Most of the tips for guerrilla marketing for local service businesses are fairly outdated. They might consider some online promotional techniques that aren’t that effective these days, and even worse, they seem to completely ignore mobile internet traffic. If you’re having trouble booking appointments for your local services, you might be able to enjoy better results if you update a few of your tactics.
Guerrilla Marketing for Local Service Businesses is Alive and Well
Consider these frugal marketing tips for companies that provide services to local clients and customers:
Customer Loyalty
Almost all local companies can improve their bottom line by focusing more upon customer retention.Estimates vary, but most studies demonstrate how much cheaper it is to keep a happy customer than to always have to replace unimpressed customers with new ones.
As mentioned by MiniBiz, it helps to develop a plan for online customer retention by mapping out what you do well now and then looking at areas for improvement. Suggestions include mapping out a typical buyer’s journey from finding your service to booking appointments to paying for services and returning for another appointment.
Some of the tips include using online appointment software, adding incentives for booking second appointments. and trying to figure out how your service can stand out from your competitors.
Help Sponsor a Good Cause
It might help improve morale to sponsor a good cause, and of course, it’s the right thing to do. At the same time, your efforts to improve your community can also help grow your business.
Your salon might offer free haircuts at a local nursing home, or your vet practice might host an inexpensive vaccination clinic. This is a great way to get your brand out in the public and attract notice in newspapers, social networks, and on the street.
Optimize Your Service Website for Mobile and Local Traffic
These are some quick and relatively inexpensive ways to make sure people can find you when they look for local service businesses like yours:
- If you haven’t done this already, search for tools to make sure that your website looks great on all sorts of computers. These include laptops, tablets, and of course, smart phones. These days, people look for local services on their phones.
- Make sure your company also has updated entries in local service directories and social networks. Consider adding some videos to a YouTube channel because YouTube is #2 for searches these days, right behind Google.
Start a Newsletter
If you run a local service business, you probably know an awful lot about the kind of service that you provide. You can start a newsletter with valuable tips that people will enjoy reading, if they use your service currently or not. You might also include incentives in your newsletter to increase the number of subscribers and attract people to your front door.
Also, it’s traditional to offer an email newsletter. However, you might experiment with print newsletters or even SMS text messages.
Update Your Guerilla Marketing to Complete Online and Offline
There are plenty of inexpensive and effective marketing tactics that you can still employ to schedule more appointments. It just might be time to update some of your tactics to keep ahead of your competitors.