Sites like Yahoo! Local offer opportunities to reach potential customers in your immediate area.

The Sports Business Journal recently featured a story by David Bourne titled “From media to stadiums, the dollars are flowing to youth sports” about the increase in sponsorship of high school sports. In the article, he explains that small businesses like insurance agents use these sponsorships  to form connections with local consumers. Many are taking their support beyond buying in-stadium banners and program ads to actually volunteering.

This highlights a trend that we are seeing in small business marketing: getting local.

This takes many forms and can be a great way to build relationships and micro-target the low-hanging fruit of potential customers in your immediate area. Examples of getting local include:

1. Local search marketing. On the online marketing side, there has been a surge in local search spending. More and more people are turning to search engines like Google and Yahoo! to find information about local businesses. Resources like Google Places and Yahoo! Local help consumers find businesses and give them valuable information like ratings and reviews. Small businesses have begun capitalizing on this by utilizing paid search, paid directory listings and engaging in more proactive management of their online listing presences.
2. Event sponsorships. Charitable events, golf tournaments and business-related seminars are just a few places where businesses can gain valuable exposure. Strategically, it is best to target events that have a natural tie to your products and services. Leveraging these sponsorships to obtain speaking opportunities can build your perceived expertise. Sponsorships that offer lead-collection opportunities, like providing a product for a prize drawing, can fill your prospecting pipeline with local people who have expressed an interest in your product.
3. Public relations. It has long been a tried and true tactic in public relations to try and find a local angle to your pitch. Local news outlets exist primarily to report the news that most impacts their local audience. As your marketing activities become more local, you will start to think local. Furthermore, social media tools like Twitter are becoming prime tools for local reporters to connect with sources. If you want to build relationships with the local reporter covering your industry, Twitter is a great place to start.

How have you begun to think local with your marketing?

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Marketing Strategies, Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.