Local businesses have an incredible marketing opportunity.
Newspapers are closing up shop at record rates. It’s the reality of the times.
However, that doesn’t mean that people don’t want information about their local community. In fact, people want just as much and possibly even more information about their local community than ever before.
They just don’t want to deal with newspaper subscription fees, paywalls, popups and ads and all that other junk, in order to get it.
As a local business, you don’t need any of that stuff to make money. You can blog about your local community and fill the gaping void that your customers have and create awareness that brings more people to your business.
Here are a few ways to do it…
1. Interview Business Owners
Business owners want exposure to potential customers.
People in your community want information about businesses. Well, they want to know what there is to do, to see, to eat, to solve their issues and all kinds of stuff.
If you make that connection, by interviewing business owners, you’re creating a winning situation for all involved.
Now, obviously it’s not easy. You have to organize the interviews. Some people will be fine with video. Others just with audio. Others just with text. But you can do all those (YouTube, podcasting, and blogging). You can do it all yourself or you can hire people to help.
And you will get better over time even if you’ve never done it before. And you can interview people multiple times.
2. Interview Customers
Your customers are members of your community. I guess that’s obvious.
They have a lot of insight into what goes on in your community. What they do. Where they eat. What their favorite park to take their kids is. All kinds of stuff.
Even 60-second interviews that you post on Instagram can provide all kinds of great content for other people in your community. Start with 5 basic questions. See what people respond most to and tweak the questions from there.
3. Highlight Your Favorite Things
Write about your favorite things in your community. Right now, you can probably come up with a list of 15-20 things. Take a break after you create that list. Come back next week and create another list. You can probably come up with 10-15 more things.
No limits or restrictions on what those things are. Good and activities are obvious. But there is a lot more.
That’s already half a year’s worth of blog posts if you’re only posting once per week.
4. Find Interesting Historical Pieces
Every community has interesting historical tidbits. Old buildings often have interesting backstories. Some houses have interesting stories.
If your local paper has been struggling, see if you can talk with some former writers and journalists. They might be willing to write about an interesting historical event for your blog. Or you might be able to interview them and ask about interesting tidbits about local history.
You could hire former writers full-time and have them do their same job, but on your website.
But that’s another post…
Business owners that have been around for decades also usually have great stories to tell. The same with residents that have been around for a long time.
5. Write About Upcoming Events
People are always looking for things to do. Find out what the most popular events and event locations are from the past one or two years. Reach out to the people in charge and have them send you info for things that are upcoming.
You can write blog content for them and share snippets on all your social and become a source of upcoming events in your community.
6. Create A Best Of Series Every Year
Everybody wants recommendations for all kinds of things in your community. Best restaurant. Best dentist. Best park. The list is endless.
Create a poll that you can host on your website and blog every year. Have window decals or stickers printed out each year for the winners so they can display that they are the “best” in their category.
Also have a prominent area on your blog where visitors can find the “best” in all categories throughout the year when they are looking for things to do and more.
Conclusion
Obviously there are a lot of opportunities for marketing and sales today. You can choose any of them. This is just one option if you’re looking for a solution. But if you feel that your strengths align with blogging and that there is a gap in your local community for information, this one can be the ticket.