Discover new ways to advertise a local business

You may be wondering where’s the best place for a local business to advertise? or what are the best, most affordable small business advertising tactics? most marketing professionals like to start where they know they should get sales. Where is the low hanging fruit? who are the audiences most likely to convert? for instance, brand traffic always converts the highest on google search pay per click ads. Whether it’s your brand, a competitor’s, a product brand … someone who is searching for that specific brand name most likely knows they are close to purchasing. It makes sense, right? if someone is searching your business name on google, that person is pretty far down the sales funnel.

Let’s face it: advertising can be prohibitively expensive, especially for small businesses. Experts recommend most small businesses should spend around 7-8% of gross revenue on marketing efforts, but that can sound like a heck of a lot, particularly if you’re just starting out and are pinching every penny so hard it leaves a bas-relief image of lincoln’s head on your thumb. So without further ado, here are 25 free ways to advertise your local business.

Never underestimate the power of a social media giveaway. This is a great opportunity for your local business to attract a wider audience and gain more interest. You can restrict your giveaway to a geographical location, and promote it through localized ads and social media promotions. You can also advertise your giveaway in- store . A successful giveaway will improve brand awareness, increase your social media following, engagement, and ultimately bring more customers into your store. You could run contests that incentivize referrals, or contests that boost social proof and user-generated content. All of these are important local online marketing strategies.

Share did you know there are over 31. 7 million small businesses in the us? that amounts to about 1,600 small businesses per city. This means a lot of competition for small business owners across america, especially when you factor in the larger businesses you’re also competing with in each community. One of the best ways to make your small business stand out and get more customers is to invest in some type (or types!) of local advertising. According to the encyclopedia britannica , the definition of advertising is “the techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice to persuade the public to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised.

In order to grow your small business, you need to grow your customer base to earn profits. Small businesses often rely on local advertising for promoting their products or services. Since most people rely on local searches to discover local businesses, small businesses must improvise their local presence online. Here are some effective ways to advertise local businesses.

Book local jobs with online ads

Have you updated your web site, blog, facebook or social media pages and are you doing this on a regular basis? have you optimized your site for search engines like google and bing? do you have referenceable accounts, customer testimonials, and importantly have customers posted reviews on your google+, facebook profiles, etc. Brightlocal’s 2017 local consumer review survey findings highlights the importance of online reviews to reaching and building consumer trust – 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Have you reviewed your followers on social media and removed inactive and dead accounts. Doing all of this will go a long way to build up the awareness of your brand or company with web site social media visitors and help your company be seen as an authority within the industry.

When you search online for a nearby service, you may see a local services ad like the one below. These ads are tailored to the needs of local service providers. You can set your ads to only show up for people in your area when they’re looking for the types of services you offer. Plus, customers can call or message you to book your services directly from the ad. Did you know? there’s been a 34x increase in people using google search to look for things “near me” in the last four years*.

Another top free advertising site to consider marketing a small business from is oodle. Oodle is one of the largest free ad networks in existence because you can connect your social media accounts, as well as local listings from sites like ebay, forrent. Com, newspapers, and more. In fact, oodle actually powered facebook’s original marketplace. One advantage to oodle is that the platform plays well with social media. For example, you can connect your oodle account to your facebook business page and post an update immediately when you run new facebook ads. Furthermore, oodle has a partnership with advertigo, which is also a free online advertising site.

Digital advertising consists of a range of services, all of which work to promote a business online. More and more businesses are increasing the amount that they spend on online advertising as we are now able to recognise that it increases awareness and leads—it’s that simple. With traditional media channels, quite often there is no way of tracking the effectiveness or success of an advertisement in terms of advanced data analytics. However, with digital advertising, companies such as google and facebook grant users access to these advanced analytics. This way local businesses know that their money is being well spent and that the digital advertisements are positively impacting their storefront.

When it comes to advertising online , where will your small business get the best results / the best roi / the best bang for your buck? start by asking yourself these simple questions: are your customers looking at ads… on search engines like google, bing and yahoo? on the websites they visit every day? on social platforms like facebook and instagram? the short answer to all of those is “yes” — and your online advertising strategy needs to reach all of your customers, whether they’re searching… surfing… or on social media. Check out this infographic for a quick overview on three of the best small business advertising ideas you can use to reach your local customers.

Set a budget that works for you

Few forms of advertising are as cost-effective as digital marketing. Small businesses and start-ups are always trying to achieve as much as possible through their marketing on a budget. Advertising online can stretch your budget further and will allow you to refine your target audience. Social media is particularly good for this as it enables you to set a daily budget for a discrete audience that has an interest in your brand or ethos. Most importantly, it allows your business to exclude the people that would never buy from you - saving you time and money! the key with advertising on social media is to select the platform that will work best for you and your brand.

See all your leads in one place

When it comes to professional services, people want access to expertise. If you have done a good job of positioning yourself as an expert or authority in your niche, promoting a free consultation is a great way to generate new leads. If you have a good interpersonal sales process in place, it also sets you up to close a large percentage of leads. A lot of service providers worry about disclosing too much info in a free consultation. They feel like potential clients will just take the info and run. In reality, the exact opposite is true. While freeloader types might grab and go, they were never going to buy anyway.

Sign up as a service provider

The first step is to be creative with your design so your business will be remembered. Then do your research to find local print suppliers – not only is this likely to save you money, you’ll also be supporting other local small businesses. It may also be easier to build a great working relationship with your print provider, which means you’ll be more likely to get tailored service from them. It’ll also make life easier when you want to see sample prints and make tweaks to the design. If finding a good quality, local printer isn’t an option for you, moo is a good example of a high-quality online print marketing provider, offering great service and a variety of finishes to help you nail the right style and tone for your business.