Ways to Promote Your Business in the Local Area

​These days, a lot of business promotion is focused online and doesn’t take the local area into account as much. However, most businesses start local – even if they have ambitions to grow outside of the region in the future. As well as this, there are plenty more companies that are happy to stay in their area and contribute to the regional community and economy. So, if you are interested in promoting your business in your local area, here are just a few of the ways that you can achieve this goal. 

Join a Local Group

​Local business leaders need an active voice and presence in their area. There are bound to be plenty of local groups available, whether for regional entrepreneurs or community leaders. Attending these meetings can help provide an invaluable networking opportunity, and the chance to show that you are committed to the local area. You may also be able to form some partnerships with other businesses in which you benefit from one another. 

Sponsor Local Events and Charities

​Following on from this idea of staying active in the local community, another great way of doing this is by sponsoring local events and charities. Consumers are becoming more and more ethical these days, which means that they are on the lookout for ways that they can behave more responsibly and support companies that are perceived as caring. There are plenty of events out there that are just crying out for sponsorship. Plus, charities and businesses working hand in hand has been going on for a long time, and this is certainly a proud tradition that you should get involved with.

Run a Local Advertising Campaign

While a lot of advertising is now done online, this doesn’t mean that local area ads don’t still have a big impact. There is a lot that you can do here. For example, you could put some vehicle branding on your car or van. This way, you are essentially driving an advert around the local area! Putting up posters and billboards can still be effective – as can ads in your local newspaper or magazine. The old-fashioned way of getting out in the streets and handing out flyers gives you the opportunity to meet many people in the local area and explain to them directly everything you have to offer as a business.

List Your Business Online

​While we have so far talked about the offline things that you can do to give your business a boost in the local area, there is also a lot that you can do online as well. For example, by making sure that your business is listable on services such as Google Maps, you ensure that people can seek you out. If you run a café and people do a search like ‘cafes near me’, you want to ensure that your company is popping up straight away. Your listing needs to give an accurate impression of your current location, as well as offering a host of useful contact information such as your address and phone number. 

Run Competitions

Running competitions doesn’t necessarily bring in repeat buyers, but it does make sure that people hear about your business and are likely to engage with your company in a way that is attractive to them. You have a couple of main challenges involved in this approach. First of all, you need to make sure that you are giving away a prize that people are interested in winning. This all depends on whether you are mainly a product or a service-based company. The other main challenge is ensuring that the competition is circulated widely, and you start to develop a social media following as a direct result. Social media is a common platform that people use to promote their competition. 

Put in Place a Customer Loyalty Program

While it is great to get people coming through the door once, you also want them to keep coming back time and time again. One of the best ways of ensuring that this is the case is by putting in place a customer loyalty program. Sometimes as simple as a punch-card system can prove to be highly effective. Alternatively, you could set it up based on different spending tiers and offer bigger and bigger rewards.
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Promoting your business in the local area is a worthwhile activity – no matter what type of small business you run. So, now is the time to get started!