Are you looking for ways to get your local business noticed? Many small businesses struggle with marketing – especially when it comes to creating an engaging and successful presence in their community. But there are plenty of creative strategies that can help build rapport with people in your area, drive new customers, and increase repeat sales from existing ones. From leveraging digital channels to participating in local events, here are some top-notch ideas to take your local marketing efforts up a notch. How to create instant rapport with your prospects, customers, and loyal fans!
Previously in an article titled 3 effective ways to market your business, we focused on the digital and online aspects of marketing your business locally. We define local marketing, its benefits, and how GMB, SEO, and Online Ads can optimise your local marketing strategies.
In this article, we’ll explore three (3) people-friendly local marketing ideas that instantly set up your prospects to resonate with you!
Let’s get into it.
#1. Tell Your Story
A personal story helps people connect, resonate, and bond with you from an empathetic and value-perspective point of view. It also helps differentiate your business from competitors because they see you as a real person with triumph and tribulation.
Depending on what you are selling – telling your story: from ordeal to success, can stimulate prospects to buy, work, and connect with you.
There are Business Storytelling Workshops if you want to go to that level. Otherwise, try putting some effort into telling your story in a way that resonates with your target audience, and then switch it to why your offers (goods and services) are unique because of those experiences.
The story can be how you came up with your branding, goods, and services and how everything fit-in with your values, philosophy, and purposes in life. Remember to tie your story to your unique selling prepositions, do not get off-track with dwelling on the tribulation and victimhood too much, or it will turn your prospects away.
Here are a few ways to tell your story: –
- Hero-journey: – from vulnerability to character development, how your business got started and challenges it faced.
- Showcase your team: their background, passions, and accomplishments
- Make short videos that connect with your audience’s values and beliefs.
- Use data that showcase your story and what sets your company apart.
- Use stories to highlight your social media efforts, your products, and the people who work for you.
There are plenty of Storytelling strategies that you can find online. But if you lack the time, apply the dot points above.
#2. Collaborate with other local businesses
Another way to create instant affinity with your neighbourhood is to partner with local businesses that serve a similar audience.
When you partner with another local business that offers complementary products or services to your Offer (s), you will increase your brand awareness while leveraging your marketing costs.
The easiest way to find partners is to ask yourself what kind of services your prospects seek before they enquire about your services, for example. In our business advisory & coaching business, we reach out to accountants, financial planners, commercial lawyers, local councils, and other strategic partners to find out if there is an opportunity to partner up to host a conference, micro-workshop, or webinar.
Business Ignite specialises in business growth with online marketing, but we are not accountants, legal professionals, or licensed financial planners; therefore, partnering with other advisors to collaborate can help all parties to leverage marketing costs and reduces the workload of service delivery.
Another example is the hospitality/ Tourism industry. Travel agencies connect with hotel chains, tour groups, Charters, and Ticketing masters to bundle a deal that is too good to miss out for holidaymakers and travellers. Every company pays marketing costs (Commission) to the broker that packages and executes the campaign; thus, with collective momentum, the marketing can reach a broader audience. As a result, most stakeholders would benefit from experiencing increased exposure, sales, and brand awareness.
#3. Host a free Event/ Contest/ Conference/ Workshop
If you want to improve your local business profile, hosting a free event, content, conference, or workshop is the way to go.
The purpose of Free Event [Conference/ Contest/ workshop] are two-fold:
- Appear LIVE in front of your prospects, face-to-face, and get close and personal to connect with your people locally. Think about politicians and electoral candidates who must attend various functions and live events to show face, take pictures, smile, and answer questions to get votes. A business owner is no different if that is what you want – to develop an affinity with people locally and buy from you.
- Leverage time: instead of going to them individually, they all come to you in one spot. And if it’s done correctly, you’re speaking to many warm prospects.
Hosting a Free Event/ Workshop/ Conference as your local marketing strategy is an excellent opportunity to get your name in front of your local customers. It is also a great way to encourage customers to visit your business and tell their friends about it. They’ll most likely share the news on social media, boosting your online presence.
You can also host an online Event/ Workshop/ Webinar using SaaS such as WebinarJam (or EverWebinar), Zoom, Teams, or GoTo Webinar. We’ve seen many entrepreneurs doing it now. The idea here is simple: offer something of value, such as an experience, knowledge, gifts, or training, that people can benefit from by attending your Event, and after giving them the value, you pitch your Offer (a soft close) to see if anyone is interested to jump onboard.
And the more people who register for your Event, the higher the chance of conversion rate.
The key is attracting the right target market to the Event and accepting the standard conversion success rate to be 3-4%, and that 90% of the audience will not be interested in buying immediately from you; 6% will think about it, and the remaining maybe 3-4% would be ready to buy – if you use the right choice of words (NLP).
Final Thoughts
These three (3) simple Local marketing ideas can be a low-budget option for business owners. But most importantly, their point of difference is to help you build instant rapport with your local market.
However, suppose money is not an issue. In that case, you might consider reading an article titled “Time-tested Local Marketing Tips“, where you will discover three (3) conventional local marketing strategies that established entrepreneurs have used in the past few decades, which still work now.
