I recently found myself asking a really simple question:
What is local marketing, anyways?
I've spent years helping businesses grow, building businesses of my own, and teaching entrepreneurs about marketing. I use the term "local marketing" all the time.
But when you strip away Google, social media, SEO, advertising, networking, billboards and all the other tactics we're told we need, I think local marketing starts with a much simpler question:
Is my business showing up?
How are you supporting your community?
And when I say "community," I don't necessarily mean everyone within 10 miles of your business.
Local looks different for different businesses.
Your community might be Northwest Florida. It might be real estate professionals across the country. It could be franchise owners, people who share a particular hobby, or members of an online group who may never actually meet in person.
The work doesn't really change. The tactics might.
Do you know the names of the people you serve, or are they just customers?
Do you celebrate their wins? Do you show up for the ribbon cutting with a "heck yeah!" when someone takes a big leap?
Are you involved in the organizations that matter to your community? Do you make introductions? Support the causes they care about? Lift up other businesses?
As an employer, are you simply offering a J.O.B., or are you helping people build skills they can carry with them for the rest of their lives?
If someone in your community were stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire, are you the kind of business that would pull over?
Basically:
Are you giving as much as you're taking?
Oh, this is the fun part.
It's okay to talk about it. Authentically.
We share pieces of our lives every day. We'll post a picture of what we had for lunch. But what if we also shared why we picked that restaurant?
I stopped at a new local business recently and had an incredible lemonade. So I shared it.
Not, "Hey! Look at me supporting a local business!"
The lemonade was really good. I thought other people should know about it.
The business got another set of eyes on what they're building. My audience discovered someplace new. And somewhere along the way, they learned a little more about me and what I value.
That's marketing.
I've also written an article representing Fish Window Cleaning about places to shop for last-minute Christmas gifts. Every business featured happened to be one of our customers.
They got the spotlight. Fish got to support the people who support us. Everyone won.
You don't have to yell, "LOOK HOW COMMUNITY INVOLVED WE ARE!"
Spotlight an employee. Celebrate another business. Share a customer story. Write about a nonprofit and why its work matters to you.
And yes, every now and then, sell something.
Be human.
To me, local marketing is an intentional, integrated approach to showing up in the community you want to serve.
Here's where businesses sometimes get tripped up.
They decide they're going to "do marketing."
Suddenly they're supposed to post every day, attend every event, send newsletters, make videos, start networking and probably learn to dance on TikTok before Tuesday.
That's not what I mean by consistently showing up.
If you post once a week today, don't suddenly manufacture seven "purposeful" posts every week because someone handed you a content calendar.
Add one community-focused post every few weeks. Get comfortable with it. Then maybe add another.
Consistency isn't just how often your content shows up. It's how you, your team and your business show up.
At Fish Window Cleaning, one of our values is Create WOW Moments. The goal is to make looking for opportunities to step it up a habit.
Sometimes that's opening a door. Maybe it's picking up a piece of trash. Perhaps it's something much bigger.
Eventually, you don't have to remind yourself to "do community marketing."
It's simply how your business behaves.
And that's important because this is the long play.
You're building something here. You're not casting a wide net, grabbing whatever you can get as quickly as possible and moving on.
That's not building. That's grab and go.
Great.
Put on your boots, pack some water and bring your smile.
Get out there.
When I was building Fish, I literally walked out of my office, turned right and started walking into businesses.
I offered cold estimates on the spot.
And I discovered something interesting: some of those businesses didn't even know hiring someone to professionally clean their commercial windows was a thing.
They weren't searching Google for us.
They didn't know they needed us yet.
😱➡️They had to meet us first. ⬅️😱
You can't notice the opportunities around you if you never leave the four walls of your business.
Go meet people. Listen to their stories. Learn what they need.
And don't forget to tell them what you do.
Then, when someone is interested, GO FOR IT.
Don't hand an interested person your business card and hope they remember to visit your website three days from now.
Schedule the meeting. Fill out the form. Request the estimate. Make the introduction. Send the email. Right there, in real life.
Help them take the next step while they're interested.
If people are interested but aren't taking action, you may not have an awareness problem.
You may have a friction problem.
We'll talk more about that another day.
And if your customers aren't geographically local, you don't get out of putting on your boots.
They're just digital boots.
Pick up the phone. Engage on social. Participate in their online communities. Visit in person when you can. Attend the conferences they attend. Celebrate their wins. Make introductions.
The work is the same. The tactic might look different.
Everywhere it makes sense.
In B2B, I can put on my boots, walk into a business, say hello and introduce myself.
Residential is a little trickier.
Apparently, walking into someone's living room uninvited just to introduce yourself is called "trespassing" and is, you know, slightly illegal.
So we need other ways to get invited into the home.
That's where paid media can become incredibly valuable.
Maybe that's a magazine. Maybe it's direct mail. Maybe it's Facebook. Maybe it's a billboard. Heck, maybe it's a TV commercial.
I am a publisher of a magazine (Neighbors of Fort Walton Beach), and I'll tell you right now: the magazine isn't the right answer for every business.
I recently shared with a potential advertiser because I didn't believe the level of advertising they could comfortably afford would adequately tell their story.
Could I have sold them an ad? Sure.
But I didn't believe it was the best use of their investment.
The question shouldn't be, "What's the best advertising platform?"
Ask:
Which one helps me best tell my story where my potential customer already is?
And perhaps even more importantly:
How do I get in front of them before they have a need?
Every interaction adds another little piece of information to that person's mental file about your business.
I call it mental SEO (aka memory).
We'll come back to that one, too.
Awareness gets you considered.
Trust gets you chosen.
And building trust is almost kindergarten easy:
Consistently show up and do what you say you're going to do.
Then capture the proof.
Ask for the referral. Ask for the Google review. Ask for the Facebook recommendation.
Use that social proof in your content, on your website, in your advertising or wherever your potential customers spend their time.
Someone who hasn't experienced your business yet gets to borrow a little trust from the people who have.
At first, it might feel slow.
That's the way it works. You're building.
But eventually you're no longer starting every sales conversation from zero.
Recently, one of the biggest opportunities we've ever had at Fish came through a customer worth about $28 per visit.
We've never even met the owners.
We simply kept showing up.
We were kind to their staff. We supported their store. We communicated. We kept their windows shining.
We did what we said we were going to do.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Then a much larger need came up.
We were the only company they asked to submit a proposal.
We weren't strategically nurturing some huge opportunity. We didn't even know the opportunity existed.
We were taking care of a $28 customer.
I don't know yet where this particular opportunity will go. But honestly, that's not the point.
The opportunity exists because we showed up before there was an opportunity.
That's the long play.
That's building instead of grab and go.
And that's local marketing.
That's the question I want you to take with you.
Not: Am I posting enough?
Not: Should I be on another platform?
Not even: Should I spend more on marketing?
Ask:
Is my business showing up?
For your customers? For your employees? For other businesses? For the organizations and causes your community cares about?
Are you showing up when there isn't something immediately in it for you?
Are you still showing up after the bill has been paid?
Because before we ask a community to consistently support our businesses, I think we should be willing to ask how consistently our businesses are supporting them.
Don't build a strategy.
Don't create a 90-day content calendar.
Just make one intentional impression.
Walk into a neighboring business and introduce yourself. Celebrate someone's win. Ask a happy customer for a review. Make an introduction between two people who should know each other. Share something another business is doing well. Call a customer just to check in.
Pick one.
Do it.
And afterward, don't immediately ask yourself whether it generated a lead.
Ask something else:
How did that feel?
Did you feel a little sense of pride? Did you feel more connected to your community? Did you learn something? Did you notice another opportunity to help? Did it make you want to do it again?
Pay attention to that feeling.
Because that's how something you should do starts becoming something you naturally do.
And tomorrow?
Put on your boots, pack some water and bring your smile.
Do it again.
Tell me who you serve and what you're trying to build.
We'll start there.