With the average small business set to spend about $75,000 this year on digital marketing alone, you need to find new ways to get ahold of customers.

Thankfully there are a lot of different marketing strategies that can attract customers. Some require utilizing your tech skills while others will require you to hit the streets.

Try these 6 marketing strategies to drive traffic to your brick and mortar locations.

1. Fix Your SEO Game

One of the cheapest ways to get people to know about your store is to take advantage of search engine algorithms through search engine optimization. SEO is a method for taking advantage of how search engines categorize and index sites.

Search engines use a tool called web crawlers to go through every site on the net to look for keywords, click rate, broken links, and how often a site links to other sites. Because the internet was founded on principles of community, it ranks how well connected to the community you are and how reputable your links are.

Search engines can help promote your brick and mortar business by showing clients how close you are to your potential clients.

Using user data, search accounts, and cookies, search engines target searches to match to the region you’re located. They do this through your registration on sites like Google My Business and Yelp. They also use search data on your site that mentions your location.

When you’re optimizing your SEO through keyword phrases and terms, add the name of your town or neighborhood. Do it in an organic and simple way and you’ll see that soon enough your business will be associated with your area according to search engines.

2. Social Media Promotion

Social media is a great way to promote yourself for free. You can use business accounts on every available social media platform to connect with your audience and promote your business.

Make sure that you have identical contact information, hours of operation, and services available on every platform. Using the same logo across the board so that every single profile looks identical will help you to reassure clients they’ve come to the right place.

Social media also gives you the opportunity to announce a sale at the last minute. You can use Twitter, give out a promotional code and see what kinds of response you get. Use a different promo code for every different social media channel so that you can see where your clients are.

Using social media, you can do preliminary market research to understand your clientele. Follow the people who comment and like your posts. If someone reposts something that you put up, write them a direct message to offer them a special giveaway or discount as a response.

3. Funny Videos

As a brick and mortar business, you know that funny things happen in your shop all the time. There are busy moments and downtime when you find ways to make jokes about your products or what goes on in your store.

Use the stories that your employees tell you or the ideas that they have. Get them involved in making fun videos for your Instagram profile. You can build a series of videos if you’ve got a particularly enthusiastic employee who is excited about the prospect of acting in your videos.

Those videos will get shared across social media profiles and spread the word about your business as they entertain people.

4. Start a Blog

When people are running a search on a search engine, they’re either looking for a specific product or the answer to a specific question. You can capture both audiences by writing a blog that offers information about how your products and services could be the answer to those questions.

Start by writing out a list of the most frequently asked questions that you get from clients. Each one of those questions has the potential to be the subject of a blog post.

When you offer quality information to your clients, you’re able to win their trust. You can give them a reason to come to your store to check out your products.

5. Flyering

Believe it or not, flyering still works. When you can’t get people’s attention via social media, billboards, or subway ads, you can certainly get their attention once you’ve got something in their hands. Work with a designer to make an eye-catching flyer and you’ll certainly get more traffic into your store.

Include a coupon or a deal only available to people holding your flyer. That way you can track the effectiveness of your flyering and ensure that you get people through the door.

Once you’ve got them in the store, it’s up to you to ensure that your salespeople make them dedicated customers.

6. Giveaways

Everyone likes free stuff and that’s why so many companies use giveaways to bolster their sales. When you give products to clients for free, you tell them that you’re so sure you’ve got great products that you’re willing to give some away for free to convince them.

Giveaways can be in-store contests, online promotions, or email-based campaigns. Make your winners pick up their free products in your store to get them to see what else you have to offer. Again, once they’re in the store that’s your time to shine.

Before you get them in the shop, make sure your event display looks on point and is 100% perfect.

Gather customer information from your giveaways so you can reach out to them with your next great product release.

The Right Marketing Strategies Work For Anyone

Using marketing strategies that suit your products and services matters. Selling a digital product via flyering might not be as easy as promoting it online. If your strategy matches the industry you’re in, you’ll be able to connect with potential clients a whole lot easier.

If you’re running an e-commerce shop parallel to your brick and mortar business, check out our guide to make sure you’re cutting costs all around.