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Having a solid consumer product or service is only half the battle of owning a successful business. The other major piece of the puzzle companies try to perfect is getting customers through the door. A recent survey found more than half of Gen Z, millennials and Gen X are actively trying to shop at local establishments.

How do you get local patrons through your doors (or onto your e-commerce site)? Promotion.

Here are nine promotional tactics that can maximize your company’s local traffic.

Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is a great way to introduce potential local customers to your brand, products and services at a relatively low cost. You can advertise on a number of sites or apps, including:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Snapchat
TikTok

These popular platforms vary in spending minimums and advertising options, but they all have one thing in common: control. You have absolute control over your campaigns. With social media advertising, you can adjust creative, spending audience and more throughout the campaign at no extra cost, as seen in traditional advertising.

Another benefit of advertising on social media is that your ads can be seen 24/7. With traditional media, you often pay a flat rate for an ad — and if people don’t see it, they don’t see it. Social media ads run all day and night, and they bill by impressions, clicks or conversions. This results-based billing method is enticing to companies that have a tight budget and need hard ROI.

A third pro to social media advertising is your ability to easily target and track audience engagement. Social media platforms let you target people by age, gender, location, job titles, interests and more, so you will be able to get as specific as you want, ensuring your money is going toward the people most likely to buy your offerings. Additionally, the analytics included in the platform will let you know your impressions, reach, clicks, audience demographics, etc.

Digital Advertising

Digital advertising is another way to meet your audience where they are. In fact, a report from Hootsuite and We Are Social discovered people are spending around six hours and 42 minutes on the internet every day. This presents a unique opportunity for businesses to target their local audiences through digital ads.

Through online advertising, your business can increase brand awareness, build a better understanding of your audiences and their behaviors, and create higher-performing content.

Like social media advertising, digital advertisements are billed based on interaction and run 24/7. You can also adjust creative more easily than traditional ads. This type of advertising has a few popular options for advertisers, including:

Geofencing – Targeting audiences by building a geographic boundary. When a mobile device enters the geofenced area, some form of ad will be triggered to populate their phone.
Retargeting – Ads that are sent to people who have recently visited your website to remind them of your brand, products or services.
Display – Push ads that appear based on targeting parameters.
Search – Pull ads that appear when someone searches keywords that you have paid for.

Traditional Advertising

Traditional advertising includes newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio and direct mail. Although we’ve talked about some of the downsides of traditional advertising, there are still many benefits of using traditional media.

For one, your target audience may prefer to see ads on traditional platforms. Older generations like Gen X, baby boomers and traditionalists tend to be more receptive to traditional ads than millennials and Gen Z.

Another upside to using traditional advertising is it gives your company a bit of legitimacy among people who are unfamiliar with your brand. Younger generations who grew up with the internet know to be skeptical of scams and fake news online. If they are unfamiliar with your brand, you may come off more legitimate in traditional media because they are thought to be more trustworthy.

Finally, by advertising out in the community, you will be sure to reach people locally and build word-of-mouth publicity.

SEO

Search engine optimization is another tactic that can be used to promote your business and pull people into your website. Simply put, SEO is the process of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search results, according to Moz. Ensuring your website has useful content, includes keywords that people are searching for (without overdoing it), have informative title tags and meta descriptions, and build qualified inbound links will help you rank higher in organic searches, which will drive people into your website.

Sponsorships

Sponsoring community events has two major benefits. First, it can get your business’s name out in front of the right local audiences. Secondly, it generally supports good causes or organizations that help your community. Local sponsorships tend to not be overly expensive, and they also help your brand build credibility and good rapport. Sponsorships sometimes will even include the opportunity to have a booth or table at the event, which gives you the chance to meet and talk to potential customers. This is an awesome way to introduce your company in a fun and authentic way.

Host a Sale with a Community Link

I’m sure you’re thinking, “We have sales all the time, and it only brings in a few extra purchases.” What can make these sales more exciting to potential customers is connecting them to a local event like a big game, community event or gathering, or a holiday that your town loves. Bringing locality to a sale or having it connect with other things happening in the area makes your sale more relevant, adds an excitement element, brings attention to the sale and will likely attract more local customers to your business.

Offer Samples or Product Demos

Who doesn’t love free samples or trying before you buy? People love to get free stuff and know exactly what they’re buying. Giving away free samples and offering product demos give the customers a chance to test out your product or service and see that they can’t live without it.

Strategic Partnerships

Strategic partnerships are used all the time in marketing. Starbucks and Barnes and Nobel, Spotify and Uber, Nike and Apple, and Taco Bell and Doritos are famous examples of hugely successful strategic partnerships. Partnering with a local, reputable business does a few things. It expands your marketing efforts, doubles your audience reach, adds value for media coverage, creates excitement and builds brand credibility. Many local businesses form partnerships every day to increase local traffic to their businesses.

Content Marketing

Breaking through all the noise from the internet, advertisements and media is harder than ever for businesses. Content marketing is a proactive strategy to create interesting, shareable content in which your audience is interested. Your content should have a narrative and tell a captivating story. This helps you appear authentic and gets people genuinely energized about your products and services without feeling like you’re just trying to sell to them. Types of content marketing can include:

Blogs
Social media
E-books
Videos
Photo galleries
Websites
Webinars
Infographics
Podcasts
Paid ads

Our team has been working in the marketing realm for decades, not just promoting our own brand but helping connect businesses to local savers. We are always here to guide you, answer your questions and to help you increase sales. Learn more about how partnering with SaveOn will help you reach your business goals at saveon.com/business.

When someone talks about coupons, what do you think of? Some people immediately reference moms using Kohl’s Cash or recall an episode of “Extreme Couponing,” but studies show that coupon use is much bigger than those common examples. In fact, coupons can be integral in enhancing your current business model.

Why Offer Coupons?

Business owners and marketing professionals often ask us why they should start offering coupons. Whether your business is doing well or has room for growth, coupons can expand your current customer base and increase sales.

Although coupon marketing can look like you’re giving away product for free, 77% of consumers actually spend $10 to $50 more than planned when using a coupon, according to Invesp. Upselling is a common practice in coupon marketing. Making conditions like “$10 off when you spend $50” or “buy-one-get-one half off” can persuade customers to purchase more expensive items than they normally would or buy a larger quantity than intended. These types of offers allow customers to get more expensive items cheaper and increase your profits. Coupon marketing is a great opportunity for you to not only upsell but also cross-sell.

Cross-selling can occur in a number of ways, but two common methods are pushing products at the time of sale, like asking customers if they would like to purchase silverware to go with their new plate set, or making a coupon requirement that a customer must buy a product of a certain type to redeem the deal. For instance, in the same kitchen supply store example, you could have a coupon that offers 50% off silverware with the purchase of a new plate set. This is a great way to unload items you’ve had in stock for a while or introduce customers to new products.

Another benefit of coupon marketing is increasing the speed of a sale. According to Kelton Global, 48% of consumers say they will make a purchase sooner if they have a coupon. Speeding up the conversion rate is a smart way to meet quarterly sales goals and unload seasonal products.

Finally, by offering coupons on a trusted site, through direct mail or via email marketing, you can entice new customers to give your brand a try. Elect an offer that is powerful enough to get a customer to change his or her habits and chose you over your competitor. Then, customers will add you to their lists of places they frequent.

Who Uses Coupons?

So now that you know why you should offer coupons, you’re probably wondering if your target audience even uses coupon. The short answer is yes, they do. According to a study by PRRI, baby boomers (people 55 and older) are more likely to use coupons than any other age group, with 96% saying they use coupons, followed by Generation X with 91% and millennials with 87%. Additionally, a study from marketing firm Acosta found Gen Z is three times more likely than millennials to use mobile coupons.

The bottom line is coupons are still highly valuable to your customer base regardless of age, gender or other demographics.

How to Start Offering Coupons

How and where you advertise coupon offerings depends on each individual business and what services/products it provides. You should start by considering whether paper or digital makes more sense for your company.

Paper can include direct mail, magazine, receipt roll or newspaper. Paper coupon marketing will likely have printing, design and placement costs but is still a preferred method among older generations. Placing paper coupon ads in popular newspapers and magazines is a good way to get coupons in front of new customers. As younger generations are more digitally inclined, more companies are turning to digital coupon marketing.

Digital coupons also have an assortment of advertising opportunities, including email and text marketing, online publications, couponing apps and websites, geofencing and retargeting, and digital advertisements. Each method will still likely have a design and placement cost but will save you the cost of printing. Email and text offers are a special exception. If your company has a strong email or text list, you can actually avoid that placement cost. Another benefit of email and text promotion of coupons is that emails containing coupons offer a 48% increase in revenue per email, ReadyCloud found.

Whether you’re new to coupon marketing or just trying to navigate the changes, SaveOn has a team of experts who are ready to help you find the right method for your business. SaveOn helps savers live life for less by connecting them with relevant and trusted businesses. We are the top-of-mind provider of innovative marketing solutions, and we are passionate about the growth of our business partners. To learn more about how to get started in coupon marketing, visit saveon.com/business.