You're considering expanding to a nearby city. There is already interest from customers in that location. This could mean your business is compatible with the people and culture in that area. Before you create product offerings or pay to promote your business in that area, you need to make sure your business can support the request.
Our Search Intelligence System (SIS) allows our clients to research potential business growth opportunities. Once a business is ready to move in a specific direction, we outline the tasks necessary to successfully support that growth. SIS provides clients the opportunity to ensure that business expansion is really a good business decision, and not merely the addition of a new location to a company’s web page.
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We assess your capability to service the opportunity. We analyze your current and potential clients. Can your team handle the work? Where are your potential clients located? Are you able to travel to those locations? Where are the constraints in your supply chain? Where do you have little or no control over the timely delivery of your product or service?
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We evaluate your potential new markets, services and customers. Our role is to help identify customer needs which may be evidenced through a number of sources, including: current customer demand, requests, and inquiries; gaps in customer expectations and your current website content; and the language customers use to express their needs.
We analyze how relevant competitors position their services and recognize areas where competitors might leave opportunities for clarification. This allows us to identify the information your company needs to provide to be considered by potential customers. We don’t assume that a competitor’s service offering indicates that an opportunity is worth pursuing. We take into account a host of other factors.
Plan expansions require input from service implementers. When creating the plan, we take into account service limits, staffing patterns, the time it takes to travel or deliver a service, what you determine to be an acceptable price, and other operational constraints. The plan must identify potential gaps in service and advise against initiating an expansion campaign to solicit service requests.
In order to present your offer to a new audience, we identify the elements that must be added to your website or marketing collateral. For example, a location page must describe the services offered and provide context for a potential customer in that location. To effectively communicate this information, you cannot simply replace a city name in a generic description.
Not all pages and campaigns can be launched at once. We help determine the first opportunity, define what would need to be developed, and agree on the ways to assess if more funds should be spent. Reporting & Attribution helps bring visibility to early customer engagements and connect them to meaningful business outcomes.
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Before evaluating a new city or region, we determine whether you actually operate in that marketplace and assess how your target customers in that location would relate to your company’s employees. This involves analyzing aspects such as the logistical workability of serving that location, the level of service you would need to provide, the level of service your competitors would need to provide, and the evidence (preferably legal) that you have to support your presence in that location.
Local SEO increases your visibility to those within your service area. Expanding your business into new areas is a separate process. It requires decisions about the products and services you will offer in the new location and an assessment of your expansion’s success. If you don’t make these business decisions, then having a number of poor quality, local pages may indicate that you don’t have a business strategy.
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Not all business expansion opportunities are focused on geographic growth. Other opportunities may exist for your business to grow by refining your existing offerings or by pursuing new markets. Before we create a new section on our website, we evaluate the capabilities of our staff, the clarity of the messaging, and the ability of the organization to manage the expected demand for the service.
We take a similar approach for markets outside of our current areas of expertise. It is important for us to analyze the ways in which markets are different. These distinctions may include the types of problems the market faces, who makes the buying decisions, and how long the buying process may take. It is critical for us to consider these areas to gauge the types of claims our messaging may need to support.
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We establish the specific location, service, or clientele you want to scope out and the goals you have for your business.
We analyze your current requests, consumer trends, trends in search data, the activities and performance of your competitors, etc
We look at coverage, staff, your ability to handle additional orders, and approved source documents.
Generally, the first market is the one that can be entered at the lowest cost.
We look for ways to better coordinate the efforts of your staff and assess what the staff is able to handle before expanding the efforts of your business.
Some things are worth waiting for. When our business requires additional staff members, more defined processes, and/or evidence from earlier projects, for example, we incorporate those things into our plan and do not launch until those things are in place.
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Preliminary data may show people visiting the new page. However, it doesn’t necessarily show if those visitors are potential customers. We analyze related inquiries, conversations, and booked appointments (if available). In addition, we consider the work done by our staff and the kind of customers they serve. Generally, a smaller market takes more time to evaluate and understand.
We retain the initial assumptions for review. Discrepancies between these assumptions and inquiries may steer changes in the kind of work offered, potential adjustments in service focus, and even a decision to momentarily halt service. More often than not, the work done serves to validate the assumptions made.
FAQ
For service businesses, this means exploring opportunities to expand to different geographic service areas, service offerings, and/or customer segments; and devising strategies on the best means to enter the segment and assess its success.
Initially, pages should be created for the city/location areas where you currently operate and for which you have sufficient service description to be meaningful. We evaluate the need and prioritize pages based on company and customer interest.
Search data provides some evidence of customer interest; however, there are many other factors such as competition, the fit of the lead, cost and ease of doing business, and your offering, that should be considered when making expansion decisions.
No. Local SEO is focused on the optimization of the business to improve its local listings for queries made within the locations it services. Market Expansion focuses on business growth.
We would consider the elements of the offer, the target customer, the business operation and the content required and the indicators to measure the level of interest and adoption of the service.
This is dependent on several variables. We are comfortable discussing leading indicators and lagging indicators of business success.
Let us know if you are considering new markets, services or customers. We can assist you to gain insight into the opportunities and assist you to determine next steps.
