10 Awesome Ways to Market Your Business to Your Local Community

Marketing is a vital cog of any business. While it’s not always plain sailing, it’s a necessity.

What you want is the platform to give your business a shot, not just at surviving, but to also grow.

For this reason, it is important not to lose sight of your most significant base. This is your local market which is a reflection of your local community.

Being in a community sure helps but you still have to set up certain ways to ensure your business gets the recognition you want.

Also, to market your business locally, you have to aim for specific targets. Part of that entails knowing your immediate audience more.

This way, you can demand more from them to advance your business.

In a community, you have to put a face and personality to your business. By doing so, the community knows you’re one of them.

This article will help you out by providing viable ways to market your business in your local community. Read on!

Take Part in Charitable Events and Auctions

So you heard about the upcoming event to help the aged in the community. Rather than send kind words or applaud the initiative from your home or business place, go out there and join them.

Even if it takes some research and inquiries, learn about such charitable events.

Plan to participate

Participation is key. The fact is many charities or events will love to have any volunteers.

For instance, if you run a photo studio, you can volunteer to take important photos. Your clients, including potential ones, will be thrilled to have you around.

They’ll be happy you took out time to do something for the community.

Further, it adds to your reputation and credibility. It also shows you’re not all about money or drawing people over to your business.

Generally, people love empathy. While you’re not trying to play on anyone’s emotions, showing you care means a lot.

Auctions are awesome platforms

Auctions are a great way to get to meet people and of course, buy a few things. No doubt other businesses will be around so plan to attend.

You can also give up some items you don’t need but still have some value. This is great especially if the end game of the auction is to help out a charitable cause.

Remember, these are the same people you’d want to patronize your business.

Join a Local Chamber of Commerce

Joining a local chamber of commerce is a great way to connect with other businesses.

You only have to pay a little annual fee, attend meetings, and interact with other business owners.

The positives are worth it

Joining a group of people who are Business-inclined opens you up to many opportunities.

Firstly, you get to learn from those who have made a good connection with the community.

This is particularly useful if you just moved into the neighborhood.

You’ll get to learn the ropes on how to attract more customers to your business.

Unity in purpose

The connection from a local chamber of commerce breeds unity. It’s often more than a meeting of people simply looking to make a profit.

This is because a small community is more like a family. As such, it’s not enough to be a member.

You must show up at such meetings where you’ll learn about events, and other opportunities to work and network together.

Contests, Competitions, and Promotional Gifts

Want more people in your local community excited about your business? A great way to market what you do is by setting up contests and competitions.

One of the most potent means to do this is through online platforms.

For instance, you can make use of your social media profiles to make this happen.

Vouchers, special gifts, and discounts on many items could be a reward for winners.

Grow your following

Contests and competitions give rise to more user-generated content. You could ask followers to describe some details about your business.

The best description with the most number of likes is given a prize.

Further, such contests will help you grow your social media following.

Once people see how their friends and family have taken to posting about your business, there’s more exposure for your business and a boosted online personality for you.

With more followers, it’s easier to post promotional content with specific audiences.

This leads to conversions since your followers are more likely to patronize you.

Use promotional gifts

Promotional gifts are a great way to invade your local community with your business.

You can make use of pens, keyholders, calendars, and much more. Give them to people and groups that know you personally.

It’s a subtle way to market because it will give off a positive opinion of your business and your reputation.

People will ask questions when they see your branded items with friends and family.

What comes next is trying to get your product or visiting your business space.

This move is also part of networking and community involvement which promotes your business.

More so, your promotional gifts can feature in trade shows other events.

Blogging

Blogs are great. If you’re reading this article, you probably found it online! The internet is a great tool for customers to find and patronize local businesses.

In line with that, you have to seek out ways to understand and implement the basic principles of SEO.

This will increase your chances of getting ranked on Google’s top results.

Let your blog be a local resource

Every community is made up of different businesses. Even the extremely small ones can have a coffee shop, bakery, and laundromat.

Either way, having a blog that features local resources is a great idea.

You’ll be on your way to being a local celebrity when you stay close to home and support other businesses via your blog.

School goers, club members, park goers, etc., are your customers. This is why you should do what you can to come up with content tailored around them.

The businesses in your area that fall in line with your target clients can be highlighted on your blog.

For instance, you can pick a restaurant that doesn’t receive the reviews it should. Do a piece on them or make a quick list of the best and include them.

Highlighting them makes you a good community resource and drives traffic to your blog.

More presence online

Being featured on a blog is great for any business. Most owners will go on to post it on their social media.

What this does is give you more access to their audience. For instance, you can do an informational about why you love a certain coffee shop.

If you can, add some photos. You’ll notice more people in your community are drawn towards the blog.

As a result, your business receives more recognition.

Set up a Free Class or Demo

Sometimes, a class or demo is a great ace up your sleeves. The days of aggressive marketing are fast going because modern shoppers need more for less.

As such, sometimes you shouldn’t expect anything back from them.

For instance, this move will help if you make or sell high-ticket products that require lots of effort to sell,

What are your potential customers worried about?

Set up a class to learn about the common obstacles your local community face. What are their frequently asked questions about the kind of goods and services you provide?

Answers to this question will help you market your business. What’s more, such initiatives help you build trust with customers.

The focus is on how you can help others by demonstrating how to solve a problem. This can particularly be of importance during a pandemic.

While doing that, you get to showcase your knowledge about certain products, as well as market them.

Include a call to action

Showcasing specific products is great. Yet, it’s important to create a clear call to action for customers who want to attend your demo.

Display the products if you can. Also, seize the opportunity to talk one on one with people whenever you can.

It’ll make sense to have their email addresses too.

Ask for Online Reviews

Many people make decisions to buy products based on the reviews they see. This is why it’s such a nice thing to have a good impression on people online.

What you can do is set up accounts on popular review sites like Yelp. Proceed to ask your customers to write about you and your business.

It’s not enough having customers rave in person about how great your products are.

Have them drop a line about it so that the word spreads. You’ll find that customers will do their best to write an awesome review.

An added advantage is if they loved using the product.

New customers can also be encouraged to leave comments or reviews behind. If you run a website, create columns where customers can leave feedback.

Use a Customer Referral Program

A customer referral program is a nice way to market your business in your local community.

This is a strategy used almost all brands including the top ones. It will help you acquire customers without doing any work.

This is because your current customers do most of the job for you.

What you then have is a win-win situation where customers are retained and new ones acquired.

These are clear retail drivers especially if you run a small business.

Incentives are great

To run a successful referral program, offering incentives is important. What you can do is reward those existing customers for each referral they make.

As a result, they have more motivation to get out there with your business.

For new customers, they need something to lure them in and make them stay.

Once they’re through the door and see the kind of incentive they get, they’ll help your business further by referring it to potential customers.

Many big businesses are products of profitable referral cycles.

Most people also say that they patronized a business because of referrals from their close friends.

This will even be more viable within a local community.

Reward Customer Loyalty

Who are your most loyal customers? Get to know them and try to reward their patronage.

This marketing tactic increases sales and helps you gain more customers.

Here, you’re more focused on getting your existing customers to spend more money on your products.

Set out to increase purchase frequency and the amount they spend.

Records show that about 82 percent of consumers are likely to shop at stores that have customer loyalty programs.

It doesn’t have to be a complex process too. For ideas, you can give out vouchers after 10th purchases of some products.

You can also reward them with a special item from your store.

If that’s too much, using spending tiers will also be of great benefit. But you’ll need your customer’s profiles to do that.

Either way, your loyal customers shouldn’t have to go empty-handed.

Cross-promote With Other Local Businesses

Cross-promotion is important for a good number of reasons. It’s a method that involves two or more businesses that promote each other to their customers.

As a result, exposure resulting in a boost in sales is experienced. This is perfect if you’re trying to get a foothold in your local community.

For example, two businesses selling related but non-competitive products can generate more sales by reaching overlapping customers

Cost-effective

Cross-promotion is cost-effective and is often an affordable way you can use to give your business more fraction.

With minimal investment, you stand to gain more. This is because the cost of marketing and advertising is shared between parties.

Locally, collaborating businesses may not even have to bear additional costs. They could simply decide to help each other out.

Further, the brand reach is increased. You get to expand beyond your scope and even beyond your local community.

The fact is your products get to more potential customers than you could reach marketing your own.

Connect With a Local Influencer

Gaining more traction for your business is possible with the local influencer.

This is the case, especially for social media marketing campaigns. You’d want someone who seems to have the community in their palms.

Such individuals often have a large social following. So you can pay them a token to give your business the promotion it needs.

Your reach is increased with each post by the influencer.

If you can’t stump up the cash, you can offer them some products instead. What you’re after are high engagement rates they have with their audiences.

Their audiences will trust their recommendations especially if they use your products.

Conclusion

Marketing your business locally means you have to show you have a personality that combines well with the community.

You’re bringing your values to the forefront. And with your local community, you have to show you’re prepared to meet customer’s needs.

Try to help them answer pressing questions by using these creative ways to market your business.

Remember though, everything starts with a plan.

Whether you’re keen on one or several of the ways to promote your business here, never underestimate the potential impact a local community could have.

Some of the best bigtime businesses started in a local community.