Local businesses face different challenges than larger, national ones when it comes to marketing themselves. Maximize your local visibility by utilizing these five marketing tips for small businesses.

Send Postcards: Direct mail is still a proven way to let local customers know about your business. Start with creating a list of viable prospects in your area to target. Consider specific location, demographics, buying habits, etc. Direct mail is an effective way to build relationships with existing customers as well.

Utilize Facebook Ad Targeting: Facebook Ads' greatest strength, besides its huge global user base, is the granularity with which advertisers can target their ads. Businesses can target their ads using virtually every aspect of a person's life as advertising parameters, including demographic data such as age, life events, level of education and more.

Have Credible Reviews: Most local businesses make the mistake of not having enough client reviews on sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp for their five star ratings to be credible. A significant portion of consumers say that a review will not influence their buying decision if it wasn't written within the last three months. Make it a standard practice to encourage every customer to write a review for your business online.

Email Marketing: Stay on the top of the customers' mind with email marketing. It's subtle, inexpensive and a growing number of consumers actually want promotional emails from businesses they patronize, especially if the email contains discounts or a good deal.

Partner with Local Businesses: Partner with another local business to increase brand awareness. Cross-promotion is an excellent opportunity to two local businesses to help each other out. Find a business that complements yours but offers different goods/services but promotes to the same audience and market your services to each others' groups.

For all your print and digital marketing needs, contact IAS Marketing Services at 941.921.5027