Local Business Marketing Strategy – Guerrilla Marketing Strategies to Drive More Traffic and Convert More Leads

OK, so store or website traffic is down and a lot of consumers have slowed or completely stopped buying non-essential products like home improvement, hot tubs, new cars, etc. and many of the other products you sell. Unless you are ready to throw in the towel, and close up shop, it’s time to start finding new ways to drive prospects to your store. According to some estimates, the average consumer is exposed to about 3000 advertisements per day. So in order to capture your prospects attention, you must offer something unique. Here are a couple of unique ideas to think about. 1 - Joint Ventures – Contact complimentary businesses that sell to your target market. If you are targeting consumers that suffer from back pain, why not get in touch with a local chiropractor, massage therapist and an acupuncturist and have an open house hosted in your store. Create an ad inviting back pain sufferers to a “Lunch and Learn” Back Pain Clinic on a Saturday afte oon. Each of the sponsors sends out invitations to their current list of customers and prospects and at the end of the event, you all get to share the leads that attended. 2 – Offer Unique Promotions – If you think that you can rely on your standard “We’ll match our competitor’s prices” or “money back guarantee” to drive hungry consumers to your business, you are sadly mistaken. Prospects already expect this and frankly, in many industries, this is the “price of entry” – in other words, this really does not differentiate you from your competitors. Most every visitor that finds your website has a problem that they want solved. But each potential customer/client is at a different stage of the buying/decision making process. Although some are ready to buy now, most are still in the process of gathering information. Regardless of what stage of the buying process they are in, you want be able to provide useful information that a potential customer can use to help them make an informed decision. Selling most products and services these days requires that your prospects be educated about who you are, what you do and how your products/services can solve their problems. This type of “Education-Based Marketing” is critical because the education process IS the selling process. Your clients want and need information and credible advice. What they DON’T want is a sales pitch. Everything you do on you site should have one overriding objective - turning visitors into leads! The only way to verifiably do this is to capture their contact information – at minimum first name and e-mail address. What you want to do is get first time visitors to opt-in to something you offer. In order to do that, you need to offer something of value, something that they want in exchange for providing you their contact information. A Special Report is one of your best and easiest vehicles for delivering your educational message. Special Reports are FREE and generally a little longer than a brochure and a bit more detailed. Its purpose is to provide needed information that your prospect couldn’t get anywhere else, thus building value in the mind of your prospective client (many times before you even meet in person). Click Here to learn more about Special Reports3 – Tie in With Charitable Organizations – Why not find a way do some good for your business and your community at the same time. Create promotional tie-ins with local charities. Doing so can exponentially drive traffic to your business. How? Here’s an example. Hold a local high school football team car wash or blood drive in front of your store or do a charity drive at your office. In both instances, both you and the charity being sponsored can get free PR in addition to any advertising you both do. Effective PR can definitely send traffic to your store especially if a school or charity is endorsing it. After the event, invite the charity and the local newspaper or TV station back to your store and have pictures taken of you and the charity along with the oversized check. When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. No more “me to marketing”!