It has long been thought that the way to go about marketing your business is on your own.  That a competitor should never be mentioned to a potential customer for fear that they will become a customer of your competitor rather than you.  Each business being like an island on which no other businesses exist.

Obviously, marketing this way works or it wouldn’t be done.  The effort and the expense is all yours and the results are all yours, good or bad.  As we all know, advertising is very expensive and having a campaign that doesn’t produce good results is extremely expensive.

For the sake of argument, lets say your business is on a block that has 10 stores on it.  These businesses could be all antique shops or restaurants or whatever.  Some would believe that one or two of these shops going out of business is a good thing for the businesses that remain.  That the customers that would have went to the one or two that went out of business would then become customers of the remaining businesses.  I, on the other hand, would have to argue against that.  In my opinion, if one or two businesses on the block are closed, not only do their customers  go elsewhere but so do others.  The perception of the block with closed businesses is that of a declining area, one in which people are less likely to spend their time and money.

Now, let’s think in terms of that same block being a community.  The 10 businesses working together for the betterment of all the businesses, of the community.  Those 10 businesses are now sharing the expense and  effort of marketing and advertising.  Now advertising becomes much more affordable and with 10 people working together, bouncing ideas off of each other, also becomes more creative.  The best part is that once customers begin to feel the synergy on the block, they will come to trust and be extremely loyal to the community.  This then changes the perception of the area and attracts more customers to your community.

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you agree or disagree with my line of thinking?  Share your comments below.  Let’s get a conversation going.

Photo credit:  Edgar Barany

Many businesses on the internet speak of succeeding without paying any advertising costs.  They have been able to build their business by using various social media platforms to get their message out.  And, as a result, have created large numbers of followers that they are able to market to.  They also claim that you can do the same.

First of all, I would have to argue the fact that it is free.  While there may not be money involved for this form of advertising, it can be costly as it relates to your time.  In addition to communicating on the social media platforms, these business people are also writing for article directories, writing guest posts for blogs that are similar in content to their own and commenting on many blogs each day.  It is all this writing that gets them noticed.  And it works – for an online business.

Your business is offline though – a brick and mortar store.  Your customer base is local to your area, not all over the world.  Is it possible that the same marketing strategies apply for your offline business as does online businesses?  Some of them do.  Social Media is of great value to all businesses, online and offline.  Having the ability to communicate and develop relationships with your customers is extremely important.  This type of communication, however, does not necessarily attract new customers though.

So how do you get your name in front of potential new customers?  Where is it that your potential customers are getting information about what’s going on in your town?  It’s the local newspaper, local magazines or direct mail advertisements.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are actually reading the printed paper or magazine.  They may be reading it online but they are still reading it.  Any of which gets your name in front of potential customers that are local to your area.  These are the people that actually have the ability to take you up on your offer.

So, for now anyway, print ads are still necessary for the success of your offline business.

Photo credit:  slade1955