6 Ways to Market Your Business Locally

1. List Your Business in Local Online Business Centers
If you're a regular reader, you've already listed your business in the Local Business Centers at the top 3 search engines, Google | Yahoo! | Bing. (If you haven't, click here to sign-up for this free how-to email series or go to the "List Your Local Business Online" link at the top of this page.)

2. Have an Interactive Web Site
While you can promote your business without a Web site, it's not recommended. There is still the perception that your site should be an digital "online brochure".  PLEASE don't fall into this notion. Your Web site should provide interaction and value to your customers. They visit your site to make an inquiry, find a phone number, place an order, or look for more information. Make it easy to do that by providing good site usability and multiple ways to reach you. Keep it fresh and new by updating your content regularly.

3. Promote Your Web Site
Being a gardener :), I like to think of Web sites like a garden. Your Web site is the garden and you are the gardener. Nothing happens if you don't first prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water and ultimately harvest the fruits of your labor. Same thing with a Web site - you can't simply put your "brochure" online and do nothing with it! You must prepare, plant, tend and get (and keep!) the customer. You see, it's not an inactive process. Just like all your other marketing efforts to get customers in your door or to your site, you must work at it consistently and persistently.

There are literally hundreds of ways to promote your business online - search engine optimization, local business results optimization, pay-per-click advertising, banner advertising, joint ventures/affiliates, email marketing, social media marketing - just to name a few.

Online marketing follows the same principles that offline marketing does. You need to make an effort to create transparency and exposure for your business. Get some related links to your site from other local businesses. It's just like handing out your business card in the offline world. Create a targeted email marketing campaign. It helps build trust and keeps you top of mind with your customers. And you don't have to be selling in these emails - simply providing valuable information with an occasional offer works best.

4. Get Social
The question isn't IF social media can help your business, it's HOW. It's human nature to be social creatures craving belonging and friendship. Social media addresses that need.

Again, there are MANY strategies on how to use it to promote your business. Find what works best for you. The most important thing is to commit time to it so you are present and interacting. Just like a Web site that is nothing more than a stagnant brochure online, a business page that isn't interactive is a waste of time. Figure out ways to leverage your existing customers/fans to find new opportunities.

5. Set Up Joint Promotions with Other Businesses
In my local area, there is a group of about 20 business owners that created a group that promotes their downtown shopping community, both to destination-seekers and local shoppers. They have a Web site and a Facebook fan page. All of these businesses can link to the site and fan page, as well as to each other to show they are part of this common group. This shows support for and raises awareness of their efforts to promote their local shopping community.

6. Patience and Persistence
At a recent local marketing seminar held in our community, South Central College presenters shared the 10 P's to combat marketing insanity and encourage us to look at our businesses through a new lens -

• Product/service
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
• People
• Process
• Positioning
• Performance
• Physical Evidence
• Patience & Persistence

Marketing in today's world is like paddling upstream. All small businesses today need to adopt a state of "adaptive capacity" - the ability to be flexible and adapt to today's marketing "normal". Today's "normal" is not static, you can never catch up, is always changing, is always adapting, is always anticipating, is always connecting to your market(s), is hiring people that love to learn and can roll with the punches.

In my own business, I began establishing annual goals for myself. That quickly changed to semi-annual and then quarterly. With today's fast-changing technology, we have to be ready to change with it and stay ahead of the curve. Or at least not get behind it. :) What worked yesterday may not work today and certainly won't work tomorrow. The moment you stop actively marketing, you go backwards faster than you moved forward. Continue to push ahead and continue to innovate.

Ciao for now, Paula