Word-of-mouth probably remains the best form of advertising there is, so be sure to give your customers only good things to say about you.
Even when economic times are good, advertising dollars should be spent prudently. When times are not so good, a little ingenuity may be required, especially if you wish to advertise a community-based facility that otherwise might get lost in the crowd. Never pull the plug on all your advertising, for while this move may keep more money in your coffers now, you will pay dearly for it later. After all, even Thomas Jefferson is known to have observed -- and in a much less competitive time: "The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time."
Instructions
1. Put on your detective's hat and launch an exhaustive search of the community your facility is located in, including every public building and the person responsible for running it. Compile and keep track of this information in a community database -- dividing it accordingly between schools, police and fire departments, libraries, park district and aquatic centers and every other public building there is. Someday, this database will be the cornerstone of your business.
2. Volunteer your time to a community group or organization in exchange for advertising your facility in good taste. The local library, for example, might be amenable to you reading to a group of children for a few hours a week in exchange for giving patrons a free bookmark imprinted with the name of your facility.
3. Keep your eyes and ears open for community fundraisers, subdivision yard sales, flea markets and other events that are bound to draw crowds where you can advertise your facility.
4. Sign up with welcoming agencies and realtors who give welcome packages to new residents and offer them promotional products to advertise your facility. New residents are particularly promising prospects because they haven't developed habits that are often entrenched in longtime residents of a community.
5. Don't spend one nickel on advertising until you do an exhaustive "DD" (due diligence) on the community, your competition and "friendly partners."
Visit your chamber of commerce and gather similar information on businesses in the community. Often, chambers will have business names and contact information available on a computer program (and sometimes available for purchase).
6. Scrutinize this information carefully for strategic marketing and advertising partnerships -- or businesses that may share customers with you but do not compete with you directly. You can regularly make referrals to each other's businesses and carry ads and other promotional materials in your respective places of business.
7. Find out which magazines people read, which TV programs they watch and which websites they scroll. This is an ongoing if not never-ending process, but "gathering intel" will help guide you to making the best advertising decisions. Your goal is to advertise where your message will find the greatest viewership, even if it's on the back of a Friday night pizza menu of the busiest pizza parlor in town.
8. Keep an open mind to offbeat advertising options or the "buzz" of a hot advertising trend. Some ideas -- such as advertising in the front-seat carriage of grocery shopping carts -- burn brightly and brazenly in some communities -- and then somehow extinguish just as quickly.
9. Sign up for every email newsletter and announcement that you can in the community to stay apprised of crossover marketing and advertising opportunities.
10. Learn everything about the community and everybody in it so that, over time, you become a go-to source for information.
Offer to "rent" (or loan) space in your facility for community groups and gatherings in exchange for a free mention in a program or a website. Getting your name out at no cost is "free advertising" -- and even Thomas Jefferson probably never heard of that.
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