Where Should You Advertise If You’re A Local Business?

What are the best advertising solutions for a local business

This is a question we get approached with often, where should I spend my marketing budget? Unfortunately without knowing the backstory, it is very hard for us to give a business owner advice. Two vital pieces of information to supply us with is:

1. What is your budget
2. What are your goals

Advertising and marketing covers a wide range of avenues to spread your message. Budget will be your biggest determining factor in how aggressive and what medians you can utilize. If you’re monthly budget is $3,000, we would lean more towards an online marketing campaign, if your monthly budget is $20,000+ we would develop a campaign that combined online and traditional advertising. Knowing your goals on the other hand allow us to determine where to spend your message, some avenues are better for branding just as others are better for calls for action.

For an example, if you are a local business that primarily does business within a 100 mile radius and has a combined monthly budget of $5,000, we would suggest decreasing our targeting to 25 – 50 miles this would allow us to be more aggressive locally.

Keep in mind though, there are many things you can be doing to help yourself without spending money:

1. Get involved with the community, join networking groups. Get your brand out there.
2. Join an association in your industry, networking with those in your industry gives you insight into trends and allows you to discuss with other what has worked with their marketing.
3. Blog. Consistently write blogs on topics that you regularly hear from your customers. These could be issues, concerns or questions you constantly address. Think about what people ask about and answer those questions.
4. Focus on reviews. Review sites carry a tremendous amount of authority over consumers buying decisions. They will base their decisions to do business with you on what they read online.
5. Email marketing. Email customers, email potential customers and email lost leads. These are all groups that you have an opportunity to do business with.
6. Update your website, do not let the website go stagnate. Keep the information up to date.

It is very easy to overspend when it comes to advertising your business. Do not get sucked into buying everything that comes across your desk, just because it looks good, doesn’t mean its good for your business.

If you’d like a complimentary review if your current marketing strategy, contact us

Jeff Irvine
InnoVision
707-981-7272
jeff@innovisionsites9.sg-host.com