There is a lot that you need to do in order to have a successful business. Besides running your business well, offering a good product or service, and having good customer relations, you need to market your business. Word of mouth will only get you so far, and without a proper marketing plan your business will not be able to grow to its full potential. If you are opening up a business in San Diego, or you already have one there, here are a few tips on how you can market it.

 

Advertise In Local Papers

The first thing that you can do is get your name out into some local newspapers. Almost every newspaper has a spot for local business to advertise, and for a small fee you can reach a wide number of customers. Be sure to come up with ad copy that is compelling, and if you can, design an ad that will stand out. Some newspapers you can check out are the San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Diego Business Journal, and The Star News.

Engage With The Community

Next, you will want to start reaching out to the people in your area. You can do this in a number of ways. For starters, you can place fliers around your neighborhood advertising your business or offering a discount. Fliers are rather cheap to make, and it will only take you a few hours to drive around and post them.

Another option is to partner with other local businesses and ask if you can advertise within their store or restaurant. This obviously works best if the business is not a direct competitor, and it may help if you can offer something in return – such as a discount for their customers, or free return advertising at your location.

You should also look to see if there are any upcoming community events in which you can get your business involved. For example, if you own a restaurant, look for local fairs and see if there is a place that you can set up a booth to serve food. Or if there are charity events upcoming, see if you can help to sponsor the event and have your company’s name displayed. Not only is this a great way to market your business, but also to get engaged with your local customers. Click here for a list of upcoming events in San Diego.

Local SEO

If you are marketing your business online (and you should be), you should consider directing some of those efforts to enhance your local SEO results. By employing methods that will help you to rank hire for searches in your area, you can reach more customers in your vicinity. There are many ways to go about running a local SEO campaign, such as altering your keywords, registering for business review sites like Yelp, or advertising on local pages. If you are unsure about how to run a local SEO campaign, consider hiring a company to do it for you. Companies like Lynup can help specifically with SEO in San Diego since they are from the area, and help you to better target people in your neighborhood.

Social Media

Lastly, you should be using social media in a way that lets you connect with those around you. Social media is a great tool for interacting with your customers, and for helping you to find them as well. Just like you would network with other companies in your area, connect with other companies online, and promote each other through social media. Offer discounts to anyone who connects with you on social media, and share articles or news related to your area. Little things like this can go a long way to ingratiating your self with the community.

Never Forget About Marketing

Marketing is one the most important aspects of any business. If you do not have a strong marketing plan, it won’t matter how great your product or service is. People in your area need to hear about it, and they can only do this if you market it properly. Hopefully this article was able to help some of you located in San Diego, and you’ll be better able to get the word out about your business.

By Eddy

Eddy is the editorial columnist in Business Fundas, and oversees partner relationships. He posts articles of partners on various topics related to strategy, marketing, supply chain, technology management, social media, e-business, finance, economics and operations management. The articles posted are copyrighted under a Creative Commons unported license 4.0. To contact him, please direct your emails to [email protected].