Actionable Business Marketing Tactics | Local SEO Edition with Favour Obasi-ike
The actionable local SEO and marketing strategies for businesses to implement in 2026 with Favour Obasi-ike. The primary recommendation involves using QR codes as digital lead magnets to bridge the gap between physical locations and online platforms. This further emphasizes the power of podcast appearances and high-authority PR backlinks to establish brand credibility and improve search engine rankings. Additionally, the discussion explores short-form video tactics on YouTube and Instagram as tools to drive traffic to specific landing pages or low-ticket offers.
The speakers conclude that consistent data tracking and strategic positioning are essential for scaling a local business effectively.
Next Steps for Booking A Discovery Call | Digital Marketing + SEO Services:
>> Visit our Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about digital marketing services.
>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats Online
Episode Timestamps & Key Takeaways
1. The QR Code Renaissance: Your Digital Lead Magnet
QR codes have re-emerged as a low-cost, high-impact tool for local marketing, serving as a powerful bridge between physical customer presence and digital engagement. More than just a link, a strategic QR code acts as a direct gateway for lead capture, data collection, and relationship building, turning passing interest into a measurable interaction.
- [00:02:30] The Core Tactic: Creating and Deploying QR Codes Implementing a successful QR code strategy involves a few key steps:
- Generation: Use a dedicated tool like flowcode.com to create a custom QR code.
- Destination Strategy: Instead of linking to a generic homepage, direct users to a specific, high-intent page on your website. This could be a contact page, location page, a special offer landing page, or an email list signup form. The goal is to make the next step clear and valuable.
- Physical Placement: Maximize local visibility by placing the QR code on a variety of physical assets, including brick-and-mortar storefront windows, flyers, business cards, leaflets, and even in collaboration with other local businesses like restaurants.
- [00:07:15] Case Study: The Loungewear Brand A 2023 case study of a loungewear client at the Arendelle Mills Mall demonstrates the power of this tactic. During the Christmas season, the business used QR codes to promote a raffle for a family loungewear set. Shoppers scanned the code to enter, which successfully:
- Built their email list with qualified, local leads.
- Drove both in-store and online sales by creating a direct engagement point.
- The campaign successfully accelerated their online business by focusing on the core brand message of family bonding, turning a simple raffle into a meaningful touchpoint that resonated with their target audience.
- [00:13:45] Critical Best Practices To ensure your QR code campaign is effective and avoids costly mistakes, follow these essential practices:
- Incentivize the Scan: Offer a compelling reason for someone to pull out their phone. Frame it as a gateway to exclusive sales, monthly offers, or entry into a contest.
- Test Before You Print: Before investing in hundreds of flyers or stickers, thoroughly test the QR code with multiple people and different devices to ensure it scans correctly and links to the right destination.
- Track the Interaction: On your backend system, verify that a scan is being registered. This is crucial for measuring the campaign's effectiveness and understanding user engagement.
This direct, one-to-one engagement tactic sets the stage for a broader, community-focused strategy: live events.
2. Front-End Offers: Building Community with Events
A "front-end offer" in this context is less about an immediate transaction and more about securing a customer's commitment. Local events are the perfect vehicle for this strategy, providing a platform to foster deeper relationships, build brand loyalty, and create a powerful feedback loop that traditional digital marketing often misses.
- [00:15:30] Case Study: The Junk Journaling Business This case study follows a client with a purely traditional, offline business and zero website traffic. The strategy and results were transformative:
- Problem: The client had zero website traffic and was operating a purely traditional, offline business, making them invisible to online search and limiting their growth to in-person interactions.
- Solution: The host advised creating a free, local event on Eventbrite. The event listing was strategically optimized with local SEO keywords like "junk journaling classes near me" to capture search intent.
- Results: Within just seven days, the Eventbrite page received 88 views. More impressively, all 10 available slots for the event—still a month away—were completely filled, validating immediate local demand.
- [00:23:00] The Post-Event Flywheel The value of a local event extends far beyond the event itself, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of engagement and growth:
- Deep Connection: Events provide a rare opportunity to build genuine, personal relationships with customers in a face-to-face setting.
- Network Effect: The "10 people know 10 people" principle comes into play. A small group of engaged attendees can quickly become powerful brand advocates, driving exponential word-of-mouth marketing.
- Feedback Loop: By using a QR code at the event, you can direct attendees to a survey. This gathers invaluable feedback for improving future events and understanding customer needs.
- Validating Paid Offers: The post-event survey is the perfect place to gauge interest in future paid workshops or events, allowing you to de-risk future business decisions by confirming demand before investing resources.
From building community in person, the conversation shifts to scaling that trust and authority to a much wider digital audience.
3. Podcast Guesting: Scaling Trust and Authority
Podcast guesting is a powerful and often underutilized local SEO and public relations (PR) strategy. It offers a unique dual benefit: it builds personal brand trust through the intimate and authentic medium of voice, while simultaneously generating a high volume of valuable digital assets in the form of backlinks.
- [00:28:45] The Backlink Multiplier Effect Being a guest on a podcast is a superior backlink strategy compared to a simple guest article. A single podcast appearance can result in dozens of high-quality backlinks as the episode is syndicated across numerous platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora. Each platform that lists the episode with your name and website in the show notes creates a new backlink, amplifying your SEO impact from a single effort.
- [00:33:10] Building Your "Listen Score" Platforms like listennotes.com (using "Listen Score") and Podchaser.com (using "Power Score") provide metrics that quantify both audience trust and algorithmic credibility. Consistently appearing on podcasts directly improves these scores. A higher score signals to algorithms that you are a credible and relevant authority in your field, enhancing your overall brand authority and searchability.
- [00:36:00] Finding Your Platform Finding the right podcasts to appear on is a straightforward process:
- Recommended Tool: Use a podcast discovery platform like ivy.fm.
- Process: Search for topics relevant to your business or expertise. The tool will generate a list of relevant shows. From there, you can identify their contact information and craft a pitch to appear as a guest expert.
The host's prepared tactics are then reinforced and expanded upon by real-world experiences from other experts who joined the discussion.
4. Expert Discussion: Real-World PR, SEO, and Video Strategy
In the final segment, marketing experts Marc, John, and Pierre join the host to share recent experiences and insights, adding another layer of practical validation to the episode's core themes of PR, local SEO, and modern content strategy.
- [00:45:00] Mark's PR Case Study: The Power of a Single Backlink Marc shared two recent PR wins that perfectly illustrate the difference between brand presence and direct SEO value. The comparison highlights that the quality and type of a link are far more critical than the length of the feature.
- [00:58:15] John's YouTube & Low-Ticket Offer Strategy John provided a distilled look at his current content and sales funnel strategy, emphasizing speed and efficiency:
- YouTube Content Mix: He recommends a strategic blend of 30% shorts for top-of-funnel branding and discovery, combined with 70% long-form video for deeper audience engagement and education.
- Shorts-to-Revenue Funnel: An effective modern funnel uses shorts for the initial "branding" function—getting people to say, "Oh, yeah, that's interesting"—before driving traffic directly to a low-ticket offer ($27-$47) on a checkout page. This bypasses complex sales pages for high-volume, low-friction conversions.
- GeoGrid Inaccuracy: John noted that traditional local SEO geogrid mapping tools are becoming inaccurate. He shared an example where a manual, localized search showed his client in the top 3 results, while the geogrid software reported a rank of 8. This discrepancy demonstrates the unreliability of the tools and reinforces the need for new tracking methods.
- John's strategy provides a digital, high-velocity parallel to Tactic #2's front-end offers, using short-form video to secure low-friction commitment and rapidly build a revenue-generating audience.
This expert discussion underscores the episode's key principles, bringing the focus back to the tangible actions listeners can take.
Resources Mentioned
- QR Code Generation: flowcode.com
- Event Management: Eventbrite
- Podcast Discovery: ivy.fm
- Podcast Metrics: listennotes.com, Podchaser.com
- Privacy-Focused Analytics: Fathom Analytics
- Marketing Experts Referenced: Maria Wendt, Joel Irway, Daniel Priestley, Sean Cannell, Daryl Eaves
Conclusion & Call to Action
This episode delivers a clear and compelling message: success in local marketing hinges on practical, strategic action. The tactics discussed—from QR codes and community events to podcasting and savvy PR—are not just theoretical concepts but proven methods for building visibility, trust, and revenue. The final challenge to the audience is to move from passive listening to active application. Choose one of these strategies, implement it for your business, and begin the journey to "listen, live, learn, and earn."
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
