All business owners know how important their marketing is, whether they’re advertising on street lamps, Facebook, or TV. If you’ve been hesitant to invest in a marketing tech stack, it’s not hard to see why. With technology shifting and revamping nearly every day, it’s hard to justify costs for tools that might be obsolete in a year.
The good news is that with a little research, you can build a scalable tech stack that moves alongside your business, so you can revise your campaigns and tactics as your customers’ tastes change. Whether you’re HVAC specialist, financial planner, or optometrist, we’ll look at how a marketing tech stack for local businesses can help you appeal to more people — and ultimately boost your bottom line.
What Is a Marketing Tech Stack?
A marketing tech (martech) stack refers to the technology that owners and marketers use in their business. Ideally, they automate certain processes so you can focus more on the creative and analytical aspects of your jobs. This leads to better outreach, ensuring that customers hear what they need to hear before they hit the next stage in the funnel.
Martech has exploded in popularity because it’s become far more user-friendly over the years. While the terms and the software may seem highly technical, the reality is that non-digital marketers can pick up and run with martech should they want to expand their reach.
Components of An Effective Marketing Tech Stack
An effective martech stack is more than just email templates and social media posts. Here, we look at the most important components, how they work, and why you need them.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A CRM relies on data analysis to improve customer interaction. The system pulls and integrates information into customer profiles that ultimately help everyone in the company see the bigger picture. Whether the customer is barely familiar with your brand or they’ve been a loyal client for the past decade, you can use CRMs to meet them where they are instead of the other way around. Even for small businesses, having a CRM component helps everyone stay on top of the details that directly determine your revenue.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation streamlines many of your more rote tasks, and with the help of AI, the range of tools is extensive. For example, you might use marketing automation to draft social media posts, automate your content schedule, perform lead scoring, or A/B test different features of your campaigns. If you’re not using automation, it’s easy to get bogged down in time-consuming or even frustrating processes that slow down the rest of your efforts.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still an extremely effective way to reach your customers, but it’s also extremely easy for your customers to ignore or delete. With a better email marketing tool, though, you can start fine-tuning your segments to send more personalized messages. So, most of your email list is comprised of casual customers, you can start breaking those groups down into location, income levels, family size, etc. This makes your email subject lines more relevant to them, so they’re more likely to sit up and take notice.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization refers to the improvement of your search engine rankings. Lately, it’s become all but synonymous with success for many businesses, especially when you consider that there are 8.5 billion searches on Google alone every single day. When people search for services, whether it’s a deck installer or plastic surgery procedure, it may be nothing more than curiosity, or it could be someone ready to decide at that moment. Either way, the right SEO tools can help you design your content (e.g., keywords, photos, topics, etc.), so you’re liable to show up in the first slot.
Online Advertising
Retargeted ads, banner ads, native ads, social ads, and mobile ads are just a few ways to promote your business online. Your martech can not only make it easier to purchase virtual space where your customers will see you, but it can also help you test your outreach efforts so you can see which ones are making the best splash. For instance, if your customers are largely ignoring your platform ads on Twitter but responding well on Facebook, you can start diverting funds to the right platform.
Website and Landing Pages
Your website and landing pages are fertile grounds for common SEO elements, including keywords embedded in quality content. The easier your pages are to navigate, the more likely you are to be featured first in a search engine. Your martech stack can not only help you change your website information, but it can also help you adapt your digital destinations so they meet the customer’s expectations. For example, if more people prefer 30-second videos to 2-minute videos, it’s easier to adjust.
Content Publishing
Content publishing can be put on a relatively consistent schedule with the right tools. For instance, you draft 30 social media posts for the month and then automatically schedule them to go out at a consistent cadence. Content publishing tools allow you to build landing pages, survey forms, pop-up ads, and blog posts so you can deliver fresh and unique information to customers. These tools can also report which efforts were most engaging and offer insights as to why. Most local businesses live and die by their reputations, so it’s important for your content to reflect the expertise that fuels your livelihood.
Directory Listings Management
Businesses inevitably change over time, and it’s not always easy to keep track of what every directory reports about your hours, address, service menu, etc. Directory listings management gives you the opportunity to edit all of the information about your business in one place, so you can be certain it’s correct. If there are bad actors trying to discredit your business by posting misinformation, you can monitor all of this and remove incorrect data.
Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management is the process of monitoring how customers speak about your brand. So, if you receive a string of complaints about your business, you can verify its authenticity, respond directly to the customers, or issue a statement that speaks to your customer base. Online reputation management doesn’t just monitor your pages, it monitors all brand mentions across the board. So, if there are a group of people speaking disparagingly about your brand on Reddit, you get a heads up before it affects your business.
Text Messaging
There’s no doubt that people are more likely to read a text message than an email, but text messaging also leaves less room for error. SMS tools can help you both automate your texts by audience segments, tailor your content to different people, and alter your schedule to reduce the dreaded unsubscribers. So, if you were a window installer, you might put more effort into your text message marketing right before storm season, when everyone is thinking about whether their windows can withstand the winds.
Analytics & Reporting
Your analytics and reporting can give you a clear picture of whether your marketing campaigns are making a difference, which can help you avoid wasting time and money trying to reach the wrong people with the wrong messages. For example, if you’re a plumber who’s largely been marketing to single-family homes, but your customer base isn’t growing any wider, the right reporting and analytics can help you either revise your messaging or switch your demographic to commercial property owners.
To-Do List / Task Manager
A to-do list or task manager helps you keep track of everything that needs to be done, who needs to do it, and what the expectations are of each team member. Most local business owners don’t have the luxury of endless resources, so these tools help keep resources in check, regardless of how large or small your customer base is.
Building your Marketing Tech Stack with Surefire Local
A marketing tech stack for local businesses may seem like overkill for some business owners, especially if everyone on the team is pulling double-duty in different departments across the board. However, if you want to grow or even just maintain your base, it pays to invest in your online presence.
If you’re looking for a tech stack that can check off every box, Surefire Local has built an all-in-one platform that centralizes your marketing, so you can improve your online presence, drive traffic, and boost your revenue. Our business was built to create signals across all platforms and profiles, starting with the nitty-gritty basics so your way up to more elaborate campaigns and outreach efforts.
With Surefire Local, you can identify obstacles that hinder growth, improve collaboration across your teams, streamline your marketing, and analyze your progress. Every tool in our box was created to deliver a better customer experience, giving you all the information you need to speak directly to their needs and concerns.
If you’re interested in seeing how it all works, schedule a Surefire Local demo today!