Tips for Attracting New Customers to Your Local Chain Business

Local chain businesses are able to justify their brick-and-mortar growth by pointing to the new customer acquisitions that come with each new location. For many types of businesses, including restaurants, home services companies and retail brands, a physical presence and close proximity to customers can be a difference-maker in driving sales and improving brand loyalty.

A new business location generates greater brand awareness through the storefront’s visibility. It also gives nearby customers a far more convenient option than other locations you may operate in other towns or other sections of a city. And if you’re a services business, a new location can expand the geographic footprint of your service area.

But this growth, as well as your brand’s long-term viability, both depend on your ability to attract new customers to these locations. Here are some tips to help your business attract new customers and fuel the growth you need to justify your chain’s expansion.

Update Your Google My Business Listings ASAP

When you’re opening a new business location, one of the most impactful ways to promote that brick-and-mortar business is by making sure you’ve created and updated the Google My Business listing for that account.

These listings have a tremendous impact on your local visibility and your ability to attract new customers: according to Google, a complete business listing makes customers 2.7 times more likely to consider your business reputable, and they’re 70 percent more likely to visit your store.

A separate study found that the average conversion rate for a complete Google My Business listing was more than 5 percent. By taking a little time to set up this profile and keep it up to date, you can effortlessly generate greater visibility and business referrals through local search, the Google local map pack, and related customer activity.

Run Custom Campaigns for Each Location

Each location in your chain business serves a different customer base. The geography is different, and the demographics might be, too. While you might run certain types of campaigns targeted to an audience across all locations—such as awareness-level ads on cable TV—it’s important to promote individual locations with campaigns tailored to that unique audience.

If products and services vary from one location to the next, the need for location-specific campaigns is even more urgent. In many cases, businesses can use most of the same creative elements across all of these location-specific campaigns, swapping out small information such as referral links and business information for that location—and improving audience engagement and ad ROI as a result.

Concentrate Your Ad Delivery to New or Overlooked Communities

Geotarged ad campaigns can be a great way for businesses to drum up interest and in-store visits for new locations. If you open a new location on the opposite side of town, for example, geotargeting can help you deliver ads to consumers in the surrounding neighborhoods, connecting with consumers who fit your target customer profile and live in close range of that location.

Even in cases where your locations are already established in the local community, geotargeted ads can help you concentrate your engagement efforts on local neighborhoods where you’ve struggled to build up a customer base and have identified untapped potential.

Deliver Ads to Your Competitors’ Customers

When new locations are opened in a competitive environment, that competition can actually help you identify and advertise to your own target audience. Geofenced ads can be delivered to consumers at the business locations of those rival brands, creating opportunities to attract the interest of customers who aren’t necessarily loyal to that brand.

This highly targeted approach can be particularly useful in cases where the rival brand has poor online reviews and a weak customer experience. Weak customer loyalty can offer an in-road to new walk-ins and conversions that can jump-start a new business location and build momentum for quick customer growth.

Eager to ramp up your digital local marketing to accelerate new customer acquisitions for your chain business? Cox Media can help develop a digital strategy that promotes each individual business location while supporting your overarching advertising goals.

Discover the benefits of working with a small business marketing consultant—contact us today to learn more.