Local Advertising Sources

Many small business owners struggle with finding the best places to advertise and seeing the returns from their advertising budget.  One of the first questions they often ask is “where do we advertise and how much do we spend?”  And while there is no magic, there is definitely due diligence that can be done to help you understand where to spend your advertising budget in order to get the best return.

Knowing Your Ideal Clientele – Target Audience

There is no doubt consumer buying behavior is changing at a more rapid rate than ever before. With advancements in technology and Internet marketing, social media marketing and mobile marketing, consumers now have the ability to shop at their fingertips by the most common device that they carry with them everywhere they go. As a local marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow, we spend much time and research determining how well the business owner can identify the ideal client which usually helps educate everyone.

When you think about consumer buying behavior, you can easily look around at your family and friends and see what’s going on day-in and day-out in their lives. Social media has made that even easier to not only keep up with your close family and friends, but now you can reach and communicate with people that you went to high school with 25 years ago and understand what is going on in their lives as well.  This includes where they live, what type of house they own, any home projects they have going on and the home contractors they use for these home improvement projects.

In many cases, we’re now seeing more and more people getting involved in local community events and connecting through social media communities as well. So the opportunity here is for local businesses to reach beyond their client and into that client’s communities through social media platforms and other online methods.  This has challenged business owners with local advertising using traditional offline methods to think beyond traditional advertising and to even leap beyond paid ad campaigns.  Strategic business owners realize the power of social communities and using word of mouth referrals to grow their business through online and offline recommendations and testimonials.

Let’s take Facebook for example. Facebook now allows you to advertise posts that would then extend beyond the people who have liked your Company Facebook page into their friends and family making it even more important to get people connected with you and your business online.  Simple things can be done to achieve these connections. Even a follow up email after your service has been performed, providing a link to your Facebook page allowing them to click a link to Like your company page.

You can then post and pay for sponsoring the post which can be as little as $5 to help reach beyond your followers into your followers friends and family. Most business owners tell us word of mouth is the best form of customers which is why these new online marketing methods are much more strategic than many offline methods.

In addition to advertising through social media communities, mobile marketing in becoming increasingly important.  Most people live with their mobile devices taking them everywhere they go – including to the restroom.  People use the mobile devices for multiple forms of communication whether it be voice communication with their family and friends, text back and forth with children, going to the Internet and looking up businesses or being on social media communities, these devices have become very important in our lives.

Businesses can now make it really simple for people to opt-in to communication to be updated about events and specials. For instance, Moo-Yah Burgers is just down the street from our office.  When we went to Moo-Yah for the first time, we were given the opportunity to text into a campaign for a discount.  Now, once a month they send us specials for buy one burger, get one free.  What this does more than even get them business on these days is to keep us loyal.  Coincidentally, we only take advantage of their discount once every couple of months, yet we eat there at least once per month – possibly our most popular visit.

If you can imagine, this marketing campaign can apply to almost any business. If you’re a home contractor, it may be some type of incentive that allows you to get a $25 gift card for referring a neighbor. Keep these thoughts in mind with your next marketing campaign and give Social180 a call at 469-420-0180 if we can be of assistance.