Don’t let your Tacoma Marketing efforts be a waste.

Today, more than ever, small businesses in Tacoma must consider their marketing channels and an investment in Marketing. Without a solid understanding of your customer base, (or as we in marketing like to call it, your customer’s persona) investing in marketing in the Puget Sound can be a waste.  Building a profile for your customer and understanding who they are, what they like, how to speak their language and meeting them at their pain points are crucial for business survival.

Let’s pretent you own a local bakery for instance.

You’ve spent some time creating sandwich boards near your location.  You’ve created a website with a few photos of what you offer for sale.  You welcome your customers openly in your establishment and diligently try to meet their needs.  But what if that is not enough?

Let’s start with Sandwich boards near your location.

Where are the boards?  Are they at busy locations where people can see them?  Do you get feedback from customers that they saw the board and decided to stop?  Does drive-by advertising still work for marketing in Tacoma?  It may, but it also may not resonate with your customers.  Olive Group suggests if you’re promoting  yourself on a sandwich board, ask your customers if they saw it?  Add an discount to the sandwich board and see if anyone uses it.  Make the board work for you and the advertising you do in Tacoma.

Secondly, consider your website.

If you’ve not read our latest blog about the top reasons why you need a new site, you should.  What is your site doing for you?  Is it a glorified business card?  Do you have any idea what and where your site traffic is coming from?  How about social and blogs?  Your website should be something more than a static page that gets a few hundred visits per month.  It should work for you and drive new business.  If it’s not, we would suggest at least installing Google Analytics and start to monitor your site traffic.

Lastly, focus on your location.

Marketing to folks in Tacoma and the Puget Sound is very location based initiative.  Understanding the needs of your customer and their expectations when they walk through your front door is critical.  Understanding design trends or features that your customers want is very important for business success.  What if your customers are turned-off by your taste in decor? Or your lack of decor?  First impressions are so important, that you need to consider it in everything a potential customer might see.  Things like:

  • The signage on the outside of the building
  • The cleanliness of the sidewalk or steps into your establishment
  • The ease of finding your address or hours of operation
  • The smell at the first entrance of your shop
  • The visual identity of your business as they enter the front door
  • The use or lack of use, of technology within your establishment
  • Which items, like free wi-fi, do customers expect?  Are you providing those things?

In conclusion, it is important to note that focusing your business on advertising locally does not have to be difficult or overwhelming.  With some consistency in marketing to a geographic region like Tacoma, you must consider what pain points you can solve for people.  Is it saving time, saving money, saving stress, or something else?  A strategy session can help answer some of these questions.  Please let us know if Olive Group can help in your Tacoma marketing efforts.