Thinking of ways to grow your local business but don’t have the budget for a national size campaign?
I’ll show you several methods you can employ today (for FREE + paid options) to help grow your business and awareness in your local community with these local marketing tips.
Here’s 6 ways to market your business on a hyper local level:
- Google Business Page
- Yelp Business Page
- Door Hanger Distribution Campaign
- Nextdoor App
- Arrow sign spinning
- Localized Google & Facebook ads
Google & Yelp Business page
You already may have a local google ads page or a yelp page built for your business whether you created it or a customer left a rating and built it for you.
If you haven’t, here’s the link to build them now:
Create a Google business page here.
Create a Yelp business page here.
Keep in mind, you want to make sure you engage with your customers on these platforms.
Often times you customer will leave feedback, and you’ll want to be there to leave a thanks or address an issue even if your customer left a negative comment.
By showing your customers your outreach and engagements with these platforms, you will help boost trust with your existing and future customers.
Door Hanger Distribution Campaign
You’ve probably ran a mail campaign in the past, or thought about doing on some level a mail marketing run.
Although the method still exists, the return on invest typically isn’t as strong as a direct to door approach.
Think about how often you read your mail ads, do you remember any of them?
Now think about receiving door hangers on your front door.
There’re hard to miss, right?
A potential customer has a physical requirement to remove it from the door and this is where you have the chance to engage them, assuming your door hanger design is on point.
Here’s 8 steps to help optimize your door hanger design.
Running a direct to door campaign will not only bring additional revenue to your business, but it’ll help boost your awareness and trust throughout the community.
If you’re seriously considering it, check our our blog on how to run a successful door hanger or flyer campaign.
The Nextdoor App
The nextdoor app has skyrocketed in active members in the last several years.
If you’re unfamiliar with the app, think of it as a Facebook for your neighborhood.
You can interact with your local community but joining the app and proving your residency in the community.
In other words, only people who actually reside in your community can join. This means, no outsiders can leave messages or comments on the community wall.
You’re thinking, how’s this good for my business.
Well there’s a few key things to try!
First, build a nextdoor business & recommendation page.
This will help your potential customers find you on nextdoor and leave you feedback just like you would see it on yelp.
Secondly, you can leave a comment on the community wall to help build awareness to your business, organically and FREE.
Here’s a short guide on how to promote your business on nextdoor.
Arrow Sign Spinning
You’ve seen sign holders on busy intersections – they are there because they work!
Whether you’re a new business or an existing one, sign holders carry out one of the most effective ways to build awareness for your business.
This method would bring in vast amount of views and direct potential customers to you when you choose the right intersections.
Our friends at Local Sign Spinners can help identify and execute the best sign spinning method, check them out here if you thinking about this marketing channel.
Localized Google & Facebook ads
One of the most effective and immediate results is through the digital paid platforms.
There’s google ads, formally known as Google Adwords, which helps you find buyers with intent.
For example, if you’re in the real estate business and someone searches for “local realtor” or “local real estate agent” in google with google ads you can be sure to be at the top of the list.
It’s very powerful, but it does come at a higher premium than the other marketing channels.
If you’re thinking about Google ads for your business, our digital team can help you by researching the best approach and cost structure for it.
You can reach our digital team here.
The next biggest social media platform is the Facebook ads platform.
Although your not necessarily targeting buyers with intent, you are on some level helping guide potential customers to your product or service.
A well researched targeted interests in conjunction with the right ad will help you effectively communicate your message to upwards of 2.1 billion people on facebook.
But wait, I said I would show you how to market on a LOCAL level.
Yes, you can do that within Facebook ads and Google by narrowing your audience.
By setting a radius around your storefront or selecting cities or regions on these platforms, you can do just that.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there’s tons of ways to reach your audience from the digital side of building a google or yelp page to running paid per click ads with the Facebook and Google ad platforms to running an offline and local strategy of direct to door flyer and door hanger distribution.
These 6 methods listed above are some of the easiest way to build brand awareness, to bring in revenue and to build trust.
Remember the golden rule of 7 in marketing. That is, if you potential customer sees your ads about 7 times there’s a good chance they will reach out.
You’ll become on some level a local celebrity in your community.
Now go out there and build!
