One of the most important aspects of running a local business is to learn how to effectively market your products and services to your community. You are going to be competing with larger, national based chains that have huge advertising budgets. While this might seem like an insurmountable obstacle, there are methods of competing with these larger corporations. So, in the spirit of David vs Goliath, here are a few tricks to help set your small, local business apart from the national chains you're competing with.
Advertise In Local Papers
One of the best places to spend your advertising budget is in local papers. There are many towns that have their own small newspapers. While people might still read large, national circulations, these smaller papers are often also read alongside them in order to stay abreast of the local news.
Some newspapers are print, while some are mostly an online presence. Regardless, they will all have a section for advertising. These papers are an important avenue to advertise in as they are micro-focused and are targeting exclusively the people in your community. You won't end up wasting your limited budget on reaching people who are outside of your target zone.
Street Marketing: Flyers and Handouts
Street marketing is another excellent way to compete with larger companies and is great at hitting local consumers. You can hire people to hand out flyers in the area of your store. This is a tactic that is popular with a variety of business who rely on drawing in local customers for everything from restaurants and salons to car repair shops and furniture stores.
You can strategically place the employee at a busy street intersection or in a shopping mall entrance and have them hand out the advertisements on a high volume shopping day. This way you can cover a huge amount of potential customers in a short amount of time.
Create A Website Targeting Local Consumers
Lastly, you will want to consult with a computer service expert who will know how to create an online presence for your business. Even though your business is local, it will still need a website to cover your services, hours of operation, and a variety of other information such as reservations and prices.
The important thing to keep in mind is that you will want the website to be geared towards your particular local area. So, when consulting with a website developer, make sure that they optimize the website so that it will appear in search results for your local community and that the developer has integrated site performance reporting that will detail how many local visitors you get each month. This reporting tool will help you tweak the website and develop more strategies to attract more business. For more information, contact a computer service that offers an online website performance reporting tool.
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