Are you looking for the best way to advertise your local business and boost furniture sales? There are so many options to choose from, so choosing a few can feel rather daunting. Traditional radio, TV spots, blog mentions, SEO, billboards… there are so many choices. Which one is best for your furniture store? Which one should you invest your hard-earned money and spend your precious time on? There are so many articles online about this topic – often, with conflicting recommendations – but this article is a helpful tool for clarifying which methods are best for furniture stores. Local, highly targeted marketing is the way of the future – and the present – so make sure your business isn’t missing out on the opportunity to reach thousands of new potential customers.
Why Advertise Local Business Online
The most effective way to promote your local business in this modern age is online. Everyone from age 5-95 is on the internet these days, and searching for businesses online is the go-to solution for most. Many use search engines without even thinking about it, and when business marketers are smart, they leverage the power of the internet to advertise local business using relatively simple, cutting edge SEO techniques.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Marketing. Basically, it involves utilizing the power of the internet to make sure the largest number of potential customers to see your business. So, for instance, when someone searches “Furniture store in Los Angeles, CA,” hopefully your business is listed in the top few results on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search platforms. A strong emphasis on SEO results in many more clicks on your website as well as increased foot traffic in your stores. Advertise local business best with SEO. If no one can find you online, they won’t find your store.
No one drives around aimlessly, trying to find a furniture store – they search online! Even if your furniture store is less than a mile away from a potential customer, they may not find it if your business isn’t visible online. So make sure you take SEO seriously to boost the competitive edge of your business.
Other helpful acronyms business owners should be aware of are PPC (pay per click) advertising and SEM (search engine marketing). The more visible your business is on the internet – your website, social media, business platforms, and more – the more revenue will be generated as you advertise local business online. Profitability is the goal of all furniture stores so they can continue to serve their customers for many years to come – and focusing on SEO is the most potent method to achieve that today.
Google Advertising and the modern American furniture store
Google Advertising is an excellent tool to advertise local businesses like yours. Most people utilize Google on a daily basis, and helping them find your business through Google Ads is wise. Depending on what your main advertising goals may be – perhaps simply increasing your business’ online presence, getting more traffic in-store, or getting more calls – the Google Ads experience can be customized. Many businesses find that investing in Google Ads is a worthwhile way to achieve various marketing objectives.
What’s the big deal about Facebook advertising?
Surely you’ve heard about Facebook advertising, and you’ve seen it in or beside your Newsfeed. But what is it, exactly? Is it worth all the hype? Should your business be investing in it? Facebook ads are messages targeted to a specific audience and are crafted in order to achieve certain objectives. They allow businesses to pinpoint exactly who they want their customers to be and reach them effectively – right in the palm of their hands.
Ads are shown to potential customers based on the pages the user and their friends like, information gleaned from their profile, and places in which the user has checked in. Facebook also collects other data from users – including location information and other sites they have visited – in order to target ads in finer detail (more information about this can be found here. Facebook users can change their ad preferences, though they cannot eliminate ads from their experience on this platform entirely.
Boosted posts vs. Facebook ads
A common question we often hear from clients is: is it better to boost posts or create a Facebook ad? The answer is complex – it depends on your business goals and budget limitations.
Activating a boosted post is the easiest way to advertise on Facebook. It’s a post that’s featured on your business Page’s timeline that enables you to reach a wider audience than you would otherwise. When you select a post to boost, you’ll have to answer the following questions:
- Who do you want to reach? In other words, who, exactly, is your audience?
- What is your budget? How much are you willing to spend to boost a post on Facebook?
- How long do you want your ad to appear for? People in your target audience will only see your boosted post for the amount of time you indicate.
Boosted posts are excellent tools for increasing the likelihood of Page likes, comments, and shares. Plus your overall brand awareness.
On the other hand, an official Facebook ad takes a bit more effort. It’s created through Ads Manager and allows users to customize their ads in a more detailed manner. Facebook ads increase the likelihood that users install apps, website conversions, video views, shop orders, and more.
Facebook ads are different from boosted posts in that they allow businesses to:
- Choose different ad placements on Facebook and Instagram (only Facebook Ads
- Achieve precise objectives
- Choose custom formatting options that aren’t available for Boosted Posts
- More closely target people who will be interested in your business
Did you know that promoting your business on Facebook and Instagram is super easy? That’s right – Facebook Ads can automatically also publish on Instagram to a targeted audience (find out more about how to do this here. Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millenials, and others are using both platforms on a daily basis – shouldn’t your business be, too?
Advertise Local Business with Bing
Bing Ads, now called Microsoft Advertising, is an excellent tool for reaching older generations (such as Baby Boomers). If your target audience is people 50+, Bing is a great resource for reaching them. Advertise local business on Bing. What’s special about Bing is that there is no budget minimum. You’ll be able to reach a wide audience using Bing, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and other sights in the Microsoft family. Bing and related sites dominate up to 36.2% of the US desktop search market (link 5), so make sure your business is visible there if attracting business from seniors is an objective for your business.
How Remarketing Can Promote Your Business
Plenty of people have never even heard of remarketing – is that the case for you? If so, no worries. Remarketing involves targeting ads to customers who have already engaged with your website. Or maybe otherwise has shown an interest in your business’ products or services. Imagine if someone goes to your website, clicks around for a while, looking at couches, and then clicks over to Facebook. Remarketing ads will show that user content featuring couches. By tracking the movements of users on a few pages on your furniture store’s website, specialized ads can be crafted to reflect the personalized interests of particular users. Some might wonder if this will be annoying to potential customers.
However, certain studies, have concluded that the actual presence of ads doesn’t bother users. But only as long as the content is relevant. Of course, random ads that have no interest are bothersome. But targeted, personalized ads can be interesting and inspire users to make a purchase from your business. Remarketing is a win-win for both potential customers and businesses.
Boost Furniture Sales Online
The optimal way to advertise local business in the modern world is definitely online. But if you only have a few hours a week to devote to online marketing efforts, what should you prioritize? This is a fundamental question that has various potential answers. Ask yourself to the following questions to help you figure out your own answer:
- Who is my target audience? Be as specific as possible (Millenials? Facebook or Instagram. Baby Boomers? Bing. People who like eclectic, modern furniture? Traditionalists? Bargain hunters?)
- What is my budget like? If you only have a few hundred dollars a month, choose Facebook Boosted Posts to start. If you’d simply like to invest more, Google Ads, remarketing, or Bing Advertising may be the wisest options to advertise local business.
- How much time do you realistically have to devote to advertise local business for your furniture store online? If your time is limited, taking advantage of the ability to promote ads on Facebook and Instagram at the same time is a smart choice.
How to Advertise Business for Local Sales
Perhaps a big shopping day, like President’s Day, has your marketing team wondering about new ways to market to potential customers. Sometimes it can feel like no one new walks into your store, but there are thousands of potential clients who will probably be interested in your business if you simply invest the time, effort, and resources to advertise local business online.
Starting SEO efforts can feel daunting since there are so many techniques and options. But you don’t have to do it alone! Consulting with an SEO specialist, and perhaps enlisting their services as an independent contractor, can minimize the stress and time-consuming task to advertise local business online. Boost furniture sales, increase foot traffic in your store and get many more clicks on your website by harnessing the power of the internet with Facebook, Instagram, other social media platforms, Google, Bing, and otherwise maximizing your business’ SEO. Advertise local business successfully and take your furniture store to the next level of success by following these techniques. Local search marketing is a must for survival in the highly competitive furniture industry. Stand above the rest by following the SEO best practices outlined here.