How to Build a Local Customer Base

Marketing in the twenty-first century has taken a swerve towards the digital, with new agencies popping up to help brands, companies, and businesses maximise their exposure to international customers online. These glamorous new forms of marketing mean little to local businesses that operate in a strict locality and have no aspirations to expand beyond their town, district or county. So if you’re looking to build your local customer base, here’s a mix of traditional and internet-based tips to help you expand your visibility in the local area.

Word of Mouth

There’s nothing quite like good old-fashioned word of mouth to pull in more customers. The best thing about this method is that the recommendation passes between trusting friends instead of being issued from an impersonal advert. To encourage people to spread your business through word of mouth, maintain good service at all times; each customer is far more likely to vouch for your company if they’re entirely satisfied with how they were treated.

Above and beyond dazzlingly efficient and personal service, you can pull a couple of other word of mouth tricks to draw in a crowd. If you’re a catering company, why not announce in posters in store that you’ll be giving out free cakes to the first 100 visitors to your store; likewise, if you operate your own plumbing service, establishing some sort of incentive for people to recommend you - perhaps with discounts on your next visit - is a neat and easy way to get more customers without spending a penny on advertising.

Posters and Flyers

The most traditional way of getting your brand noticed is to put it under the public eye, plastered on billboards, taped to lampposts, or simply sitting on the front page of a flyer left in a doctor’s waiting room. If your company’s advert is out there, people will tend to notice it and, if your business is in any way applicable to them, they’ll bear it in mind when they’re in need of your product or service. Remember to place these adverts in busy local thoroughfares, or where people are likely to wait for an extended period of time, such as at bus stops.

You’ll want your advert to look professional - after all, it will reflect your brand, what you’re about, and whether you can be trusted - so research companies such as Print In The Bag for a variety of professional printing options that’ll ensure you’re taken seriously in your ad campaign. Ensure you’ve prioritised the most important elements of your business in the visual hierarchy of the flyer: the public need to see a brand, a product or service, and contact details in order for your advert to land people who actually follow through and come to your store.

Social Media

Social media is an important way to tap into local, regional and international markets. As a locally-attuned business, you’ll be able to use social media marketing methods in exactly the same way as the large multinational corporations do: you’ll simply need to tailor your audience and your output to the locale in which you’re situated instead of the mass of the population.

Setting up some of the most popular social media channels is where you’ll need to start. If you’re allergic to all of this, find someone who’ll be able to help you; there may well be a young person looking for an internship position managing a social media profile in your local area you can hire to help. You’ll want your Facebook page, for instance, to have all your company’s details, as well as posts and photos detailing the sort of work you do. With a little bit of creative thinking and perhaps some research on social media marketing techniques, you may be able to achieve a level of local exposure that traditional marketing simply won’t attain.

Collaboration

Local businesses are all about community, and so it’s likely you’ve got some friendly relationships with the tradesmen, retailers and service providers that operate in your area. While amicable interaction is all well and good, using these relationships to collaborate and boost both your business and those of other local business owners is an enjoyable, community-based way to inform locals about your brand.

Collaboration can take many forms, from leaving your flyers with accommodating local stores, to setting up joint events, to merging with other similar businesses under one umbrella in order to improve the service for your local consumers. It’s worth having this conversation, even on an informal basis, with the companies you’re most familiar with as they may be looking for new custom themselves. Just ensure that whatever deal you strike is mutually beneficial, so that neither party grows to resent the collaboration.

Community Plugs

Whether you’re based in a small town where most people know everybody or a part of a city where you experience a fairly constant flow of new people coming to your business, it can do no harm whatsoever to get a promotional plug in your local community - even if on social media, as in how Instagram influencers operate. If there’s a local fete on the horizon, why not sponsor the event so that the community at large knows you’re there for everybody.

On a larger scale, for those in city wards or boroughs, your brand’s message could do with its implantation in local community areas, such as leisure centres, transport hubs, church and community centres, and of course - the pub. Establishing good relationships with leaders of these groups will help you get custom as well as, hopefully, leave your calling card in these hotspots, especially if your product is actually on display in the centres, as would be the case for a lighting company who has just fitted the new community centre lighting.

The nation of shopkeepers that we are, British local businesses are rising once more against the once-prevailing forces of the big brands. In order to build a sizeable local customer base for your regional business, bear these tips in mind so that you become a community leader yourself.