17 Ways to Advertise Your Business Locally (Almost Free)

As a former marketing manager responsible for advertising a telecommunications business in Glasgow, I would like to think I am qualified to do so.

In 1999, my employer gave me a monthly advertising budget of $50,000 to help hit the sales target.

I would like to share this experience combined with some updated advertising tactics.

Some are free and others require a small budget.

Marketing budget, strategy, and tactics.

When I was working in telecom marketing, we had a monthly marketing budget.

Our strategy was to acquire new customers from the competition; 2,000 each month.

Our tactical approach was to submit an offer each month with a closing date at the end of the month.

We use our marketing budget to promote the same service; simply varying the offer each month.

For example;

· Buy before the 31st of the month; Get free installation.

· Buy before the end of the month; 50% discount on the installation.

· The first 3 months; 50% discount on telephone line rental.

· Free 3 months; sports channel 50% discount.

Our sales team needed the incentive to motivate and close deals with new clients.

This offer was advertised in newspaper ads, direct mail to homeowners, billboards, and flyers sent through mailboxes.

We also use local radio advertising.

I don’t see many local businesses being that focused.

Put your sales offer on the home page of the website

Most commercial websites have an image area on the home page of their website.

Check out the deals on the Sky.com home page this August.

Switch to fully unlimited Sky Broadband

Get a free Samsung Galaxy s9 and Gear VR with Sky Mobile

These offers blend into the other content sections of your home page.

You should coordinate your offering across your company’s sales, marketing, and customer service teams and all of your communication channels.

Send email campaigns to existing customers and subscribers once a month

You’ve already acquired customers and leads from your website or other channels, so email marketing should be part of your advertising plans.

Even very simple local websites will have accumulated a list of website queries over time.

A client, whose website is running on WordPress, has 276 queries stored in their website’s address book; with flamingo

1. Export the list of Flamingo subscribers.

2. Set up a free MailChimp account.

3. Import subscribers to a list.

4. Create a regular email campaign with MailChimp.

5. Go to campaigns.

6. Click Create a Campaign.

7. Click on email and get started.

8. Add recipients (the email list you imported).

9. Select the personalization field.

10. Add a subject line, ie: the name of your offer.

11. Select the design email and choose one of their free email templates.

12. Customize the template and add your offer template and images.

13. Preview the email, make a test send, and schedule it.

That’s your sent email campaign.

My preferred email marketing provider is ConvertKit and it has a useful broadcast feature that allows you to forward to those people who didn’t open the first email campaign you sent.

Local business and industry appointments

Before you even consider having your website ranked by Google, you need to register your business with local business and industry citations.

Citations are the signals that Google relies on to verify that you are a real business.

You must ensure that you use the same company name, address, zip code, phone number, and website address for all citations.

You will pay around $2 per appointment and I have produced a step-by-step guide here.

Once your citations are in place, you can be more proactive with link-building campaigns.

Here is my dating guide.

A Bank of Photography assets

We are living in a material world and you need to have a bank of original and unique photographs of your office, staff, vehicles, buildings, products, or services.

I just reported a local photographer for a local client.

$350 for a one-day photoshoot works out to less than $1 a day.

Here is a step-by-step guide to reporting to a local photographer.

Write the purpose of the photographer, for example, staff photos to communicate trust and use on the website

· Summarize the company’s products and services.

· List the industries they cover.

· Delineate access to people and equipment required.

· Summarize the location, logistics, and date of the photograph.

· Detail the required images and dimensions.

Write the complete list of shots required

Provide screenshots of images you like from other websites and why

Comment on the previous photoshoots, if any, highlighting why the photos were bad

Google My Business

Google My Business has been called a lot of things in the past, like Google Local, and it’s a great advertising solution for local businesses.

Here’s how to add your business to Google My Business.

Google My Business can help in the following ways.

Get results for business category searches

Discovered on maps

Higher positions in local results and map searches with customer reviews

Post photos from inside and outside your company

Create local ads

google posts

Google Posts is a brilliant tactic and solution to promote your offers, products, and company locally.

Posts show up when people search for your business, and I don’t see many local businesses using Google Posts.

How to advertise your business locally with free Google Posts

1. Sign in or open the Google My Business iPhone app

2. Select Posts

3. Click Write your post

4. Choose News, Event, Offer, or Product

5. Create an image on Canva.com with a width of 400 x 300

6. Upload the image

7. Write a Post

8. Add a call to action

9. Preview

10. Publish your Google Post

11. Share your post on your social channels

Create a post

You can choose what’s new or promote an event, offer, or product.

But sure to have an image ready; I use Canva.com and create images at 400 x 300 pixels and make sure the content is centered.

But be sure to add a headline or text that will entice people to click, and add the URL of the page they’ll be taken to if they click on your post.

What a Google Post Looks Like

A Google Post will appear just below your business name in search results.

There are 3 tabs; overview, posts, and comments.

Google has experimented with the display and positioning of posts, so they may vary by device and over time.

Post on Instagram using local hashtags

I have a local client who doesn’t advertise locally but wants to grow their business.

They simply need to reach more people and introduce their services.

So I suggested Instagram; a social image-sharing website owned by Facebook.

Here’s how to set up an Instagram account.

Next, you need a business profile, Now you need people to follow you.

So I would suggest that the best way to get followers when you don’t have any is to use local hashtags when you start posting.

Upload your photo bank to your phone

· Download the free application; Canva to use to customize photos and images

· Create an angle to connect with local people.

The client I’ll be using in this example is a local laundromat.

First, find the hashtags of the local cities; just write something in a post followed by the hashtag and the name of the city.

Finish the rest of your text, from the location box, add the location, and share the post on your Facebook page as well.

The next way to leverage Instagram locally

As you start to build up a following, you will start promoting the 20 or so rugby and football matches played locally with good luck messages.

When you post a good luck message, you will include the local hashtag and include the team address #troon @marrrugby.

I am supported by the interest and following that others have built.

Put your website address on your car or vehicles

I was having a conversation with my web designer about redesigning a client’s website.

I think the current logo design gives me limited redesign options.

So I asked for his advice.

He said “damn hell; I see their vans all over town, don’t change the logo.”

Here’s a photo of the vehicles their engineers drive to and from customers.

Think about it.

Your vehicle could be away from a client’s office for hours, it could be parked in a supermarket, driving around town, and driving on highways.

You have already invested in vehicle purchases or lease rentals.

The cost of branding or adding temporary signage with your logo and website address is minimal.

Vehicle branding is essentially low-cost local advertising.

Magnetic vehicle signage prices start as low as $59 depending on size and artwork.

That’s 16 pence a day.

Repost your helpful guide and post it on LinkedIn or Medium.

Wait a few days until your guide has been indexed in Google and your website has received credit or attribution for the page.

You don’t want to be penalized for duplicate content.

You can use the import option on Medium and they will automatically add a canonical link to the article, giving your page the credit mentioned above.

1. For Linkedin, log in and click the write article button.

2. A new window will open.

3. Enter and format your text.

4. Add a call to action or link to your website within the body and at the end of the article.

5. Add an image on top.

6. Preview and publish.

LinkedIn post screen

After clicking Write an article, a new window will open and you will see the editing screen.

Where LinkedIn Articles Appear

Your article will appear in the news and you will be able to see your article or list of articles in the activity tab.

You wouldn’t publish the full article; You would leave a section at the end of the article that encourages people to read the remaining content on your website.

LinkedIn and Medium have larger audiences than your website and you can reach a larger audience by posting this way; Quick.

Medium post screen

When you sign up and log in to Medium, you’ll see your article drafts and published articles and the option to import or write a story.

Quuu Promote

There is a UK company called Quuu that allows you to promote your useful content to influencers in their market.

First, your content or article must be useful to others in your industry.

It cannot be a sales page.

You pay around $40 per Quuu to submit an article to influencers looking to curate and share articles with their Facebook and Twitter followers.

I have gained thousands of shares, website clicks, backlinks, and even website views using this promotional strategy.

A small budget is required; just cut those drinks on Saturday at the pub to pay in the queue.

Acquire and promote case studies and testimonials.

I neglect to acquire testimonials (I hate asking for them) but post case studies of my results.

Case studies certainly work well and I’ve noticed an increase in views and comments when I post these on LinkedIn.

I acquired a paying client through my LinkedIn network after sharing recent SEO results.

I’ve used a combination of screencasts, screenshots of results, and videos of myself talking about results.

Using personal touch makes a difference beyond just posting images.

Let prospects and customers get up close and personal

Now to the social strategy of letting potential customers and customers come closer to your business or brand.

Tools like Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories allow you to post images and short video clips that disappear after 24 hours.

People are curious about the people, brands, and companies they care about.

I follow a football club and some of its players on Instagram, where they give you behind-the-scenes access.

Inside the tunnel, as the players walk out onto the pitch is a great asset and a vision to harness.

I consulted once with a fashion brand and encouraged them to provide clients with behind-the-scenes access to their photoshoots of the new products they were modeling.

Local sponsorship

An advert; I have never sponsored a local team; he only managed a $3 million-a-year football endorsement deal.

I see a lot of local companies that take the form of local team sponsorship.

Since most local sports team websites are powered by Pitchero, you can negotiate with the club secretary to get at least one banner link and one link to your website.

The best asset to take advantage of local sponsorship is to take out a hospitality package.

Dining and hanging out with clients at a sporting event is by far the most cost-effective way to advertise your business; especially for B2B companies.

I attributed a return on sponsorship investment primarily to the corporate hospitality of the 2 teams my former employer sponsored.

Retargeting with Google or Facebook

Google Adwords is a minefield if you don’t have experience in carrying out advertising campaigns.

I used to post ads myself, but it’s getting too complicated and ad agencies have experience too.

Neil Patel wrote this great guide to running a retargeting campaign.

The idea is to advertise to people who have previously visited your website.

Similarly, you can use Facebook to remarket to people who have previously visited your website.

Ideally, for me, I would only re-market to those people who visited my website structure guide from the UK.

I get visitors from India and they are not my target audience.

Local SEO

The home page of your website should describe the name of your company, the business sectors in which you operate, and where you are located.

So, for example, this company does air conditioning and refrigeration and is located in Glasgow.

So the home page is:

Refrigeration and air conditioning G2 Glasgow

This recruitment company is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and you can see how they have titled their home page

Jobs, Careers and Recruitment Scotland | Core-Asset Consulting

You can use this free tool called SEO Minion to verify that your home page is targeting local searches.

Content marketing

The best definition of content marketing is “content marketing equates to answering questions to help solve problems before buying without interrupting or selling.”

Most people associate content marketing with writing blog posts, but there are other options.

Educational videos on YouTube

Instagram images (if you’re trendy)

Publish images on Google: because Google images are the second largest search engine

PDF downloads

· Webinars, online seminars.

Facebook advertising

Facebook advertising is an ideal marketing channel for local businesses to reach potential customers.

It can target people based on their age, gender, marital status, interests, what they like, what they do, or the job they have.

Facebook advertising offers a variety of advertising formats including lead generation ads, deals, event promotions, video marketing, getting people to like your page, and much more.

Since Facebook also owns Instagram, you can choose to run an ad campaign to target your potential customers across Facebook, Instagram, their audience network, Messenger, and stories.

I recently posted an ad to help rent local office space; only aimed at business owners, freelancers, and company directors in 4 cities near the rental space.

I ran a lead generation campaign for a siloed campaign that was able to reach more people, more times, more often, and more profitably in terms of ad spend and cost per query than traditional media.

Google Adwords and Pay Per Click

Companies have been advertising for over 150 years, so the concept is not new.

But the idea of paying only when someone sees and clicks on your ad is less than 15 years old.

Adwords is more than just paying for a click; you need a website that converts clicks into inquiries and a sales process that converts the inquiry into a profitable sale.

Web design

There is a great quote from Saul in the TV series Mad Men.

“You don’t need money to dress better than you.”

What this quote means in terms of your website design is that people will judge your company and whether they do business with you on your website appearance.

Not just the logo.

· The photograph

· The colors

· The sources

· Usability and legibility.

· Your website copy and how it communicates.

And Google will judge your website in terms of its speed and mobile-friendliness as these 2 main ranking factors.

How much does it cost to advertise locally?

For example, a local laundry business can start advertising with Google Ads from $9 per day to reach an estimated 21,000 to 35,000 customers within a 5-mile radius and pay only when customers click on the ad or They call the business.

Similarly, local businesses advertise with Facebook advertising to target customers within a defined radius.