Stop Leaving Flyers At Your Local Businesses. Do This instead.
We need to do a better job when looking to start some local marketing. Don’t get me wrong flyers can work really well, but if you’ve tried them before and they have gotten you nowhere maybe it’s time to try something else.
Don’t Get Stuck In The Local Marketing Pile Of Death
I am sure you have seen it before. The pile or cluttered layout of paper advertising material sitting at the checkout counter of a small local business. While waiting to finish your checkout process (which takes like 4 hours now with these slow chip readers) you finger through some of the flyers, and business cards that are left for your checkout waiting entertainment.
If you leave your print marketing material on the counter with all the other ones this is really your ideal scenario. You want someone to browse the stacks, and hope the one you put there catches their eye enough to for them to take along after finishing whatever they are doing. That is essentially the entire lead capture process you have used with your flyers, business cards and posters. It sounds really good on paper(no pun intended) but, rarely plays out in a way that leaves you with a new client.
It’s not an insult to you or your services offered it’s just not a good way to develop a quality local marketing strategy. Think about it for a second, outside of maybe something informational like an event flyer when was the last time you picked one of these items up off the counter, and actually used it in making a decision about something you need done? I can imagine that it is quite rare.
Use These Strategies Instead of just leaving flyers on the counter or community board.
Co-marketing…It’s Better Than Flyers
If know where your client demographic hangs out then you need to go to them instead of expecting them to come to you.
If you are not familiar with co-marketing it’s pretty simple. Simply it’s a you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours relationship. You, and another business share a similar or identical target demographic and mutually benefit from teaming up to reach the same audience. When you choose a local business to co-market with you need to make sure it’s a good fit for both of you in some way or another. In this case it’s easy to assume you want to co-market with a local business, because they have an audience you want as clients and the manager or owner will understand this pretty quickly (ie a coffee shop has more daily visitors than a freelance 1-on-1 personal trainer). They will want to know how it is beneficial for them to give you access to their clientele. One of the best ways you as a small business can capitalize on knowing they are going to want something in return is to offer some type of referral percentage of sales from your co-marketing right in the beginning. This will show them you are serious about building a relationship and while they might not initially get your current clients as patrons of their business they will still be coming out on top if they get someone to join you for training. Once this is established you can begin going over options to begin co-marketing.
How To Co-Market With Local businesses better than flyers:
Your goal is to capture the attention of patrons to your advertising not just leave it somewhere, and hope by chance it catches their eye. It’s time to take advantage of the best high traffic areas of that business. High traffic areas are just as they sound, the most popular places people will be going or seeing within the facility or experience.
Ie. this might mean the creamer, milk and sugar station of a coffee shop and not the checkout counter like most people think.
Here are 6 low cost and low barrier options you can use in developing a co-marketing relationship with local small businesses in your area:
1 . Open Floor Space Display
There is always going to be some unused or underutilized floor space in the local businesses. Ask the business manager to use some of it to set up a simple display about your business or a current promotion you are running. Don’t set up a table with flyers. Be creative and leave some equipment there with your branding on it. Choose something you have an abundance of, or something quite novel that will stand out right away like a Prowler Sled with a branded t-shirt, and special offer on it. If you get permission to leave something of yours in publicly unused space in the business you have gained eyes on your business and their business has added a potential revenue stream to an area in their store that previously just sat empty…and they didn’t have to do anything!
2. Branded Door & Counter Mats
Foot traffic… literally. They are less invasive to valuable counter space at a small business and you can be quite creative if you can match what the store offers with a service you provide. I know it sounds a bit odd, but I stress again these are open area spaces on the floor that you can cheaply take advantage of and provide the business with a revenue generating piece of their store they would not have been able to use before. You can be creative and use it as an opportunity to promote a social media post while standing on the mat. While this might not directly lead to a closed sale it can increase your brand awareness when pictures with your logo, website and a hashtag are posted socially.
3. Use some weights or equipment as Door Stoppers
As fitness folk we work with weights on a day to day basis, and not all of them get used with the same frequency. If the business you co-market with typically has their doors open or certain areas with a door that need to be held open than ask to be apart of that effort. If we can brand the weight in anyway that would be your best best if you can not then make sure the employees of the space know where it came from incase one of their patrons asks about it.
4. Endorse/ Sponsor a meal or menu item at a restaurant
How many general population folks do you know eat something because someone somewhere told them it was “healthy” or “the best option for (insert fitness goal here)”? If the cafe or restaurant is small you can endorse 1 or a few menu items they already offer and associate them with something related to your business. If they are a bit larger or open minded then you can work with them to create a new menu item that fits their brand, but is tied directly to you and your involvement. Then have a deal with the business that allows anyone with a receipt of this item to use it for a discount or special introductory offer for your services then give a referral to the referring business.
5. To-Go Box Stickers
Stickers are quite inexpensive and and be highly customizable depending on the size you order. One of the best things about stickers…they stick and stay until whatever they stick to is disposed of It’s easy to toss away an extra flyer or brochure included in a to go or pick up order, but when its literally stuck on the package that means more exposure for your ad until it’s thrown away. If your desired cafe does a lot of to-go orders then you can ask the business you are working with to co brand the stickers with you and share the cost; if you don’t think you would be able to do it on your own.
6. Add a Deal to the Receipt or receipt email.
Receipts are available at every single business in your local area and you should start taking advantage of them just like the big box stores do. I’m sure you have seen a receipt with an “enter to win a $200 gift card by answering a survey about your experience” on the bottom of your receipt before, right? With a lot of the modern cashier stations it’s easy to add some custom items to the format of a transaction receipt without it using the entire roll of paper. What’s even cooler with these new systems is they can directly send the customer’s receipt to their to their email! While you may not be able to capture their email address with this transaction you can include a link to be placed on their receipt that sends them to a landing page where you can start the process of converting them into a client. It’s not going to cost you a dime either.
These are 6 low cost solutions you can use to make a connection with local businesses in your area. Remember if the usual flyer drop routines are failing to bring you new business or attract more attention then you need to develop a new strategy.
Remember: Establish how your co-marketing will benefit the business you want to advertise in right from the start. Once they agree to work with you start pitching the various ideas that appear to have a low barrier to entry on their part, like the 6 above. Find what works to get started then start building a better relationship with that business. If your initial co-marketing campaigns go well you can try to add on to your relationship like doing free seminars for their customers, at their location, and even allowing you to have access to customer email addresses they have acquired for their own email marketing.
Originally published at fitletes.com

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