Reaching Out to Your Community
by: Jennifer McGroary
As you continue to build your small, local business, one of the easiest marketing approaches in attracting new customers is to embrace your community, while using your web site to gain recognition. A strong community presence brings about notoriety and longevity to your venture.
People who use the Internet often are seeking a business closest to them or where they plan to be, so they can easily find what they need. To help visitors navigate to your web site, list it with other well-known web site directories and associations, including your State’s tourism and visitor association, the yellow pages online, hotel accommodations and travel needs, recreational sites, or others pertaining to your industry. They are all frequently trafficked, and some of these sites might also have the option to include small to lengthy reviews or recommendations to your web site by satisfied customers.
Another marketing approach for community attention-getters is to partner with other local vendors so that you can trade off mention of your businesses on each other’s web sites. This works well if you support or regularly do business with any of your local charities, community groups, schools, libraries, government offices, or financial institutions.
Become a joint-sponsor with other vendors for local events to build your reputation among the community, and at the same time extend beyond the area without the extra marketing costs. Many events are advertised nationally or regionally several weeks to months in advance on the Internet, so that visitors seeking entertainment while traveling to your city can plan accordingly.
Serve as an officer for any number of small to large organizations to provide recognition for your business, when mentioned in a biography or profile included on you, or any other staff from your company who serves. Oftentimes, when people search the Internet based on keywords, or are researching your company in particular, they will be able to easily see what involvement you have in other causes.
Start your own small event or a community-based organization to boost an interest in your products, particularly if they advocate a large portion of the dominating cultures, age groups, or even lesser-known groups seeking to gain notice. Mention it on your web site and on the web sites with whom you are partnering. In that case, you will both benefit from the results, sharing marketing costs and customers.
One last option in having your company and its web site receive the recognition you deserve is by enlisting the help of your State’s economic development department. Each State has a web site that promotes small businesses by including mention of them on their sites, as well as offering suggestions and sending potential customers your way. They also have a wide-range of databases for you to utilize in advertising your web site to a greater number of places.
Copyright 2006 Jennifer McGroary
About The Author:
Jennifer McGroary is a WAHM who has been operating her own home-based web design and consulting business since 1999. Jennifer helps local small businesses, family-owned, & home-based businesses maximize their profits without spending money on advertising. To learn more, visit http://www.cssites.com.
March 2006
Disclaimer: The information presented and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of BIZBUD.com and/or its partners.
Unless otherwise stated, the contents of this site are
Copyright © 2006 BIZBUD.com - All rights reserved.
Articles are copyright materials of their respective authors.
|
