Ep 13: 3 types of content that turn into local clients and customers

Are you posting on social media for your local business and wondering... is this even doing anything?

In this episode of Hometown Advantage, I'm breaking down the three types of content every local business owner needs to post to turn casual viewers into loyal, paying clients.

If you're tired of:

• Spinning your wheels with random content
• Copying trending posts that don’t work for your business
• Wasting hours trying to figure out what to post...

Then this episode will be a game-changer.

You’ll learn my simple BUS Framework:
🚌 Behind the Scenes Content
🚌 Uniqueness Content
🚌 Storytelling Content

These strategies are the same ones I use to help local service providers, boutique owners, estheticians, dog trainers, and more build trust, stand out, and get found by local customers—without posting every day or hiring an expensive agency.

🎯 If you want ready-to-use content ideas that actually grow your business, check out Local Content Club – your go-to membership for DONE FOR YOU content prompts made just for local business owners.

💬 Want to see the IG post I mentioned? You can watch it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLCwLNpxYk_/

✨ In this episode, I also share the personal story behind how I hit $100K in revenue this year without burning out, what finally clicked for me, and how deciding to go all in changed everything.

Whether you run a local salon, gym, boutique, clinic, or dog training biz, this episode will help you simplify your marketing and get results.

🛑 Stop wasting time on content that doesn’t convert.
 ✅ Start showing up with confidence and strategy.

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LINKS + RESOURCES

🔗 Join the Local Content Club before the price goes up: https://nicoleeldridge.thrivecart.com/localcontentclub/
📲 DM “Club” to me on Instagram: @nicoleeldridgeads
📺 IG post I referenced: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLCwLNpxYk_/

Transcript

0:00

Hello, hello. Welcome to Hometown Advantage, a podcast for local business owners looking for ways that they can easily market their business without spending hours on content creation, thousands on agency fees, and constantly having this spinning wheel, spin spinning wheel syndrome where they're wondering. Am I even doing anything right that ends here, friends. Okay. If you don't already know me, my name's Nicole. I am a local Facebook and Instagram ads expert. I help local businesses learn a step-by-step Facebook ad process that skyrockets their visibility, brings in local leads and customers. I am so excited to be sitting down and recording. Today we're gonna be talking about the three types of content that turn viewers into paying clients, especially if you run a local business. But before I do that, I just wanna share this reel that. I just shared to my Instagram stories, it's probably not there at this point that you're listening to this, but it's from somebody named Nikki Marie, Inc. Her name is Nikki Unplugged on Instagram. She is a content creator. She has a million followers, and I just came across this reel that she posted of her just talking to the camera, and basically she's saying, you need to figure out what you want in life, and then you need to just relentlessly. Go after it. You need to decide that you're gonna start and then you need to go start. And this reel almost had me in tears. It had me just in chills. I'll try and remember to put a link to it in the show notes so you can go watch it yourself, because something else I just shared to my Instagram story is that. Yesterday I was home with my kids. My kids are home on Wednesdays and Fridays. I only work Monday, Tuesdays, Thursdays with like little bits of work on the days in between. And I just was nonchalantly checking my stripe balances and I saw. I officially passed the hundred K revenue mark for this calendar year for 2025, and I knew it was coming, but the fact that it's here, I thinking back on. Past years is so wild because last year I think I made like maybe in the seventies or 80,000, and I went into January of this year with a goal of making a hundred K. And the reason that was my goal was because I was making 70 or 80 K the year before and I was completely maxed out. I had nine clients at a time. I had some support with their work, but not a lot. And in my head, I thought that was what I wanted. And actually it took me getting in rooms with other people who had. Lives and skills that I wanted to realize that that was not what I actually had signed up for when I started this business. So when I made the a hundred K goal, I thought to get there, I would have to stretch and max myself out even more. I. But being around these other people who were making hundreds of thousands of dollars, working half as much as I was, I learned that's not the only way, that there's a better way to do it and. I realized that's what I wanted and man, did I put my head down and go after it before, and here's the deal. I don't regret that time at all that I was like. Working with so many clients, taking on everything, working so many hours because honestly, I don't think I would've grown this fast feeling disaligned in my work if I hadn't done that first. I had to go through that and see that and feel that to realize what I actually wanted was what I have now. So I don't regret, obviously, all of the hard work. I do think that there is this duality and this line between pushing a bit beyond your boundaries, a bit beyond what you feel comfortable doing in order to get to that next level. And then constantly just readjusting based on where you're at and where you wanna go. But anyways, I loved her message about how there just has to be a starting point. You just have to decide, and you'll have to start. And when you do that, things will actually happen a lot faster than you may think. So all that to say, if there's somewhere you're trying to go with this business, you're trying to go with this life, I, I just wanna remind you that just going all in on it. It. Just deciding this is how it's going to be. I'm going for it. No holding back like you just can't lose. You just can't lose. I bet on myself going into this business, I, and it was the best thing I could have betted on. Beed on bet on, because ultimately I know I will not quit for my family and myself. Anyways, that's all for my philosophical hour. We're gonna go into the more technical things here. Thank you for bearing with me on that. If you, if any of that lands with you, please send me a message on Instagram. I'd love to chat about it. Because, man, I am deep in my fields this morning, but we're gonna totally pivot and we're gonna go into three types of content that turn viewers into paying clients when you run a local business. So here's the deal. If you've ever posted something and thought, did that even do anything, you're not alone. Today I'm walking you through the three types of content your local business needs to be posting if you want people to go from watching, to actually working with you. And as a little sneak peek, these are the three types of posts I focus on every single month inside the local content club. Which is my new offer for local business owners who never wanna have to think about what to post again. They want to cut their marketing time in half. They wanna post things that they know are actually going to bring results and that are actually gonna move the needle. Instead of spending all this time creating content that ends up going nowhere. If you're listening to this in real time, I am offering a founding rate on the local content club membership of$47 a month just through the end of July. So you can grab that link in the show notes, you can go to my Instagram and comment or message me the word club and I'll send you the link as well. On August 1st, the price goes up to$77 a month, and I'm telling you, this is so worth your time and investment. Because of the time it's going to save you and the results it's going to bring you the fact that you can pay less than$50 a month to shave hours. Off of the time that you're thinking about what to post, actually coming up with the posts and then sitting there wondering if that was even good or not. Not to mention the mental energy and clarity of knowing I'm on the right track. The values in saying there, you definitely wanna get in on this. Okay, getting into it. Here's the deal. Random content doesn't convert, and what I notice with most of my clients is that they either don't post or they post with no idea about what the posts are doing for their audience. Or what can also happen is that they're trying to copy these trending posts, or do what big brands do or influencers. But the problem is that as a local business, your goal isn't to entertain or go viral. It's ultimately to build trust with the right people in your community. Ultimately, your people just need to know who you are. Why you're different and if you are the one that can help them. So that's where my bus framework comes in. BUS bus B stands for behind the scenes content. U stands for uniqueness content, and S stands for storytelling content. So let's talk about each of those. Content type one is behind the scenes or the be in the bus framework. This is where you're showing the real stuff. A lot of this is done through B-roll reels because seeing real life video of real life humans builds trust fast. This is becoming more and more important. Now that there is becoming so many AI generated photos, videos, ads, content, all of these things, more so now and going forward than ever, is it going to be important for you to have these authentic hooks, these authentic videos? This content that shows actual behind the scenes of you and your business in order to build that trust and authenticity. Okay. People love seeing the process. When you post this kind of content, it feels approachable and human. You're telling people I'm real. And I know what I'm doing, right? So here's some examples. One, it could be how you set up your space for the day or for an appointment. Maybe it's prepping materials. Anything you can get with your clients or other people is even a step higher. So like showing you delivering on a service. Over on my wall, I have sticky notes with all the people who have come through Hometown Advantage and what their niche is. So a lot of times I'm like looking over there to come up with examples in real time. My client, Amelia, she's a home organizer. That's an amazing niche to show the behind the scenes of people wanna see that process. Like just set up your phone while you're organizing someone's closet at an angle where they can see you, and then see what's happening inside the closet, speed it up, and then just show us the pictures before and after. Amazing behind the scenes content there. I've had a lot of dog trainers come through my program, so they're always really good about like getting clips of them actually teaching a class or working with a dog one-to-one. Obviously anything with kids, obviously you have to have the right. Approvals, but any classes or anything like that showing kids having the best time of their life. Obviously if you're a beauty business owner, you actually delivering on a treatment. Oh. What could be so good too, is if you video the consult part. Of your appointments, where you're advising, where you're showing your expertise, where you're showing what your client is struggling with when they come in, and how you help them through that, that's amazing. Behind the scenes content. Okay, so inside the local content club, you're going to get 10 prompts every month that help you show these things without you having to overthink it. You get hooks that have fill in the blank options. And then I also send examples of how other people have done it. And talk through some ideas for you so that you can immediately come up with, okay, this is how this would work for me. Perfect. Let's move into content type two, which is uniqueness. This is where you stand out from everyone else who's doing what you do. What makes your business different? What do you believe that others don't? What do your clients say about working with you that surprise them? Okay, so this isn't about bragging, it's about positioning yourself as a leader and as the go-to person. Ultimately in business we have to make sales, which means we have to sell. So a lot of times selling as a local business owner just comes down to explaining how and why they need you. So this is a big mistake I see a lot of local business owners make. They will sell. The service or the product of what they do instead of selling themselves as the service provider or themselves as the store that's providing the product. Here's an example. I have a client who owns a bridal shop, and I noticed that a lot of her posts were like, here's how to shop sample sales. Here are wedding dress shopping myths. Here are tips for your wedding dress appointment, and these are all great pieces of content with one small tweak I of making it about them, the shop. So instead of saying, here's tips on how to shop a sample sale. I prompted them to change it to Here's our best tips on how to shop the Tie, the Knot Boutique Sample Sale, like we need to make it about them personally and sell them. Here's the myths we don't subscribe to about wedding dress shopping at Tie The Knot Boutique. Like other bridal shops may encourage you to bring 20 people to your appointment, but we encourage you to bring two. I just made that up. But like things like that, that's gonna make you stand out as you having these thoughts, not just the industry itself. And then of course there's more technical things too, like services you offer that others don't. Personal touches, you include that others don't. Values and beliefs, technical things, like one of my favorite examples is like parking in a downtown location. I love when businesses market about their parking situation because who has not experienced parking anxiety where you're like, I don't know where I'm gonna park. Oh my gosh. And then. We're just looking for someplace to eat downtown, and I don't know where to go. Oh, this place has parking. That's included. Let's just go there. Right? Moving into content, type three, storytelling. This is what makes people feel something, and that's what leads to action. Okay, so I want you to share stories about you and your clients and your journey and your why. People connect through emotion. You don't need to be this professional storyteller. You don't need to write novels. You just need to show us the human side of the business because one. Yes, emotion and the connection makes sales. But here's the other thing with social media. Your audience and the people who are actually seeing your posts are actually seeing hundreds, if not thousands of posts in that same day. Do you think they're remembering. Or will ever remember every single post they see no. So if you make one silly post with a graphic that says, book an appointment, and that's it, and then they're inundated with hundreds of other posts that are entertaining or story based and draw them in, yours is not going to keep space in their brain. Storytelling does keep space in people's brains. So you need to tell them, and like I said, they can be short. The best way to use storytelling in your content as a local business owner is to share your testimonials in your reviews in a storytelling format. So a lot of people make the mistake of just posting a screenshot and being like, thanks for the review, or, look at this lovely review. People aren't really reading that. I'll be so for real with you, what they will read is a piece of text or a reel or some sort of hook that says, I. When Nicole came to me, she was nervous about having people over to her house because of her dog's behavior. Then we got to work together and look what she has to say now. That is so short, but you're telling a little bit of a story like this is what was happening in that person's life and why she reached out to a dog trainer, which helps other people see themselves in somebody who's already been a customer of yours. Do you see how powerful that can be? I. My client, Tracy, is a bookkeeper. She did a really good job of this on her page. She talked about how when so and so reached out to me, she was so overwhelmed by her books. She had no procedures. She had no idea how much money was going where, so I put her through my blank service and now. She feels like she has such a huge weight over her. Should off of her shoulders. See how there's a beginning, middle, and end, but it's so simple. It's just this is where they were. This is what we did, and this is her now. And then it's check out what she has to say in the caption, and then it's just the copy and pasted testimonial. Okay, so there's two types of stories. There's your client stories or experiences you're having with customers or things like that. And then there's your own stories too, like telling us why you started your business, telling us about your why, giving us little tidbits and snippets from along your journey. Okay, so these three types of content cover everything. Someone needs to feel ready to buy, trust, clarity, and connection. When you post a mix of these, even just a couple times a week, people start to remember you, like you and buy from you. Now if you wanna start using the bus content strategy, but you don't wanna sit around trying to come up with ideas. Scrolling for hours, wondering how you can relate some of these things back to your own business. Along with writing captions. Every month, you are exactly the right person to be inside the local content club. Inside the local content club. You get 10 done for you prompts every month based on this strategy that I just taught you get a short monthly video explaining what to focus on with your content for that month. You get post feedback from me and a profile audit from me inside our exclusive Facebook group where you can ask questions, get feedback, get quick wins so that you can know if you're on the right track or if you need to make some adjustments. And you're also getting my full local organic content curriculum, which is the first module inside Hometown Advantage. I haven't shared this with anyone else. But it's already ready for you inside the local content club hub ready for you to watch. It's less than 60 minutes of content, but full of amazing tidbits and a step-by-step plan for you that you're probably missing when it comes to your social media marketing right now. And here's the big thing. It's content made specifically for local businesses. That are looking for new local clients and customers that are actually going to remember them, learn how to trust them and take action. The founding member pricing is just$47 a month, but like I said, that's only till the end of July. After that, the price goes up to$77 a month. So if you jump in, now you're locking in that founding member price. Grab the link in the show notes or head to my Instagram. The link is in the bio there. You could also comment club on any of my posts and I'll, and my little robot will send the link over for you. Happy posting and have a great rest of your week.