Be Loud, Be Proud! Local Pride Boosts Marketing Success

Venture into any trendy café or restaurant and you’re likely to see menu items directly tied to the local area – cheeses from a nearby creamery, meat or vegetables from area farms or co-ops. Quite simply, more consumers are beginning to place more value on goods coming from their local community.

As noted in this Huffington Post piece from Diana Mackie, the local trend goes far beyond food, with a survey from Edelman Digital indicating that more than 40 percent of millennials preferred to buy from local businesses, “even if the goods or services are more expensive than mass-market alternatives.”

With more and more people seeing the good in supporting locally-oriented shops and suppliers, small businesses should be sporting their local pride as much as possible. In regards to promoting your business using Cidewalk, there are several things you can do in this vein:

• Try to always use the name of the town you are targeting in your title or description
• Look to tie promotions to local events (e.g. a parade or local fair)
• Celebrate a victory of a local school’s sports team with a custom promotion or deal

Looking more broadly, Diana Mackie listed a number of tips for small businesses to best address this new consumer preference:

• Businesses can prime consumers for increased likelihood of business by displaying local emblems or state flags on their websites, products, or marketing materials.
• The emblem “made in [insert locality]” increases consumer fondness and plays to the consumer psychology behind shopping local.
• Millennial consumers like to hear the story of local businesses and their owners, so share yours and your company’s unique connection to your locality on your website’s About page, your social profiles, and in your marketing materials.
• Consumers who shop local because it’s trendy particularly support businesses who also shop local. On your social profiles, share photos of you or your staff eating a local restaurant, or otherwise supporting local businesses yourselves.
• Participating and supporting regional Shop Local campaigns creates overall consumer awareness, and…leads to increased sales. Get one started for your town if there isn’t already a program in place.

Have any other ideas for boosting your local credentials and visibility? Tweet us at@CidewalkApp!