4 Community Outreach Ideas for Small Businesses

Each time you take your business to market, you're stepping into the arena. To succeed, you need innovative strategies to stay top of mind. Developing a community outreach program is an excellent way for small businesses to gain local traction and up visibility without a huge investment - simply put, a high return on investment. Here are three community outreach ideas for small businesses that add real value to your marketing campaign.

Community Outreach Ideas for Small Businesses

Work with Schools

Approach a school and offer it something that their funding typically won't cover. It's a win-win for them, so they'll rarely decline the offer. What's in it for you? Schools encompass the entire community. Students connect you to families and families connect you to neighborhoods. At the local level, this is even more effective than social media marketing.

Students are also a great mouthpiece for your brand. They talk and share more widely than most other groups, and your reach is truly limitless if you maintain a long-term relationship with a school-few other groups have new faces cycling in every year. In other words, you can set into motion a chain of brand promotion events with one initial donation.

Work With NGOs

Just like schools, NGOs are often short on funding and open to mutually beneficial partnerships. By offering them products or services in exchange for positive publicity, you'll build a respected brand image and foster highly profitable relationships. Host a fundraising event for an NGO and you could get your brand's name on their staff's shirts and caps, your logo on their marketing materials, etc.

NGOs have high contact rates with the general public. They go place to place, person to person, focusing on attracting interest for their cause, so even volunteering at their events will increase your visibility. It's also gratifying as a business owner to help an organization make a difference, particularly if you're passionate about their cause.

Team Up

Pool your efforts with other local businesses. Put on a free event for the public or table at an annual event that attracts high numbers. The more you collaborate with other business owners, the more you get your bran's name out there. And you mind find business partners for other co-marketing efforts in the future too.

Add Your Name to a Message

This costs a bit more, but it's also a superb way to build rapport with people. What you need is your brand's name or logo next to a message. Look around and you'll easily find people wanting to put up a message. Get this message put up for them, and next to the message, put your logo. Having a catchy name helps. Does it work?

Yes. People often ignore the marketing stuff around them, but they rarely do it with messages. Very few people pass by a message without reading it. In other words, it's one more area where you get to attract the attention of a large audience without much effort. How to do it?

It's simple: your name next to the message. Just one catch: make sure the background theme is plain, the message is short and your name is the only thing noticeable on the board other than the message.

Conclusion

A sense of community provides people with a sense of belonging.  If you can manage to associate your product with the emotions that a strong sense of community elicit, you will be forging a sense of trust with your prospective clients.  Community outreach is a great option for growing your product, but it takes a lot of respect and consideration.  Remember, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Volunteering Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "4 Community Outreach Ideas for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends