5 Ways To Locally Advertise Your Small Business
Many small businesses have a minimal budget when it comes to advertising, and that can hold them back. It’s not impossible, but it takes a lot more consideration as to where and how you spend that money for maximum exposure and benefit.
Before the internet, adverts in the phone book or the local newspaper were the norm, as well as traditional methods such as flyers and posters. These days, small businesses are aware of the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and the need to rank highly on Google, but the reality is that they also need to focus on hyper-local methods of advertising. In this article, we look at a few ways in which you can do this.
Banners and Flags
The whole point of advertising is to make sure potential customers know that you exist. It’s all well and good having adverts all over the internet, but sometimes, a big old flag or some teardrop flag banners outside of your business, showing that you are there and ready for your customers can be incredibly useful. While it might be a significant monetary outlay to start with, they will last for a long time and draw people in.
Social Media
Advertising on social media network sites such as Facebook and Instagram can not only reach a vast range of people very quickly, but it is also free or can be done on an extraordinarily low budget.
Adverts allow you to specify your audience and location and really focus in on your target market. You can go even further by posting in local selling or networking groups.
A common mistake many people make with their social media marketing is that they are in pitch mode. When your only focus is pushing your offers, it also pushes away your audience.
Ideally you want to focus on leading with value first and then presenting your offers. People do business with people they know, trust, and like. When you lead with value first and offer solutions to your audience it can develop that relationship with them.
Create a lead magnet to give away on social media
Along side of value based content you share on social media, you want to drive traffic to a free give away or lead magnet. Your lead magnet should focus on answering common questions, helping your audience avoid problems, or help them reach their goals faster.
It also should be a step up or additional resource beyond just your free content. Some of the most popular options are things like an ebook, video series, audio training, or PDF guide. These are also great options as they can be made for free or at little to no cost to you.
After an hour or two of effort creating your lead magnet, you can now use it forever to help you build your list of highly targeted leads. Your content should lead with value and then as a call to action direct people toward getting your lead magnet. This is a great strategy to drum up both local and international business for your company.
You can check out a video below on how to may an ebook for free as well.
Get involved with the local community
Getting involved with the people in your local areas and good causes is an excellent way of getting your business name out there. Whether it is sponsoring a local kids soccer team, or a school gardening project, they often have an opportunity for your name to be printed somewhere. You’re not only doing something good, but you will be recognized for it as well!
Don’t underestimate the power of networking as well. While this activity can’t be leveraged like marketing online can, it does have the added bonus of being face to face with someone.
People like doing business with people, not just faceless companies, so having the chance to network in person can be a huge advantage. While this is a time consuming activity, the quality of referrals can be much higher than those that come through the internet.
Everyone you meet might not be an ideal customer, but everyone you meet is likely to know someone who is. Always be asking who do you know. This can lead to an endless supply of new contacts to grow your business.
Give local speeches
Along the line of networking, you can also give free talks and speeches on your expertise. People want to know buy from someone who knows what they are talking about.
Doing free talks can be a great way to establish your expertise in the marketplace. You can also offer your free lead magnet in person after your speeches to combine your offline marketing efforts with your online ones.
These free engagements could even turn into paid engagements sharing your knowledge and experience. You can even record these speaking opportunities and reuse them on social media.
The advantage of this is you can leverage your efforts. You can turn this one time speech into a video that can generate leads and sales for your business on a 24/7 basis. Throw in a couple local targeted keywords as well to bring in local internet traffic from your videos as well.
Radio Advertising
Again, this may have a significant outlay, but the rewards it will bring are well worth it. A catchy jingle or catchphrase will stick in people’s heads long after the advert has finished, which is perfect for brand recognition.
If you decide to implement this method you’ll also want to drive people to a free offer and lead magnet. The worst thing you can do is to just drive traffic to your website or sales page with no means of reaching that traffic again.
Radio could be a great option, but you need to make sure it integrates with your other marketing strategies. The likelihood that someone will visit your site once and not buy, but return again is very low.
However, you can dramatically increase the likelihood they will return by capturing their information through a lead magnet, sales funnel system, and email autoresponder.
If you’d like to check out some options for setting those tools up for your business, you can get free trials of an email autoresponder here, and a sales funnel system here.
Traditional print advertising
While this has fallen out of favor due to the increase in digital marketing, traditional print advertising and it’s effectiveness should not be ignored.
Local newspapers usually offer a variety of advertising formats, from box adverts and inserts to small business features. The latter can be particularly useful, as they allow you to go into a lot more detail about the service or the goods that you are offering, and gives potential customers a chance to get to know you a little better.
Other things that you may consider are direct mail or flyers posted through doors and mailboxes. While many will throw them away without looking, there will be some that take notice and keep you in mind, which is precisely what you are looking for.
Again traditional print advertising likely shouldn’t be your primary strategy, but it can be effective to reach a more local audience.
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