteliers, restaurants, owners of local attractions and a host of other businesses. This year in particular, that potential bump in sales couldn’t have come at a better time.
With that said, I’m often surprised at how rarely local businesses take advantage of local search as a way to squeeze the maximum marketing mileage out of the Run for the Roses and the whole Kentucky Derby Festival hullaballoo.
For smaller businesses in particular, local search offers a very affordable way to reach visitors to Louisville while they are making plans for Derby Week.
The idea is to use local search to make sure your business is visible, attractive and accessible to visitors coming in from out of town.
Visibility
This is where you need to make sure your business is represented in local business listings for Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Internet yellow pages, and any other directory sites that turn up when you search for “louisville hotels” or whatever your broadest local business keyword might be.
It’s also a great time to look at your business’ Web site and consider applying some local search engine optimization techniques. If you’ve got the budget for a paid search campaign, that’s another option to consider.
Attractive
Aside from simply making sure that you have a listing on the most popular online business directories, it’s important to look at the reviews of your business that are visible on those sites, as well as on travel information sites like Tripadvisor (which now has its own search engine). If there are no reviews and you’re currently doing e-mail marketing, you might consider linking to your listing pages with a “Tell us how we’re doing” request.
If there are negative reviews, you’ve got two options. For reviewers with legitimate complaints, offer to make it right. If reviewers don’t have legitimate complaints, it’s okay to tactfully respond and clear up the misunderstandings.
Accessible
If you already have listings and reviews in place, it’s still a good idea to do a review to make sure they’re accurate. Are there locations listed that you’ve since closed? Have your hours changed since the listing was originally posted? Is the contact information still accurate? If you’re linking to your home page, would your visitors benefit more from a custom landing page or a more specific interior page? There’s nothing worse than frustrating visitors who want to do business with you.
I’ve been using the Kentucky Derby as an example here, because as a Louisville advertising agency, it’s near and dear to our hearts at Doe-Anderson. But the same principles could work for South by Southwest if you’re in Austin, Texas, or for Mardi Gras if you’re based in the Big Easy.
Picking a winner is a tough proposition when you’re talking about a horse race. But using local search to make sure that you get the best bump possible in business you can from big local events is pretty much a sure thing.
