Best ways to market small local business?

Hi,

I own a small computer repair company. I have been using a few advertising methods such as leaflets and just yesterday started a Adwords campaign. Leaflets are becoming too expensive as the area i'm in costs a lot to produce them.

What other ways have you found works well? I am considering sign writing my van or putting a large advert on the local supermarket window which receive a high amount of foot traffic.

What do you think?

 

Hi Scott,

Always start with your existing customer base.

Get in touch with them and offer a referral fee if they recommend a customer to you.

Do you offer computer maintenance? Maybe a monthly or bi-monthly "computer health check" would be an idea?

What about getting in touch with niche-related non-competitive businesses such as ink cartridge/refill companies and offer them a "you scratch my back & I'll scratch your back" deal?

You say leaflets are expensive but are you targeting the right market? You could create a direct mail campaign offering computer repair/maintenance to office complexes or local businesses. Create an "irresistible offer" in your campaign. Offer a no questions asked money back guarantee.

Sign up for Jay Abraham's amazing free resources here http://www.abraham.com/gifts/ and download "How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be" for loads more ideas.

By the way, sign writing your van is a must as is wearing a uniform.

Hope this helps!

 

If you have a chamber of commerce or anything like that, business networking events are a great way to drum up business. When I was doing solely computer repair, I worked 80% of referrals from networking events like that.

 

@Seaman Staines Hey, thanks for the advice. what i did not mention is that i am just starting off so existing customers is a no go. I do supply a monthly pc protect plan which i offer to home and small business, i had call about it today so that's good. I used to run my business in the uk but now i'm in new zealand. I think i will offer that referral idea when i start getting customers and i think the niche companies like the local camera or cartridge store would be a good idea on the whole scratch back basis. I'll check that link too.

@ufshane I will look out for any business events in the area thanks.

Please any more ideas welcome.

 

One other way to drum up business especially in this day, is to offer free seminars on security, anti virus, etc to small business owners. Make them about 30 min to an hour, and depending on what software you are selling they may be able to provide you all of the details you need.

 

1st you have to catch your local customers ,and you know that rewards programs are growing in popularity, and your business should get in on the action. If possible try creating or finding a computer program that will keep track of rewards members purchases. If you want to do it the old way you can have reward cards printed through your business card printer. Use a special punch or signature to confirm purchases. After so much spent or so many visits, offer a free product or percent off.

 

yes, I think it's very good to market your local business, like combining both online and offline promotion to drive traffic to your website..

You want high traffic website? Go promote your website everywhere, not just online, but also offline.. If you want to promote it online with shoestring budget, I recommend you doing content marketing. That's like article writing, forum marketing, or mass promotion in online like classified ads .. so many free website for placing ads.
Don't forget to target facebook and twitter marketing as well. =)

Now much easier to do marketing online, but for "free" method it will take time.. I think you better hire someone to do the online marketing with the free method for you.

 

If you want more traffic for your site then post your classified ads on following site

Quikr.com
Briskom.com
olx.in

 

Hi Scott, have you tried Craigslist yet? It offers several benefits to small businesses:

• It will help improve your website's search engine visibility
• It will likely generate motivated phone calls from motivated buyers
• It's free

The only downside is that it does take a good bit of time posting and renewing ads. Likewise, their automated bots are fairly aggressive at removing ads that they feel don't comply with their terms of use. But nonetheless, it's worth taking the plunge. What have you got to lose, right?

 

we have different ways to market our local business.
You know, Google , Bing And Yahoo! Have Their Own Local Search Platforms so you should submit your business to these world's top search engines, also don't forget to have your business's FB page . invite your Business Needs Friends On your page .
Offer exclusive discounts and deals on your Facebook Page and promote them in your everyday business operations. Engage your Facebook community, but don’t suffocate them with dozens of daily updates.

 

Related forums would also help a lot, make sure you are contributing to the forums first.
If you participate in related forums on regular basis, it would really help a lot in your business.

 

One of the best ways to market your local business is to seek local bloggers to try your services or products and ask them to create a review post for you in return. It is also up to you if you want to give compensation, but Vouchers and discount coupons to your company will also work fine.

 

Another good way to get exposure is with PR (public relations). You should target your local newspapers and business journals. You need to develop a press release that offers a story with the following attributes:

1. It is on a topic that you are expert in.
2. The topic is "newsworthy" (i.e., the opening of your store is not so newsworthy; however, background on a recent piece of malware could affect local businesses or how 3D printing can help local businesses might be.)
3. The topic will be of interest to the publication's readers and your target market
4. It includes quotes from you and your picture along with any other graphics that migth make for a more attractive story to the readers.

There are standard templates for press releases and you want to be sure that you follow them as that makes it easier for the reporter. The most succesful PR people basically do all of the work for the reporter as that makes it more likely they will run with your story.

 

Yes i did contact a newspaper but i didn't really have a story so nothing came of it. I can't really think of what would be of interest. Maybe try and write my own piece on custom builds compared to manufactures such as HP.... Could be interesting, i then could go on to mention that my business does custom built pcs etc. I do have a monthly PC Protect plan which i would like to be mentioned in a article. Maybe i could try and do article on anti-virus and security. All thing i will look into!

 

Other best alternative for cheap campaign is to buy an add with your local classifieds , thay might be very less when compared with the existing method of publicity

 

you can start your small business by using videos to market for your business another way you can also videos your own product on website to increase your sales.

 

A very simple, prolific local marketing method (in fact I offer this as my core service with offline businesses):

1. FB Ads campaign - easily and by far the best source of B2C local leads that you can get for dirt cheap.

2. Youtube optimized professional voice over direct response video commericals....youtube videos can rnak you almost instantly

3. Targeted Press releases with optimized keyword content

4. Referral resource marketing...how many team 100 local referral partners have you worked with?

5. Retargeting - ever wonder how some ads seem to follow you all over the internet? You can use a service like Adroll or something like that.

6. FB Custom audiences - alot of people are unaware of this but you can compile your list of buyers that clal your shop and market to them on facebook, provided that their phone numbers match

7. Twitter paid ads - can be highly targeted, small budget and effective

8. LinkedIn paid ads -Need I say more?

9. White papers - lead magnet that helps get your customers to learn more, know you, like you, trust you and then buy from you

10. Events - if you can swing it...host an event and allow your visitors to bring a business guest.

Hope this was a helpful list.

Regards

Los

 

Use AdWords (search ads only) and target only most relevant keywords: include your place in keyword, pick long tail keywords etc. You should not expect great volumes from such type of advertising but the visitors will be convertible and you will earn actual profit from this. Personally I promote 2 small businesses for my % from earnings from clients I generate with AdWords + Landing Page. Spending 10-15$ on ads I can earn 100$ as my part. But, the campaign went through hard optimization and this is the final result. The volumes are quite low too, the bigger amount of clients I would try to reach the lower will be my ROI.

In two words: experiment with AdWords, this is the best tool for small local business.

Good Luck.

 

Limited Time Offers Work Pretty Well, Because People do not want to miss out on a good deal! The World is online so the Old School Marketing Methods are not as effective as they once were. I would consider Taking Your Local Business online by creating a blog, Facebook Fan Page, and driving Targeted traffic to your blog and Fan Page to gain more exposure for your local business.

 

Hi, Does your business has G+ business page. Local business page from google will get you more business.