Being visible brings customers to a small business. It’s an age-old axiom, and in modern business it’s practiced regularly through marketing and advertising. Yet visibility starts with first understanding where the business is today and where it needs to be to get in front of customers.
Imagine for a moment, you’re a tourist in your town. You need a particular product or service but it’s the first time you’ve ever visited the location. What would you do first to find that service or product? If in a highly urban area today, most people would use their mobile device and some kind of app to locate local businesses quickly that serve the need and are within reach. However, let’s say the town is a bit off the beaten path and your cell signal isn’t that great. Most people then revert back to the traditional tools available, which generally include the local yellow pages, the newspaper, local classified ads, and finally referrals by a local, knowledgeable person.
A business desiring to improve being seen locally can only hope to influence people into becoming reliable referrals, but it can definitely do something about placement and visibility in local papers, phone books and local searches on the Internet as well.
Consider the following marketing tips:
Business Listings
The phone book is an easy avenue to initiate. However, it’s only effective when caught at the beginning of the printing cycle. Otherwise a business has to wait for the next printing, which usually occurs once a year. However, you can now add your business to online business directories, listings and review sites, such as YellowPages.com, or Yelp.com. Make sure that the information listed for your business is always accurate.
Get a Website
In this technology-fueled world, if you have a business, you NEED to have a website. If you don’t already have one, let PowerSites help you. Once you have your own website up and running, make sure that all listings and pages about your business link back to your website. This includes your Yelp page, yellowpages.com listing, Facebook Page, Twitter Account, Google+, and any other business listing or social media page.
Search Engine Optimization
With the website established and complete with necessary information and the critical contact data included, the website needs to be profiledand listed on search engines to be picked up. A business has two options for this part: pay for a better search engine listing position or make the website real interesting with constantly changing content and SEO. If one doesn’t have the time for daily website work, Entrepreneur Magazine suggests paying for the search engine ranking spot may be the better way to go. If you’re a local business owner looking to try paid search, you don’t have to go it alone. Check out PennySaverUSA.com‘s paid search service, PowerClicks.
Print Ads
Finally, print ads still matter. While it may sound old-fashioned, newspaper and classified ads still work exceptionally well in driving local customers to a business. Local papers and classified ads still provide key links for locals and visitors to quickly find services they are looking for in the immediate area. It’s also a great way to attract new customers, by enticing them with offers and coupons.
So, to boost online and offline awareness a small business should work on multiple levels of advertising, as noted above, simultaneously. This covers both traditional and technological ways of marketing for products and services. It also covers a wide generational spectrum of customers, which can mean more business and more awareness overall.
