In 2025, the more local businesses are, the more they need to promote themselves.

In 2025, local businesses will face more intense market competition, and the importance of marketing will become more prominent. This article will explore how local businesses can promote themselves in the new market environment, analyze the direct impact of promotion on business, and provide specific marketing strategies and tool recommendations.

Last August in Wuxi, I was invited to attend a marketing salon for the catering industry, with about 70 people attending.

At the salon, I observed a very interesting phenomenon: the more successful the business, the stronger their awareness of advertising. On the other hand, the more conservative the marketing methods of the businesses in trouble, the weaker their awareness of advertising.

On the surface, this is a cognitive problem: some businesses tend to be conservative and fail to recognize the positive effects of advertising on commerce and business.

Looking deeper, this is still a practical issue: because I found that many businesses also realize that advertising is important, but they just don’t know how to do it.

A boss who made knife fish noodles in Jiangyin said something very true:

To be honest, I am willing to invest even if I have to sell everything I have. I just don't know how to invest, and the investment has no effect. As long as it doesn't lose money, I can actually add unlimited investment. Now I want to invest but I can't. It's not that I don't want to do it, but I'm not sure.

Because I don’t know how to invest and don’t know how to use the tools, I am nervous and full of concerns. This is also a manifestation of "knowing but doing differently" in business management.

So you see, one problem is unwillingness to invest, which falls into the category of epistemology, and the other is not knowing how to invest, which is a methodological issue.

At the beginning of 2025, I think it is necessary to have a detailed discussion with merchants on the understanding and methods of marketing.

1. The more local the business is, the better the promotion should be

We all know that there is a basic formula for local business: business size = traffic x conversion rate.

Traffic is the result of marketing promotion, while conversion is more the result of operation.

I found that many businesses are seriously biased. Some businesses are good at attracting traffic, but their management ability cannot keep up, resulting in a lack of ability to handle the traffic, and ultimately this traffic does not last long. Some businesses are good at management, but do not pay much attention to promotion, believing that "good products will attract customers", which is also a very bad habit.

Regarding the latter situation, I say that we must resolutely avoid this kind of understanding. Because if we hold this kind of understanding, the road ahead will become increasingly difficult in the current competitive environment.

The current fierceness of competition in local businesses is beyond imagination. Not to mention the catering industry, which has already seen bloodshed. Let's take Beauty Store as an example. According to data from Youzanmei Industry, from 2023 to mid-2024, the number of face-washing stores on public channels soared from 100,000 to about 130,000. In other words, nearly 170 stores are opened every day across the country, and the degree of internal competition has reached an all-time high.

However, the products of many stores are highly homogenized, especially those of large chain stores, whose supply chains may be similar.

At this time, the value of promotion becomes apparent, because marketing promotion can expand the business radius of the merchant and increase the number of people interested in the merchant.

In the local market, the natural traffic of merchants is usually limited to the surrounding areas. Effective promotion can use multiple channels such as online platforms and offline activities to convey brand and product information to a wider range of potential customers, thereby increasing the sales and revenue of merchants.

Taking the merchants on Douyin Local Life as an example, the number of merchants using massive local push in 2024 increased by more than 1 times year-on-year, among which the transaction volume brought by marketing increased by nearly 3 times year-on-year.

Specifically in the short video scenario, the transaction volume contributed by Hu Ao Ao Local Push increased by more than 3 times year-on-year; in the live broadcast scenario, it helped to increase the operating output ratio by about 45%; in the search scenario, Hu Ao Ao Local Push search advertising contributed more than 300 million orders.

These are the direct effects of promotion on business.

Therefore, promotion is not an illusory trick, nor is it about spending money to buy publicity, but rather it is a lever to use traffic to drive business.

In 2025, the competition between local businesses will not only be a direct confrontation in terms of business operations, but also a competition in terms of promotion. Whoever is good at promotion will be able to boost business.

Between promotion and operation, learn to strike a balance and do not neglect either. This is a topic that successful businesses must solve this year.

2. Four questions and answers about local business trends in 2025

In 2025, how can local businesses promote themselves well?

I have roughly summarized the problems faced by merchants in operation and marketing, which involve four aspects: product-store collaboration, customer acquisition model, business activation and manpower. These four aspects actually also contain the four trends of local business in the past 25 years. Let me elaborate on them below.

Question 1: As a local merchant, what are my marketing priorities on TikTok?

Brand chain merchants need to do three things well: build a good brand, open new stores well, and run daily business well.

First of all, why do local businesses need to build brands? Because brands can influence the minds of users and allow consumers to quickly think of you when they have needs. In addition, a clear brand image can also form higher trust and increase the possibility of future repurchases.

I know a chain massage business that differentiates itself from other live broadcast rooms by creating an immersive ancient-style live broadcast scene on Douyin, forming a very special brand image. Then, with the help of massive local promotions and targeted placement of its own efficient stores + advantage stores, it achieved the effect of doubling its monthly online GMV.

A very important task for many chain stores is to open new stores well.

Some businesses find influencers during the warm-up period and create a lot of hype, but when they open the store, they fail easily if they fail to attract traffic.

Some businesses do very well during the warm-up period and the opening period, but they stop during the daily stable period, which can easily lead to a poor performance.

I often tell merchants that the marketing promotion of a new store is a systematic project and a coherent marketing action.

Let me share an example of a chain tea drink merchant. He did this by hiring influencers to visit the store and build momentum during the preheating period, and then quickly released influencer content to heat up the store during the opening period, and combined it with a large amount of local promotion to convert the momentum into store traffic.

After entering the stable period, it did not slack off, and actively carried out brand self-broadcasting and expert live broadcasting, combined with massive local promotion and global promotion. Through this strategy, the ROI of live broadcasting increased by 23%.

You see, the series of actions went smoothly without any lag, and traffic and operating cash flow naturally flowed in continuously.

Question 2: It seems that the growth rate is getting smaller and smaller, and the methods of acquiring customers are too single. What new customer acquisition space will there be in 25 years?

Group buying + leads.

The biggest advantage of this model is that you can get twice the result with half the effort.

The group purchase model attracts attention and purchases by providing preferential group purchase products, and quickly accumulates potential customer resources. In the process of users purchasing group purchase coupons, merchants can guide users to leave contact information and other clues to achieve the conversion from group purchase to clues.

These users attracted through group buying already have a certain interest and demand for the merchant’s products or services, so the quality of their leads is relatively high. They can further screen and follow up high-intent users to promote sales of full-priced products and order conversion.

I think this is a great marketing combination for local businesses. A calligraphy education and training business, after focusing on group buying + lead dual-line operations, explored a model for hot product delivery, and the lead-to-store rate increased by 10%.

Some businesses have already started using the dual-line operation model. Let me share a piece of data. In 2024, the number of businesses doing both group buying and lead marketing on Douyin increased by 84% year-on-year, and the total number of customers acquired by dual-line businesses increased by 15% .

It is expected that this model will bring significant growth this year, and businesses must seize this trend.

Question 3: How can I seize the popularity and traffic on the platform and ignite my own business in 25 years?

Among the 10 local businesses I know, 9 of them want to boost their business on Douyin, because everyone recognizes the platform value of Douyin and huge local promotions, with large traffic and good results, but many don’t know how to do it.

The answer is actually very simple, just three words: grab the node .

Because nodes are often accompanied by special meanings or a celebratory atmosphere, they can easily stimulate users' enthusiasm for participation, and Douyin is a national platform.

Therefore, the explosive properties of nodes on Douyin are strong and the certainty of the platform is high. For example, a chain restaurant business seized the marketing node of the Summer Olympics and achieved an 80% increase in GMV and a ROI of 60. Such cases are everywhere on the huge local push.

I understand that in 2025, there will be nearly 10 platform-level activities promoted by the local market, including Double Holidays, May Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, and National Day. In addition, there are many more industry activities. Moreover, each node platform will open red envelope incentives to all merchants.

As I said, if you want to do good business on Douyin, you can’t go wrong by following the platform’s actions.

Let me say it again: if you want to explode your business this year, remember: seize the key points.

Question 4: What if there are not enough people and the materials are not made? Is there any solution in 25 years?

A merchant once told me: "We don't have professional marketing personnel. The store manager or deputy store manager makes decisions and launches the video directly. However, they also have other jobs, so there is obviously not enough manpower. Video launch also requires a lot of materials."

Later I found out that this was not an isolated case, but a widespread problem.

I learned that Massive Local Promotion has a "continuous investment" product that can be started and stopped with one click, and the starting threshold is also very low, with 30 yuan per day for promotion. Product group purchase cards can also be directly searched, and can be easily placed without materials.

In addition, with the help of AIGC's tools, local businesses can use the PC-side instant creation and mobile-side editing to achieve one-click film production and automated scripting functions, which can greatly reduce the difficulty of material production for local businesses.

It can be said that these tools have greatly liberated the manpower of merchants, and the threshold has become very friendly to many novice merchants.

The key is that although the launch is simple, the effect is even better. There is a chain hot pot restaurant that has been launching continuous investment for a long time, and the monthly ROI has reached 4.

As the old saying goes: If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools. In 2025, platform tools will become more and more intelligent, and the effects will get better and better. Merchants who know how to use tools and make good use of platforms will have already outperformed half of their competitors.

Author: Swordsman

Source: WeChat public account: "Daoke (ID: jianshishijie)"