Any creative ideas for local marketing?

Hello,
We are releasing a new service that will target specific geographic area and demographics (30-50 y.o. women with kids). We obviously use Facebook and AdWords, but I am wondering whether somebody can suggest any creative ideas for local marketing? Publishing ads/articles in local newspapers seems outdated, as nobody reads these now except for unemployed or retired. We tried to hire a marketing expert "with local connections", but it turned out to be a waste of money...

Thanks in advance for your help (or at least your time reading this)

 

What works best for us is the plastic signs with the metal stands.
We are advertising our HVAC class on the signs we put out, but I'm sure they would work for pretty much any service if placed in populated areas.

 

You do Facebook Local Ads Awareness correct?

 

Right, of course, we use 2 A-frame signs on a local plaza, and they work great. Due to local bi-laws we are only allowed 2 A-frame signs and only at local address... besides with winter snow coming (luckily late) we will have to remove these. We are considering renting a couple of billboard signs for a month when launching the service, still TBD

 

We use Facebook Ads with local and demographics targeting, but didn't try "Local Awareness Ads"... I thought these are pretty much the same...am I wrong?

 

Yes. They are different. With Facebook Local targeting it allows you target interests but REALLY expensive. That's where you manually enter the cities and the radius.

With Local Ads awareness. You simply enter in the Address of your business or destination for people and choose a radius between 1 mile and up to 50 miles. (50 miles is for a LARGE local event)

The only problem with Local Ads awareness is that you can not target 'Interests' like you can with regular ads. So it's kind of blindly showing a bunch of people who may or may not be interested in your event.

 

Thanks Matthew, I'll try FB local awareness then. With local targeting our typical CPC is in $0.6-0.7 range. It would be interesting to compare with local awareness results.

 

Post ads on CL if you haven't yet:

http://toronto.craigslist.ca/search/act - activities

http://toronto.craigslist.ca/search/eee?sale_date=2016-01-07 - events

What's your business exactly about? Some of those things won't work with moms with kids unless interpersonal relationships are built. That may take time. My wife wouldn't be interested in signing up for something / going to a meeting unless some friend of hers recommended it to her.

 

True enough, but we need to start somewhere and get the initial bunch of "recommenders".

I am not sure about CL, this is a professional health-related service (for privacy reasons I will withheld the description), and people don't use CL when searching for these types of services...

 

Just my two cents...ads on local transit. Personally, I check out the ads on bus when I am at a red light. Having a website URL helps..

 

Thanks +briguy. We were considering it last year but the prices for bus ads here in Toronto are ridiculously high, besides TTC rotates the buses between routes, so if you are targeting few particular neighbourhoods you are getting very limited exposure, as the buses will be in this neighbourhoods only 3-5 days per month but you are paying for the whole month (actually, you have to take 1 year contract with TTC)... When we were considering it, I decided to call an eye clinic that I often see on bus ads, and they told me that they are disappointed, as price per conversion is very high. We may need to check again though, now that economy here in Canada is in a deep sh*t, TTC may have lowered prices as many cancelled their ad contracts.

 

Yes I can imagine the cost of transit ads in Toronto.
Have you considered door to door "flyers" in your target area?

Another idea..buying space in "luncheon digests" (little newsletters that are delivered to local coffee shops and or restaurants)

 

One thing that I'm curious about is that you can actually build a FAN-Base using Local Ads Awareness. Like I said I'm not sure if it would be worth it or not.

But imagine for a FB-Page putting the area code. And then the name of your business. That way say you build your FB page with 100% followers instead of having to pay more money to let them know that your actually a Local business. They will instantly know by the area code.

THEN.....because FB pages are becoming kind of a monopoly and the pages with millions of friends are dominating the Newsfeeds and algorithms.

The way that a Local business would reach it's fanbase is to boost posts. This is where boosting post is really important because if you have a certain event, product or service in your area and you want to make sure it reaches them then boosting the post would guarantee it at least goes to the newsfeeds.

So when you do Facebook Ads Local awareness possibly do an actually event and do it to build 'LIKES'. Then make your page name your area code and then only the most messages do a BOOST.

 

I am not sure what are you suggesting here...? We obviously do have FB business page, are you saying we need to have a FB page with something like 416-[Business Name]? Sorry Matthew, I may be slow this morning - it's 6:45am and I still didn't finish my coffee

 

Tees and goodies always work. Organize a contest/event, let people have a nice time, they will remember it. it doesn't have to be costly or anything. Put up a canopy or a tent and offer lemonade and pieces of gossip. It will do. Distribute t shirts and play games for goodies. Even if two people wear your tee daily they will be doing your promotion for no cost at all. And the other 100 people who see your company's name, recognize it and think it must be something if others are wearing its name. such things are easier to remember.

 

You could try purchasing reviews on local blogs

 

It's just a suggestion. If I was going to build an Local Facebook Page. I certainly would want the person to know that I was local right off the bat.

And yes, I'm meaning for a Local Facebook to have the area code right within the Name.

 

Thanks Matthew. I just started Facebook Local Awareness campaign based on your advice. let's see how CPC compares with my typical ad campaigns on FB.
Re FB page with area code, in my particular case we probably don't need area code for the page name: the entire City of Toronto has a single area code 416 and my business name (on FB page) already has word "Toronto" in it Though, it's a good suggestion for others who may be reading this page.

 

Good idea, but for summer time - not many people will show up when it's snowing and freezing cold outside

 

Thank you. My assistant is trying to locate local bloggers, thanks God for Twitter