When online articles refer to marketing your business, they’re often talking about big businesses and big corporations with big budgets to match. When you’re marketing a smaller, local business, however, you need a whole other approach to help you succeed.
Your small business can really benefit from a strong marketing strategy that helps to spread the word about your company, while also developing a real and meaningful connection with your clients. Are you ready to give your business the push it needs? Here are some ideas for marketing your local business.
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Ask for referrals
When it comes to finding goods or services, word of mouth still remains a powerful tool – both offline and online. While you might be relying on your customers to spread good word of mouth, it might just help if you prompt them. From providing customers with business cards to share with their friends to distributing an e-mail newsletter, you can soon help spread the word about your business through people who recommend and trust what you have to offer.
Add a blog to your website
Adding a blog to your website is a good way to share information about your business, discuss issues related to your industry and help people experience the more human side of your business. For a local business, your blog can be a way to develop a local connection as you discuss places and events happening in your town or city. Regular blogging can help you to increase the number of views to your webpage, providing interesting ways for potential clients and customers to discover you.
Make search engines work for you
You could be missing out on attracting visitors to your website every day. Using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be a vital asset for helping people looking for ‘your business + your city’ and other terms that would lead them to your company. Get help from a company that specializes in SEO for small businesses to help you get your website optimized. With the right keywords in place, you can help reach more people online.
Do a little street promotion
Want to let people know about your business face to face? Try some street promotion. You could create a flyer, hand out free samples and talk to people walking past about your business and encourage them to stop by. When your business is new, this can be a fantastic way to alert people to who and where you are.
Engage with people on social
Engaging with people through social media is an effective way to build a connection in your local area. When people or comment or like your posts, return them. Instagram rewards engagement by helping more people to discover your profile, so it pays to engage in two-way conversations. Take a look at some tips for boosting your social media engagement and watch the buzz around your profiles grow.
Pay for social media promotion
While you might not have the huge advertising budgets of large corporations, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use paid promotion to your advantage. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms have some excellent paid social promotion features that could help you to improve your targeting and reach the people you want to discover your business. The right advertising strategy can help you make big strides, so check out some Facebook advertising tips to help you make the most out of your budget.
Get out and support the local area
Making connections in the community can help you to get the word out about your business, as well as help people see you in a positive light. Sponsor a local sports team, help a local charity or support local events to help you give something back while helping your business to integrate with the community. Being visible is important, and could help you reach new customers.
Advertise
Advertising in the local paper, on TV or on billboards might seem a bit outdated in the world of digital marketing, but it can still be an effective way to reach people on a local level. You can negotiate print advertising deals to help you find adverts that can fit in your budget. Sometimes publications will offer you a great deal on a last-minute advertisement, so it’s worth having some artwork ready for some generic advertising you can use to take advantage of a good offer.
Attend local events and trade fairs
Attending trade events, conferences, conventions and so on can be a good way to spread the word about your business and generate some interest. It’s important that you get the most out of any event that you attend, so take a look at ways to stand out at a trade show to help you make that great first impression.
Get creative on a limited budget
If you only had a limited budget to do your grocery shop for the week, you’d find clever ways to make it stretch, wouldn’t you? The same kind of creative thinking can be applied to your marketing budget. Just because your budget is small, doesn’t mean you can’t achieve great things with it. Start brainstorming ways you can attract some attention and focus on getting the results over what sort of budget you have to spend. You’ll soon develop some incredible methods of creative thinking that will lead you to all kinds of fresh and affordable ideas for your business.
Good marketing is critical for businesses to achieve success. No matter what your budget is, creating a strategy for your marketing can help give you some clear direction and help you work out exactly what you want to achieve. While you might start off with a small budget, this can be increased as your business starts to take off. Interested in making a bigger splash online? Take a look at the next steps for your digital marketing and learn some of the other ways you can make online marketing work to your advantage.
