If you’re a local business, you need to ensure that you’re utilising a wide range of marketing methods to ensure your venture is successful and this means both online and offline techniques. Just as a local business cannot survive simply by marketing themselves online and through digital platforms, neither can they by only using traditional offline methods and, as such, it’s about getting the happy medium which sees the business booming from all avenues, be that by word of mouth promotion, social media buzz or any other such method. With this in mind, we’ve teamed up today with one of the leading companies in the UK, Circle Services, who offer flyer printing to take a look at just why it’s still important for local businesses to be flyering and look at how effective such are aches can be when done correctly.
An Effective Marketing Method
When you take a look at the history of local business marketing and take a look at which methods have stood the test of time, flyering is certainly one of them. The concept of handing out flyers and leaflets has been around for decades and, when done correctly, it can work a treat, especially when it comes to building brand awareness. Whilst many will associate leaflets and flyers with junk mail, when done on a local scale, there’s always the common factor of locality between those who are handed the said flyers or leaflets. Of course, we need to take a look at a specific example for it to make a little more sense, however as a general rule, if you’re a local business looking to increase your local market share, you can’t afford not to be using this tried and tested approach to marketing.
If, as an example, we take the concept of a local restaurant which is set to open in a couple of weeks time; there’s a few main options for marketing. Firstly, you’ve got social media which, whilst necessary and effective, isn’t going to hit the whole of your intended target market. Secondly, you’ve got newspaper and other local print advertising which, again, can be successful, but is often costly. Thirdly, you’ve got the option of handing out and distributing flyers and leaflets to spread the word and drum up business on your opening night, ensuring the place is packed to the rafters.
It’s this third option which we are going to take a look at here and, in short, it’s effective because of the fact that there’s so many distribution options to hit your target market. So long as your flyer or leaflet has a great design which gets across your message and helps you stand out and ensure people will instantly recognise what you’re offering, you’ll see a great success rate. With flyers and leaflets, the most common distribution options are door drops or using them as inserts in local press and both can be, and are, effective at spreading the word and increasing local brand awareness.
To extent the look at local marketing through flyering, however, it’s well worth us quickly touching upon the concept of getting your message and branding right as if this is wrong, no number of leaflets will see you succeed. It’s all about getting a brand together which is instantly recognisable as you doing what you do and, it you’re a Pizza place, that means an Italian sounding name and a logo and colour scheme which matches! You won’t go far with bad branding but get it right and you’ll ultimately see a fantastic benefit from it for years to come.
Above all, flyering is still an effective marketing technique for local business and if you’re not currently using it as part of your marketing mix, you need to be asking yourself the question why not.
