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Archive for December 1st, 2009

Advertising Your Local Business With An Roi-driven Approach
As a local business you have to ensure that your advertising is targeted towards people in your local area and towards people in your local area who are interested in your services. However most local businesses fail to advertise effectively. They either underinvest in marketing or they fail to track and monitor the impact of their advertising spend on their business.

Direct Mail Advertising

Its possible to target the area where your customers live through direct mail. As a local company this can be one of the best ways to engage with your potential customers. However one problem with direct mail is that its hard to target intent. As a local plumber its possible to target customers that are within the territory where you do business but its hard to know if any of them actually require plumbing services. With direct mail you can track the success of your mailer through checking out what percentage of customers who received the letter buy from you. When you know where you sent the letters its not hard to track with a relatively degree of accuracy.

Business Directory Advertising

Its possible to advertise your business in directories that should in theory target consumers by intent and geography. Someone looking for an electrician in the Manchester Yellow Pages should be targeted in both ways. However that doesnt mean the advertising opportunity will always deliver a return on investment. And furthermore its hard to track the effectiveness of this method. You could however use a separate telephone number website address or email address to see how much attention the advert attracts. But to be sure its truly effective; you will need to measure the effectiveness of the lead all the way through the sales cycle. However when youre only investing in a 200 media buy you have to question whether its worthwhile setting up the tracking in the first place.

When advertising in online directories it is very easy to gauge return on investment through your website analytics. This is one of the reasons why online advertising is rapidly pinching media spend away from TV radio and newspapers.

Promotional Gifts

Promotional gifts are rarely used as a direct marketing tool by big business. They tend to use this method for branding purposes. However more so with local companies you have unique opportunities that many larger companies dont have.

For example as a taxi business imagine if you could give someone a gift like a key ring that they had in their pocket at all times. A takeaway business could advertise through giving their customers a fridge magnet. The opportunities are endless and the methods can be extremely effective.

Other Local Businesses

One highly effective advertising strategy can be to get another local business to advertise for you. If youre a gardener you could have a fencer that you always recommend. And he could always recommend you for gardening services. Both of you dont have to charge each other anything and you both get more business.

About the writer:  CityLocal is a local business directory with exciting franchise opportunities. www.citylocal.co.uk www.citylocal.ie