Businesses are often highly focused on online advertising these days. However, IRL advertising remains one of the most effective ways to communicate your business’s products and services to your target audience. Especially if you’re a locally-focused business, your community will appreciate your advertising toward them in a more direct, IRL fashion. To get started, you’ll need to have a few solid strategies to work with. To ensure success, here are six IRL ways to market your business effectively within your community:
1. Attend Trade Shows
Trade shows are ideal for businesses that are just beginning to make a name for themself. If you can make your presence known within your industry, tales of your services and products will begin to spread not only with your competitors but with their customers as well. Many of the other strategies we’ll be discussing can be performed at trade shows, so the potential for combining different marketing strategies should always be on your radar. Bring promotional items, product samples, and more and you will be certain to make waves at any trade show you attend. Speaking of which…
2. Useful Promotional Items
One of the best ways to spread your brand like wildfire is by giving out useful promotional items that have your logo emblazoned upon them. Whether you’re using tote bags, golf towels, or another nifty item to advertise your business, you’ll get de facto brand ambassadors for little to no financial investment. Because you’re giving out items to potential customers and business partners alike, your reputation will begin to skyrocket, and they’ll be more likely to seek out your company’s products or services. Promotional items can be customized to be especially relevant to your business, and the industry you’re working within, so be sure to get creative!
3. Commission A Mural
If you want to market your business with flair and support your local community’s art scene, nothing can quite beat commissioning a mural. Find a way to mix your business’s message with a sense of local-centric imagery, and you’ll get people about town talking about your products and services in no time. The fact that people can appreciate the beauty of a mural up close makes it that much more emotionally effective. Additionally, if you place your mural in a location that will specifically reach out to your target demographics, you’ll be more likely to boost revenue using your commissioned mural.
4. Create A Pop-Up Shop
Pop-up shops are a trendy, community-focused way of spreading your brand and letting people within your marketing zone know what your products and services can do for them. Find a local market, shopping spot, or any location that can have a sense of synergy with your company’s services, and you’ll easily boost the community’s awareness of what you can offer them. Once again, this is a strategy that can be used in conjunction with other strategies on this list to significantly boost your company’s profits!
5. Host A Specialized Workshop
Speaking of community-centered events, hosting a specialized workshop that can teach people in your community about your trade, or ways they can learn new skills for themselves, is a great way to simultaneously show how much you care about the community, and boost your brand awareness. This strategy can take a lot of leg work to get started but can pay off massively. The sheer amount of value you’ll be providing to those who attend the workshops will ensure they have an excellent opinion of your business, which will make them feel motivated to spread the word about your company. Allowing them to tag you in social media posts during this time is a fantastic way to hyper-charge the effectiveness of this IRL marketing strategy.
6. Use Street Advertisements And Billboards
Street advertisements and billboards are some of the oldest IRL marketing strategies that exist, and their continued popularity is a testament to how effective they can be. If you place your street ads around town in a highly targeted fashion, you’ll get more bang for your advertising buck. Consider how you can style the advertisements to more effectively catch the eye of your preferred customer, and be sure to emphasize services and products that you know will be popular with said preferred customers. When creating your advertising materials, this is always an important strategy to follow.
Get In Touch With Your Customer Base
By getting in touch with your customer base, you can let them know you genuinely care about helping them, and, by an extent, helping the community. There are even more fantastic strategies for ensuring you take advantage of both IRL and online marketing angles, and combining them can provide you with even more opportunities.