Traditional Marketing: Community Advertising 101

What is Community/Local Advertising?

Community/Local Advertising is spending your marketing money on channels that are local to the area you serve. This could include buying ads in local magazines, city newsletters, and official community guide or sponsoring sports leagues and other community nonprofits.

How is Community / Local Advertising Used in Home Services Marketing?

Community/Local Advertising is a great way to raise brand awareness to your target market in your own backyard. Homeowners want to support their local communities and favor companies who are investing in their communities as well.

Raising your brand awareness by buying ads in local publications will build credibility and rapport with homeowners who love their neighborhood. Sponsoring sports leagues and other community nonprofits shows a homeowner that you are active in the community and supporting like-minded causes, which will also raise their perception of your company.

What are the Pros of Community Advertising?

There are many benefits to Community/Local Advertising. Local advertising allows you to target a very specific audience that other forms of advertising can’t always guarantee. Community advertising also has a lot of reputation and relationship building benefits. Community members trust the local magazines/newspapers/publications they read and believe that they wouldn’t allow a non-reputable company to advertise with them. The user base for community media is usually very loyal and you can build a good reputation by being associated with them.

What are the Cons of Community / Local Advertising?

The biggest con of Community/Local Advertising is that it is largely brand advertising so you don’t know if when you are advertising will match up to the same time someone is in market or looking to buy your services. You could have the best ad in the world and be in front of your target market, but if they aren’t looking to buy your product or services when they see your ad, they won’t convert.

What are the Key Elements that Should be Done to Ensure Community Advertising are Successful?

You should absolutely include unique tracking numbers for every type of Community/Local Advertising that you do so that you can track the effectiveness of everything you are doing and know what you should continue to invest in versus cut out of your marketing budget.

You should also look at adding in different promotions based on the seasonality of your business and what your competition is offering during different months. By offering an incentive, you’ll give people a Call-To-Action (CTA) or sense or urgency to act when they otherwise wouldn’t.

When you are exploring different nonprofits or sports teams to sponsor, you should try to find opportunities that give you a wide range of visibility. Opportunities that give you recognition on their website, at their events and in their emails, etc. are going to give you a better return on your investment that those that don’t have as many places where they’ll show that you’re a supporter.