How to market your business local

Marketing your business

I have owned my own business for 2 years. I run a window cleaning company in the UK. The first thing you need to know when starting your business is how to market it.

There are many things you can do in order to get your business seen. Depending on what service or product your business is offering can determine the different ways you advertise.

If you were offering a cleaning service then you would need to market locally as the more travel time equals more money which is more overheads.

Different ways to market this business would be to get some postcard type flyer's made. On this flyer you want your business name and different services you were offering. Sometimes its a good idea to try and aim for a specific marketing campaign i.e if you were offering a commercial cleaning service then try and offer and added service like a building wash or something similar, In order to do that your would need a water-fed pole which could connect to an outside tap, You wouldn't need a pump the pressure from the tap would pump the water out.

If you offered that type of service then it would enable you to market area's who already have cleaners and you could factor it into your quote.

Other ways to market your business is to email local companies and let them know your business is there. I emailed 600 companies and got less than 10 reply's however I secured 5 jobs from the emails and 1 of the jobs is worth £250 per month, It was easy to do, I downloaded the Thompson local app for the iPhone and went through the search looking for businesses I could contact via email. Most of the businesses listed have an email link and all I did was copy and pasted each email going from link to link.

Other ways are to knock on doors or call companies local, Advertise free in the Thompson local or pay for a listing in Yell.com.

You must sign up to Google Places. This will give you a business listing and your company website or profile will come up on the 1st page of Google under your specific keywords, For eg, If you were starting a commercial cleaning company in Salisbury then your specific keywords would be- Commercial Cleaners in Salisbury, When signed up on Google Places which automatically puts you on Google Maps you would come up on the 1st page under those specific keywords. Not bad for free yet so many people don't do it!