how to advertise my business locally in the uk

engage your local audience at scale

With many businesses opting to spend their budget on advertising digitally, some small businesses are missing out on opportunities to promote their business to a local market. Local communities are often found using their cars or public transport to commute throughout their local high streets and shopping centres to run daily errands, commute to school or work, and shop.

Article Summary
Local outdoor advertising helps SMEs build trust, brand recall, and relevance by targeting audiences where they live and travel—through billboards, buses, and radio. Success comes from knowing your market, personalising messages, and committing to repetition for long-term impact. Global enables local brands to compete with national players by delivering memorable, geographically relevant campaigns that earn consumer confidence and keep businesses front of mind.

Outdoor advertising is sometimes viewed as something exclusive to large brands. However, it is not just for big businesses and can be used very effectively by smaller companies looking to target local customers and audiences.

The key here is to get to know your target market and its buying journey well enough that you can pick and choose which local advertising mediums work best for your business.

Then, as you are local and so is your audience, you can compete with larger nationwide competitors by personalising your offer to an audience you are familiar with.

But to achieve this, you’ll need customers who work or live near your business to remember your brand over the competition. It is about being sufficiently brand-memorable and enticing enough to appeal to customers when they have a need to buy.

Is outdoor advertising a longer-term commitment?

It can be in some cases. For example, if you’re considering advertising locally on the radio, it may be unrealistic to expect immediate results. Radio advertising messages often have to be repeated.

Billboard advertising is purchased in week long slots, and bus advertising works similarly.

Building a brand takes time, patience and hard work.

We talk about weeks instead of days or hours because messages often need repetition. Not every car driving past a billboard sees an advert.

Not every advertiser is interested in targeting the car’s driver; they may focus on the younger demographic, such ad the passengers in the back seat. Remember, outdoor advertising is about being remembered and considered, building consumer trust.

advantages of local outdoor advertising

Advertising on billboards and buses offers many advantages. Products on billboards are inherently trusted by people who see them, due to the mass brand awareness they achieve.

Establishing brands and growing businesses is all about gaining trust. Is the company advertising on the bus by the roadside and on the radio more trustworthy than one that isn’t? Other brands advertising in the same spaces are household names; is this one?

It also demonstrates that there is a degree of both emotional and financial investment behind the company. Someone, somewhere, already believes in this brand enough to spend money.

Again, this is where repetition counts. People often avoid fly-by-night companies that are here one minute and gone the next. If consumers constantly see and hear your advert, then perhaps you are worth considering.

become more relevant

Local audiences live locally.

Suppose you can target your campaign message to include local aspects that combine your brand with elements of what is important geographically. In that case, you can further strengthen this new relationship by engaging in outdoor advertising and bringing your brand to the forefront of consumers’ minds.

Brighter advertising starts here. Contact Global.

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