Create a marketing footprint for a small business.

In marketing a footprint is your local visibility.

As you might imagine, creating a footprint is the process of having your establishment known locally. It is the most effective way to market a local business and most businesses do it to a certain extent. But few are proactive at it.

Creating a footprint has another advantage few people realize. It gives you the opportunity to build relationships in a short time. These relationships otherwise can take years to develop. By being proactive, you can cut years off the time it takes to develop a reputation and build relationships. For a new business though, creating even local visibility can cost a lot of money.

One thing we cannot stress enough is that you must be careful with how you market. Marketing can be incredibly expensive. Much if not most of what is out there is unimaginative and useless. For a small business is should be inexpensive, easy to manage, easy to track, and repeatable.

This article will help you cut that cost to a fraction. Follow the steps below that work for you and adapt them as you see fit. You will be surprised at how easy this is.

Create a Google Maps account:

The first and perhaps best way to footprint is by opening a Google Maps profile. I won’t go into too much detail since I’m sure you know what they are, but it’s important that you keep it updated.  

Of all of Google’s services, this one is probably used the most by local shoppers. One thing you may want to do in addition is to create a local business database with excel. This will give you a better understanding of the neighborhood. This can be uploaded to google maps.

This database can be found at your local library for free. If you have a library card you can use the online service in the comfort of your office. I guarantee, you will be amazed at what you learn. Our database had 40,000 small businesses in Boston and Buffalo.

You should avail yourself of this service before you start your venture.

Creating a local business database is explained here.

Use localized SEO.

If you have a website or a blog, your articles should be localized.

Blog articles are categorized by the title, subtitles, and keywords. If you write an article on, as an example, “Having your dog’s nails cut,” this article will get little coverage on Google since it is a broad category. But if the article is titled “Doggie nail cutting services in Springfield Massachusetts,” someone in Springfield is more likely to type in similar words, moving you to the top of their search.

If you use a page optimizer such as Yoast, and a splash page app such as Elementor, creating a footprint on your website is quite easy.

To start, get a free Google Ads account and open up their keywords tool. Put in a few words pertaining to the subject you wish to write about. You may wish to use an online thesaurus to find synonyms for the words you come up with. Open a spreadsheet and list all the words you come up with and they click through rates. This way you can easily sort them.

From here, you can sort them and find the most searches words. From here, you start your key phrase work.

Say, as an example, your key phrase is “Doggie nail cutting services in Springfield, MA.”

This title is H1. (On SEO) The hierarchy of titles is H1, H2, H3…

H2 might be, “Springfield MA has some great dog parks. H3 might be, Cuticles can be damaged by streets and sidewalks of Springfield. And so on.

In the article, you will want to stay on point by continually adding synonyms taken from your list, staying on point, and localizing the best you can. You are not sprinkling keywords into the article. Googles engineers are onto that. You are simply giving Google’s crawlers information throughout the article that helps them tie back to the title and put your article where it belongs.

 Keep in mind, you are not trying to trick Google! All you are doing is telling Google who you are and what your article is about. Google is trying to find you. Their goal is creating locally usable search results. THEY WANT YOU TO SUCCEED AT CREATING A LOCAL FOOTPRINT. That is why it is called a search engine.

Create a footprint by using a local or unique name.

Another way to create a footprint is with the name of your company. For example, you could call your company Boylston Street Veterinary, if you are on Boylston street.

You must be careful with this though. Most people realize that H&M Construction means Harry and Mike. If you call yourself, as an example, Elmira Software Development, you’re localizing a company you may not want localized.

Whereas Boylston Veterinary tells you where the clinic is, H&M Construction doesn’t tell you anything other than perhaps the fact that Harry and Mike have no imagination.

But your footprint can take off if your business is unique and named as such.

Many years ago, we had a client named Richard Hurts that owned a septic tank pumping business. Few things are more disgusting than septic tanks. He had bright white trucks and in bold letters was the name of his company. Dick Hurts Septic cleaning and disposal. Not many people forget the words “Dick Hurts” on the side of a tuck.

You may think that was a bit off color, but hey. He was coming to pump the crap out of your septic tank. He was not coming in a business suit. By the way, he was insanely wealthy!

Build a moveable second location.

These are rare in the USA but are common in Europe. In cities in Bavaria, the tradition for Oktoberfest is to have a portable, transportable pub that they use at festival time. These are made of wood and look like traditional pubs. They are used by breweries all over southern Germany. They are not pubs but are in many cases fully functioning restaurants.

This is how they maintain their brand. Many have horse drawn wagons, horse teams, and beer kegs. The food is the same as they sell in their brew pubs at the same price.

But it is not just breweries that create footprints for their business with portable locations. They are used commonly in the Christmas fairs, fall fest, fish fest and sports festivals like bicycle tours and kayaking events.

Many cycle shops and athletic stores come to these events with a $50 Home Depot tent and a plastic table. Not many people would buy a $2,000 bicycle in a $50 tent.

This is especially if you intend to sell or display products at art shows or fairs. Typically, little care is put into the building. Like we said above, they often use $50 tents from Home Depot. In marketing, everything is about perceptions.

If a building does not suit your product be imaginative. Some ideas that I have seen are teepee’s, canvas draped over a wood frame and canvas with imprinted art.

Create a footprint at the local school.

Depending on the type of business you have, a great place to create a footprint is a local school, preferably a grammar school. Grammar school events are great because they’re not only filled with parent’s smack in the middle of the best demographic but also filled with grandparents.

There are a lot of ways to create a footprint in a school, but it is a good idea to refer back to the parent article on marketing funnels for this. You can buy an ad in a sports flier, read at a story time, donate logo cups for the sports concession stand or give talks on your business.

This is especially effective for professionals like Doctors, Chiropractors, Lawyers or Veterinarians, but can be even more effective for landscape companies, contractors or auto repair shops. You cannot get more local in business than a school.

In these cases, don’t be random. Develop, write and rehearse a talk. Use examples. Bring giveaways, typically something that doesn’t get discarded.

I used to get invited annually at our local school to give a talk on entrepreneurism, a topic I am passionate about. I loved it, but better yet, the school loved it.

How much is that dog in the window?

If you have a storefront, it is always a good idea to put something in the window that attracts eyeballs but is not sales or service related!

The great advertising genius Harry Lorraine once said, 99% of all advertising is invisible. Nobody sees it.

If you are a dentist and all you put in your window is teeth, your window will become invisible. People know what teeth are. It always amazes me that companies will fill their windows with redundant ads that would be obvious to a garden gnome.

What could your window have? Why not a dog? How about a Christmas display? Other examples might be art from the local school art show that you sponsored? Other things are flowers, charity posters or an ad for homecoming.

Remember this aspect of building a footprint. Your window should be thought of as an artwork. In Wiesbaden there is a clock shop where the entire front of the building is a fully functioning cuckoo clock. When you see it, you will never forget it.  

Note: In Mexico and much of south America, all businesses have a bar code on their window that is an automatic upload to either they web page, online brochure, or website. They are a must.

Become the housewarming committee.

When someone moves into the neighborhood, they often have no local friends. Become one. Drop off a housewarming gift and you’ll make a friend for life, not to mention a loyal customer and pivotal referral hub.

This is also effective with other businesses. This gives you the opportunity to not only know them, but to network. You may have opportunities to advertise together, share local ideas or create affiliate opportunities.

Write articles for local newspapers.

Newspapers, especially small local papers, including “arts” papers and free newspapers not only LOVE articles, but they are far more widely read than people realize.

My experience goes back many years. Like blog posts, you want to really stress local information and experience. Using the example above, when I used to walk my dog, we would walk in places people usually do not think of. The local boy scout camp, (in the fall when it closed.) the Audubon society park, and on state land. That might be an interesting topic for a dog owner.

Keep in mind, you are not trying to sell anything with these articles. You are creating a footprint to be known locally.

Start a club.

Often, marketing experts will tell you to join a club, like Rotary or Lions club. My experience is that these clubs require a lot of work for the limited scope they have. (Club members) It is a ton of work for marginal output.

We once had a client that had a dental firm and started a dental club. I thought it was positively loony, but people joined! For a Veterinarian, a dog lovers club would be perfect. Keep in mind, it should be localized, require little more than your presence, and stay alive even when you are not there.

 Our local bike shop used to sponsor a club called “slow roll.” It was a bike ride through historic Buffalo NY. It was spectacular. Hundreds of riders showed up every Tuesday. In fact, there were so many they had a police escort! For the bike shop though, since it started on their location, they provided air pumps and simple repairs, as well as lending out bikes. They made a killing!

Make sure your location is user friendly.

We are mentioning this here, but it is also more specifically in the other pages on marketing. Your goals in marketing are to sell products, but just because people walk into your store or tent and do not buy, that does not mean they are not customers. They are simply not customers at that moment.

To ensure that they may someday BECOME customers, here are a few ideas.

• Make your presentation non-sales orientated. Think of it, perhaps, as a museum with a gift shop.
• Give them a takeaway. For example, a refrigerator magnet.
• Have a bar code available. (See below in “How much is that dog in the window) If you can, get an email address.
• Dress the part. For example, you may dress like a princess, a Viking, or an artist. At the very least, wear something distinctive to take the customers mind off buying.
• Set them us for a future sale. For example, you might say, “We have a unique Christmas catalogue. If you give us your email, we will make sure it gets to you in time for the holidays.
• Make sure your presentation explains your product or service without confronting the customer. This can be done with a display, a TV, or the overall look of the location. Again, be imaginative.  

A great book on this subject is Alchemy, by Rory Sutherland, the former CEO of the ad firm Ogilvy.

Be conscious of negative footprints.

These can do more damage than positive footprints can help.

One footprint I find incredibly rude involves feet. Companies that don’t shovel or salt their sidewalks. For houses, there may be excuses, like getting the kids off to school but for a business there are none. When we had a storefront office, my employees knew that an icy sidewalk was a guaranteed dress down from me.  

The biggest negative footprint though can be your employees.

Remember to be professional and proactive.

Marketing is hard and can be expensive. When you start to get busy, it will go to the back burner, which means it will become haphazard and sloppy.

We used to have an accounting client that constantly bragged about the “fact” that he did not need to market.

Then, oh SHIT, he lost his biggest customer.

He was left without a rudder. Not only did he not market, HE DIDN’T KNOW HOW. But worse, all professional marketing has a time lag.

Like any skill, you get better with time. That simple chat at a school will be a learning experience until you’ve done it a few times. Also, you’ll learn through trial and error what you should focus your efforts on. You can spend a fortune on charities with very little pay back. I would suggest planning how much you’ll donate annually and staying to that.

Finally, fit creating a footprint into your business.

Every company should have a marketing plan.

A marketing plan does not mean you ARE marketing but that you are following a well-defined system and that you are sticking to your funnel approach.

It always amazes me how many lawyers do not have one. Legal is one of the hardest professions to be self-employed in. First, it costs a huge percentage of sales to operate an office. The time lag on payments can be measured in YEARS. Because of this, many are forced to accept any client that walks in the door, making their businesses inefficient.

We cannot stress this enough. It only works if it can work. Once you’ve put together your plan and prioritized it, put it in a calendar and write the word “leverage” next to it. Leverage is asking simple questions. How can I get someone else to do this for me? How can I get someone else to pay for it? Or better yet… How can I get someone (your vendors or affiliates) to PAY ME to do it?

If you have to pay an employee a few hours to do outreach, it’ll take the stress off your life. Remember, be creative. As the great marketing maven Rory Sutherland once said, (to paraphrase)

“One good idea can save you a decade.”