The successful promotion of a small local business takes either a lot of ingenuity or a lot of money, and sometimes both. Getting your brand out, no matter what product or service you’re offering your local community, takes a measured, considered and holistic approach that is not always easy to control.
Obviously your website is going to be a vital part of your campaign, but its importance and cost will depend on your product and your market. Will it be a two page online ‘pamphlet’ or a $5000.00 E-Commerce juggernaut? How you promote that website is the subject for another article, however Craigslist is one cheap way to advertise online, as is Kijij and the Used-InsertTownHere.com family of online classified sites. Other local directories and classifieds abound, and you should explore their availability in your area.
My particular one-man service business has a vast territory, upwards of 100-150 km in any direction, and as a result, I do a lot of driving. Advertising on my vehicle was a great way to reach a high number of people for a relatively low cost. I paid about $500.00 to get my car emblazoned with my logo and contact info. I spend more than that per month for a small 2 square inch classified ad in our local daily newspaper, (also a crucial spoke in my promotional campaign) however, my vehicle advertising travels with me everywhere I go.
Highway signs are another low cost, high visibility advertising opportunity. I’m not talking about the huge billboards that few of us can afford, but the small, 2 to 4 square foot signs you see on trees and hydro poles up and down the roadways. My rural district attracts signage by local businesses advertising their firewood, well drilling, tree topping and electrolysis services, and often you will find a cluster of signs around a crossroads or other landmark. Get yours printed on weather-resistant core-plast and keep them simple. People can’t read many details while zooming by at 80 km. The cost can be as little as $10.00-$20.00 each, which is a great return on investment.
You might not get away with nailing a sign to a tree or hydro pole in the middle of the city, but the higher amount of pedestrian traffic lends itself to postering. I learned the art of postering 20 years ago as a young musician when it was the tried and true method of advertising a gig. The downside of posters are their fleeting nature, city crews tend to remove them within days of you putting them up, and there tends to be lots of competition However, you can still manage a big impact in a short time because of the high, street-level visibility and the low low cost.
These are challenging times for small business, and you have to be tenacious and creative if you want yours to be successful. Every and any angle that can give you a leg up on your company’s branding and visibility is worth a look.
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I shouldn’t say I was horrified, but I was certainly surprised to see how few of these websites are incorporating social media into their sites. Of those 650 sites, only 56 of them use Facebook groups or pages and 49 have links to their Twitter accounts. And this is in a tourism-based economy struggling with recession and a strong Canadian dollar. Modern marketers all know that social media is a cheap and easy way to connect and create a dialogue with existing and potential customers. 
