Giving Your Business a Name in the Community
Having an online presence is an obvious and necessary part of making your business thrive. What about having a presence in your community? This can be a key in ensuring that you are the go-to for your service type, in your area. Help increase your word-of-mouth and good name locally by having a valuable presence in your community!
Sponsor Charity Events
Whether this means you sponsor a charity event financially or physically is up to you. You can, of course, donate to a charity in your business’ name to let others know that you’re interested in bettering the community. However, there’s not always extra money in a small business for that, so why not try physically sponsoring the charity? Have yourself or some of your employees go to a charity event in your business’ shirts or hats and let others know you are there as the business. Maybe donate some of your services to helping make a charity or social event in the community happen. Whatever you choose to do, this will go a long way in getting your name out, and making sure it’s a good name for your business!
Let Volunteers use Your Space for Advertising
This doesn’t mean advertising other businesses, of course. Rather, let members of the community hang a poster or handout flyers from your place of business about special or charitable events coming up. Let your neighbors and all passers-by know that you care about the community by making a small statement, such as allowing advertisements for an upcoming event be broadcast from your business.
Participate in Holiday Food Drives
This is a common practice among businesses to give back to their communities. It costs nothing to the business, and allows all of your employees and customers to get involved in serving. Simply specify an area or a box or bin where people can leave non-perishable food items during the holidays. Then you can take those items to a local food bank or homeless shelter and allow others to have some of their needs met! This is a great way to give back to the community in the name of your business, without actually costing your business anything.
Sponsor a Youth Sports Team
Whether someone on your staff has a child involved in a sports team, or you just find a nearby school or church sports team, this is a great way to be involved. Letting the community know you are involved in the well-being of the youth by promoting a healthy lifestyle will go a long way. This will likely be a very minimal investment, financially, that can have a lot of positive impact for your business. It also doesn’t hurt that the sports team will probably display a banner thanking your business for being a sponsor and allowing others to see your good deed!
Encourage Your Employees to Volunteer
Your employees will benefit along with the business if you encourage them to volunteer in the community. You can send out monthly emails letting them know of upcoming volunteer opportunities and ways to get involved. This is a simple task that requires minimal effort on the business owner’s part, but can be very beneficial to everyone involved!
Getting involved in your community doesn’t have to be a big financial burden for your business. However, making the effort to do so will show your community that you care and you are willing to help out wherever possible. Providing others with your services for events or church/school functions will really increase your trust and credibility locally. Don’t be afraid to get your name out there by helping out!
For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. If any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add, please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!