Part of our responsibility is to mitigate risk, right? And you do this whether you're, let's say you're hiring somebody, an employee, and
You're going to try to find the best candidate because you understand that you're taking resources to train them. You're going to try to keep them there as long as you can because that's good for your customers, right? And so you're mitigating all these risks. You're making good decisions to set yourself up for success. Like Chelsea said, relying solely on TikTok and
Instagram, Facebook, any platform that you don't have access to on the back end means that you're allowing risk to enter. Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast where we celebrate the SOB that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business. We don't mean SOB.
Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything. Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk,
what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work. And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real. Welcome back to another episode. Today, apparently, I'm wearing jean on jean, and Chelsea said it's a whole look. Very what, Chelsea? 2000s. All right, y'all. So I'm kicking it back to 2000s today. Not what the episode is about, but before we hop into our topic, which Chelsea will introduce here in a second, I'm going to talk about
Just want to remind you guys, first and foremost, thank you so much for listening. We love every single one of you for coming here every week and just listening to the marketing information that we're sharing with you. But be sure that you're going in there and leaving us a review.
Please, please, please tell us what you think of this podcast. Only if it's good stuff. You know, we don't want to hear the negative, bad stuff. You can email us that kind of information. But please do that right now. Hit pause. Leave us a review on whatever platform you're listening to. Oh, and by the way, don't forget we have a TLDL section.
too long, didn't listen. If you are, you know, just kind of busy right now in the middle of stuff and you just want a quick recap, we always recommend that you come back and you listen to the full episode. But Chelsea does give us a quick recap at the end of every episode in our TLDL section. So, baby sis, what are we talking about today? Okay. Well, Vivian, before we get into what we're talking about today, I have...
Oh, no. Something I want to share. This is very early in the episode to be. No, this is not. This is between you and me. In the last episode, you said. Do y'all hear how she talks to me? First of all, this is between you and me. All right, let's hear it. Yeah. In the last episode, you said dad never said that our life was alone.
We asked Hector. He has mediated. Hector is our brother, by the way. Yes, Chelsea's older brother. Yes, Chelsea's older brother, my baby brother. Yes, he's the mediator. We pulled him into this and he came with the receipts of the comic strip that dad got that joke from.
So yes, dad did say that to us. Okay. Yeah. Just wanted to put that out there. All right. My pants have literally caught on fire because I was a liar.
Dad, apparently Chelsea had included in our previous episode just a saying that dad would always say to us and I was teasing her and I said, no, he never said that to me because I was a perfect child. As you guys would imagine, I was not a perfect child. And so, yes, I was included in that discussion. I just wanted to get that out there first and foremost. But first and foremost, thanks for airing out our dirty laundry. You're welcome. That's what people want to hear.
Besides the marketing stuff. Okay, well, today's episode is a real great one. We're talking about small business marketing without social media. I want to make it very clear. We are not saying give up on social media. We're saying if you're feeling burnt out, if you're feeling like your time would be better spent doing something else,
Do that. Here are some ideas. That's what we're talking about. Yes. And I will say, even if you are doing social media, let's say you're not burnt out. You know, we always just remind you guys, you want to incorporate some of these other marketing options just because it's a good, it's smart. All right. It's the one way that you're diversifying. And so today we're going to bring you some paid ads.
and some free options. And what we're hoping is that you will listen to this, jot down the ones that intrigue you enough to look into in 2025. And then, you know, just kind of maybe get some comps, get some rates, figure out if it's something that you could do and you would want to do. And if that's where your target audience is. All right. So that's the important part. Yeah, that's the key right there is, is your target audience
interested in this form of communication. Also want to go back and say that
Remember, nothing is actually free. Yes, something might not cost money. It's still going to cost you time. It's still going to cost you effort. That's not going to cost you money, but it's still going to cost you something. Man, you said the word cost a lot there. I know. Vivian, this first one I feel like is a huge opportunity that is regularly overlooked and
And it's sponsorships. Yes, I love me a good sponsorship when it makes sense. That is key. That's important. But yeah, sponsorships, I feel like...
You know what it is? Sometimes people who are looking for sponsorships can go about it in an uncomfy way. What's uncomfy? Expand on that. Pushy. Okay. Yeah. I feel like sometimes when people are looking for sponsors for their events, they can be a little pushy. They can be a little aggressive. And so that gives small business owners a bad taste of
And you're kind of like, well, now I don't want to be involved in sponsorships. Don't let that stop you from doing sponsorships. Maybe don't do a sponsorship with them, but still consider them if it is where your target audience is. That's always the key. Yeah. So I love sponsorships for a couple different reasons. For one, you're able to help the community.
All right. So think about it. Local schools offer a ton of sponsorship opportunities, whether that's through their athletic program. So let's say you could do a sponsorship of the soccer team.
And depending on what level you do, $250 for the year. What they will do is in turn print out a banner and have it at the soccer field with your logo or whatever information that you send them. And so it's giving you visibility at the actual games. And then on top of it, you feel good about doing, you know, supporting your local teams.
and the kids. But the key, like you said, is to be sure that for one, it aligns with the type of business that you're doing. For example, let's say that I am a car insurance agent. It makes sense. You love insurance. I
I don't know. What can I say? Let's say you're a car insurance agent. It would make sense to show up in the local high schools because that's when kids are starting to get their driver's license, right? And they're looking for coverage and it's top of mind for the parents. And so
Just figure out ways that your business can get in front of people that potentially will be primed or are primed to buy your product or service. Yes. And Vivian, I want to go back and touch on how you said, you know, $250 for a year could get you yada yada. Sponsorships can be very cost effective.
And they have great range. Like you can find a sponsorship for $250. $250. I don't think you can find a sponsorship for $250. $250, you can find a sponsorship. Or you could get a sponsorship with a big event that's probably going to be closer to like $2,000. There's a range. So you can find something that works best for you. It also is...
we've already touched on this, but just a really, really great way to demonstrate your love for your community, which I think you should absolutely not downplay as a small business. Yeah. And so you can also tie it in to maybe some of the values that your business, you know, in a recent episode, we talked about a mission and a vision statement for your small business. Well, if you have, let's say,
part of your mission is to somehow, you know, affect a certain community, whether that's small business owners or it could be people with disabilities or something along those lines. If any of that is part of your mission or your vision, then it would make sense for you. And one of the ways that you can just solidify that and remind people of that is for you to choose organizations or businesses through sponsorship, you
you know, that you can partner with. And the reason I bring that up is we have really great friends that launched a nonprofit organization here in Charleston, Be the Change Charleston. And they work directly with people with disabilities to find them jobs and just give them programs that they can learn to, you know, to,
to succeed in life. And I love that mission that they have. They have sponsorship opportunities for businesses. And so it's nice to be able to, you know, say like, if that's something that's near and dear to me, then I want to contribute a certain amount. And then in return, I get some visibility. Right.
Right. Because they're out there promoting the event that they're putting on or they're out there promoting the programs that they have available. And somehow my name is tied to it or my business is tied to it. Yeah, I'm really glad that you brought that up because I know we just said it has to be related to your business. It doesn't have to be related to your business in the field, like in that sense, if it is
related to your core beliefs. Yeah. Like you still need to find a way to, there still needs to be a connection. Yeah. Before we move on to the next opportunity that's not social media that businesses have to promote themselves.
I do want to add a little asterisk here and just remind you guys that there are so many different ways to go about this with the sponsorship. Even if you're saying like, hey, I don't have a whole lot of funds. Like we said, there are different tiered levels, but you can also partner with other businesses. And let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.
Let's say I'm a chamber member. Every month, the Chamber of Commerce has a what do you call it like a business after hours. OK, I can't do I can't host it on my own. I don't have the two thousand dollars that's required to host it and I don't have a space available.
Because I don't have a physical storefront. So instead, though, what I do is I approach the chamber and I say, hey, even though I can't sponsor this on my own, I'd be interested in partnering with other businesses that would like to band together to sponsor this. And so then you're getting a little creative because you and maybe two other small businesses could band together. You could find someone that does have the space.
the physical space for it. You could find someone that's willing to pay for the food. And then maybe you could be responsible for paying for, you know, the drinks or the promotional items, whatever it is. And so I just want to encourage you that if you're in your business or you just don't have a large budget, don't count yourself out on these. There are many different ways. What I would do is be sure that you're active on Facebook
whether it's Facebook or social media or just in your community asking around like, hey, what are good sponsorships? What, you know, do you have any opportunities for me to be engaged and to tap into, you know, something like that? Love that example. Okay. So let's move on to our next marketing initiative that does not involve social media. PR in general.
Absolutely. I have a very specific example that I feel like people don't, I feel like small businesses don't consider. Podcast appearances. Yeah, that's a really good one. So in the traditional setting, when we think of PR, because all small businesses know what that is, right? We're like, oh, that's a good PR opportunity, right? And then some of us, well, not me, but some people think,
All PR, even bad PR is good PR, right? That's not me. I do not believe that. Are we making a stand right here officially, the seasoned marketer? The seasoned marketer does not believe that all PR is good PR. Yes, exactly. We think that PR opportunities, just like marketing initiatives of all kinds, should align with your mission and vision. If you're getting bad PR, sure, that's going to make you popular, but probably not in the ways that you want to be, right? Yeah.
So in the traditional sense, when we think of PR, we're always thinking, hey, it means my name was mentioned on the news or someone came out and interviewed me for a publication. But to Chelsea's point, so much of that has morphed over the last like 10 years because of the way we are consuming information. So whether that be a podcast, whether that be you appearing on someone's YouTube channel. What's another one, Chelsea? Oh, Blanket.
You could be like a, you know, a partner writer or contributor, partner writer, a contributor to a blog post, right? I love that example. I didn't think of that. Yeah, just getting creative and thinking outside the box when it comes to PR. Like it doesn't just have to be magazines and appearances on the news or stuff like that. Reach out to podcasters, right?
I bet you they want to have you on there. We want to have you on our podcast. If you're a small business owner and you feel like you have something you want to say about your marketing, email us. We'd love to have you on here. Absolutely. One recent example, though, that I do want to use is we have a very delicious donut shop here in
in uh goose creek south carolina y'all it is called donut connection in philly cheese and
Philly cheesesteaks of Goose Creek. All right. And so I want a Philly cheese. Oh, my gosh. They're they're delicious. I mean, their donuts are even better. And then they're but their cheesesteaks are pretty darn good, too. So Joanna happens to be the owner of the store. Very active on TikTok. I mean, she'll do like TikTok lives because they have to get up at like one in the morning to go in and because everything's fresh. They're
They're not doing everything is made from scratch. So they get up at one, go to the store, and then they bake everything for that day until they sell out. And trust me, all they sell out. Okay. But she was recently on a program here in South Carolina. It was in Palmetto Life. And so she
got like, I don't know if it was a 10 minute or a 15 minute segment, very, very well done. And that was free PR on her end because I promise you she ended up sharing it, right? So it came out
She was like, hey, look for us in Palmetto Life. The very next day, I'm almost certain she wrote on her Facebook that they were so busy because people were coming in because I guess they saw the segment. But that's the way good PR can work to your advantage. It could definitely...
potential customers or clients read, watch, and they're interested in that type of information that you're sharing, then it definitely can correlate to increased sales.
I still haven't tried Donut Connections. The thing is, I live in like next in area Somerville. So it's like a 30 minute drive for me. One day I'm just going to have to do it. They have this delicious thing called a cronut. It is a cross between a croissant and a donut. So, so, so good. That sounds so good. It's delicious. My favorite. Well, I have an example of us.
kind of practicing what we preach. As you guys probably know by now, we have the SOB community. And once a week, we do a hour-long Zoom call to talk with our community members just to help them talk through marketing, answer any questions they may have about marketing. And one of our community members has an event that she...
has planned, she's trying to get the name out there, she's trying to find ways to really promote it. And we suggested to her, "Hey, reach out to local news stations." Like, you don't... It would be great if you created a press release, but you don't even have to do that. Just send them the information that they need
In like, I mean, they have what, like leave a tip here. Like they have forms that you can fill out. Just doing that. Here's the thing. News cycles are 24-7. We've had this conversation. They're looking for news. And if you focus on your local news stations, I promise you they're probably going to want to run your story. Yeah, they definitely, it's almost surprising.
I would change my perspective because it used to be, you know, we used to say pitch someone a story. I would almost argue now that you're doing them a favor. You're helping them out. So change your perspective in thinking, you know, if you have an event that you're planning, if you have something newsworthy to share, you're actually helping that reporter that's going to cover the story because you're giving them like a lead.
for something that they can put in the programming. And so it's a win-win on both ends. They're not going to pick up everything, but I do think, um,
The probability is very high, especially these days. And as Chelsea mentioned, if you feel a little eerie or a little like this is uncharted territory, I've never done this before, it's okay because I'm telling you as someone who's been doing this for a long time, it is –
as easy as it's ever been to be able to connect. So what I would recommend, like Chelsea said, first go to their website, see if there's a submit a news tip section, or sometimes they will actually list like, I think it's newsroom at then whatever the handle is. Or you can also go onto their page that shows all of the reporters and see if any of those reporters have an Instagram page.
because most of them now have a professional Instagram page that they use for reporting the news. Send them a DM. Give them all the details. The more details you give them, the less they have to go scrounging for it.
And if you still feel a little uncomfortable about it and you want some extra help, you can join the SOB community. We are there to help you. Oh, yeah. We'll look over any press releases or give you formats or templates for you to copy and paste and then insert your information so that way you can get it in front of the right people. Yeah. Super simple. Super simple. So Vivian, what is our next example?
Or next marketing initiative, I guess. For this one, we're going to teleport back in time to the early 1900s. I'm joking. No, it's good old-fashioned networking because, y'all, some things just never go out of style. I get it. It takes a lot out of people, especially if you are just not
like me who enjoys talking their life away, if you're a little more of an introvert, we promise you, you can gain a lot of value out of attending network events. And so Chelsea, correct me if I'm wrong, when we did our
2025, you know, going into the new year or no, it was our Christmas special. We were talking about what the 12 days of Christmas. Yes. We actually included a tip for how many events for people to attend.
Was it five? I think it was five. Yeah. So try five networking events at the very least throughout the year in the next 12 months, because that's going to give you enough opportunity to get really comfortable with it, right? Or at least then you're getting those reps into where it starts to feel a little more familiar. And
And there's just so much value in rubbing elbows and meeting people face-to-face. Internet is great. Social media is fabulous. But there's just something about being able to show up in front of somebody and see them in real life 3D. Yes. Vivian, I also want to leave this tip with our listeners.
If someone is not your ideal target audience, that does not mean you stop the conversation right there and walk away. You still need to be professional and polite. And, you know, even if they're not your target audience, they might know someone who is your target audience and they can, you know, go back to them and say, oh, this person was really great. I think you'd love what they have to offer. Go check them out.
I say this because, y'all, if you haven't listened to our networking episode, please go back and listen to it because, one, it's really great information. And we give you tips on how to network both as an introvert, because I'm an introvert, and Vivian's an extrovert. So from two different perspectives. But Vivian gives an amazing example of
about something she experienced. She has an insurance story. Vivian, could you tell that insurance story again? Because I think it's a great one. Okay. So it's a great example of what not to do. I was at a local chamber event and basically I was talking, engaging with a gentleman who, you know, we had just introduced ourselves like, hey, what do you do? Who do you work for? This and that, you know, the low down, small talk that you do. And then
He says to me, he's like, well, are you in need of insurance? Like, do you have house insurance or whatever? And I'm like, oh, yeah, no, we've been with the same insurance company now for years and we don't plan on switching over. And he literally just stopped talking to me, turned away and like went on to a different conversation. And I was like, what?
what? Like that's kind of rude. But I think his problem is he, he was so short sighted in his goal of attending that networking event. I understand that you feel like if this is a marketing opportunity, um,
You go out and you network, which means I have to go find people that are interested in insurance that then the next day I can pitch to and say, hey, let me be your insurance guy. But what I told Chelsea was a couple different things. Number one, you ended a conversation with me. If let's say I wasn't looking to switch my insurance company today, but something happened, my rates increased, and maybe next month I suddenly was looking for one.
I now am definitely not going to call you because the other part of it is you somehow expect me to believe that you're going to deliver excellent customer service when my house burns down and I'm calling you frantically at 2 a.m. in the morning because I don't know what to do and that somehow you're going to be compassionate enough.
to help me? I don't think so, sir. You couldn't even finish a five-minute conversation with me. Yeah. All right? When you found out I was not going to hear your pitch or wasn't interested in hearing it. And so my thing to people with networking is, yes, there is a direct goal in the sense that you're going to create relationships or potential prospects to buy your product and service, but there's a longer-term goal of,
of creating relationships or meeting people that maybe right now do not seem like they might be interested, but down the road, you know, continuing to nurture that relationship, they could be. This is the same thing, you know, we talk about how I'm still working in a corporate setting. When you talk about, you know,
nurturing relationships over time, very rarely are you going to get what you want in the first pass. Sometimes it takes a couple months of you reaching out and just building that relationship and you helping them, doing them a favor, doing whatever. And then eventually they'll switch their business over to you. But it's not immediate. They have to
trust you in order to take a leap to say, I'm going to leave what I know for this business because I know that person will take care of me or I know that person will do, you know, provide excellent customer service, whatever that is. Can I also say, who doesn't already have insurance? You know, like, I feel like that's the first thing you do. Yeah. So like for him to be like, oh, do you have insurance? Oh, forget it. Like,
Yeah. And you couldn't have asked more. I'm sorry. You couldn't have asked more questions like, oh, do you enjoy your provider? What do you like about your provider? Maybe you could learn more things about what people find is good quality insurance. So you just ended the entire conversation. Wow. OK. Yeah, it's.
Networking, just expect that it's the long-term game. Like we tell you with a lot of other marketing initiatives, YouTube, long-term game. Podcasting, long-term game. Email list, long-term game, y'all. Networking, treat it the same way, right? And I can tell you because, for one, I do enjoy going to networking events.
I find them to be fun. And also, if you go to enough of them, you start to maybe see some of the same people. And so then that's where you really do start to find out more about people and more about their background. And, you know, it's one hell of a thing because we still live in a world where it's who you know, not what you know. And
And I'm just going to tell you, that's still the case in a lot of business settings. And so, you know, you just need to provide yourself opportunities to be in those types of environments and rooms. You know what we keep hearing from you fellow SOBs? Small-owned businesses. Yes, small-owned businesses. You guys are so overwhelmed with your marketing.
And we totally get that. You didn't start your bakery or your boutique store or your jewelry business to become full-time marketers or content creators or ad designers. Marketing can feel really overwhelming. Oh yeah. Then you SOBs try to go figure it out because that's what you do. You Google stuff, watch videos, and end up spending hours trying to figure it out all
only to sometimes end up more confused. This is my full-time job and trust me, the way marketing is talked about in the worldwide web can be really misleading. And let's not even talk about trying to hire an agency for help. It's daunting. They don't know your small business like you do and so they're not as effective. And
Let's not even talk about the cost. We understand why a lot of you SOBs feel ready to give up. And that's why we even bothered to create the Season Marketer. That's also why we started the SOB community. We wanted to create something practical and affordable for people who can't or simply don't want to outsource their marketing.
Right. So for $50 a month, members can get free downloads and templates, step-by-step tutorial videos, a weekly live Q&A call with both of us, marketing professionals and other SOBs.
you also become a part of a supportive community to bounce ideas off of. It's like having a boardroom of like-minded individuals and marketing professionals where you can talk through all of your marketing questions without having to pay boardroom marketing agency prices. So if you're tired of wasting time trying to figure it
Now back to the episode.
Love that you brought up email lists because that is my next example. It's email marketing. We are huge fans of email marketing. I am a huge fan of email marketing. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've heard me say it's not about you when it comes to emails. Even if you don't open your emails, your target audience might. So definitely consider email marketing. And one of the key reasons is because you are in control.
And that's one of the biggest problems that I have with social media. This whole TikTok ban. For those 12 hours, you lost that audience. You were not in control. There was nothing you could do.
Yeah. And let's also talk as a small business owner, because I think we all have to think like this. Part of our responsibility is to mitigate risk. Right. And you do this whether you're let's say you're hiring somebody, an employee.
You're going to try to find the best candidate because you understand that you're taking resources to train them. You're going to try to keep them there as long as you can, because that's good for your customers. Right. And so you're mitigating all these risks. You're setting, you're making good decisions to set yourself up for success. Like Chelsea said, relying solely on a tick tock,
Instagram, Facebook, any platform that you don't have access to on the back end means that you're allowing risk to enter, which we're not telling you that's not a good risk. That's great. Like being able to leverage what they're doing on these platforms is fabulous. You're tapping into a market. However,
In order to balance that risk, get them onto your email list because then what you're doing is you're transitioning those potential customers from a platform where if it shuts down tomorrow, you have no access to them to then a platform where like if
TikTok shuts down tomorrow, you can still email them, right? Like if you were saying like, hey, I have some really pressing and important information to share with them, well, I could send them an email.
And so that's the whole thing is look at it as you, an email list is a good way for you to mitigate risk. So that way you can always communicate with your target audience. Y'all, I also want to bring up traditional marketing. Okay, traditional marketing is not obsolete. People still...
Be on TV, okay? Some people still listen to the radio. Some people be on the radio still. Some people be on the TV. My bad. Some people still watch TV. Some people still listen to the radio. Even these new twists on traditional marketing, you can now advertise with Hulu. You can advertise with Netflix. You can advertise with Spotify.
You can send out postcards. Traditional marketing, not only one, has modernized, but it's also even if you don't
do those twists on traditional marketing, it still works. It's not obsolete. Yes. And so they are not obsolete, right? But now even they are doing things a little differently. So perfect example of this is newspapers. You know, earlier we talked about community sponsorship opportunities and
Surprisingly enough, newspapers do a lot of this. Okay. If y'all don't know, let's say you wanted to do newspaper advertising, you would have a couple different options that they would put in front of you. For one, they now have banner, digital banner ads that they're doing on their digital publications, right? So if you're going to like news2.com, they have that stuff on there. Somerville Journal scene, they have the ads running on all of their web pages.
So now you have digital ads that you could do through them. You could do traditional print ads. You can also do spotlights, right? Where let's say I want to be, I'm a healthcare company. I want to be their healthcare contributor. So they will allow me to pay to be able to sponsor content and write content for their health section. There's also, you're laughing Chelsea. Yeah.
I had a memory. Oh, no. Yeah. Do you want me to? Okay. So. I like how she says, do you want me to? Yeah. Okay. I'm moving forward with it without your response. I worked for an allergy office. I was once asked to write a press release about
Except for we didn't have anything to share. Like, it's just that it was spring. So allergies are bad. So write a thing about how we can help with allergies. And I was like, well, that's not really a press release.
They're going to I'm going to send this to them and they're gonna come back asking to do what you just explained like a sponsored Article something like that. No, no, no, just send out a press release. Guess what happened sponsored article they wanted to do a sponsored article and The provider that I worked for said no, I don't want to spend money. I don't want to pay for anything I wanted this to be free sir. That's not how this works. Maybe if we had an event and
Or if there was something new for that spring season, like let's say there was new data or information to share, right? Then you can kind of like wrap it around that, something that's newsworthy. Yeah. And they would print that for free. But if it's just like a long ad for your business, they're not going to print that. Instead, to your point, Chelsea, which is rightfully so, the
The newspaper came back and was like, hey, we will gladly print this under our health section as a sponsored content or sponsored article, but you're going to pay us like $600, $1,000 to do it, whatever their price range is. So that's just the way it works right now with some of these traditional mediums. So on top of the sponsored content, they also now do events.
I don't know how many of you know this, but like our local newspaper has this really fabulous Christmas event that they put on where they bring a Santa Claus out. They have all the kids. You can actually sponsor it, right? Or be like a, you know, a person. The way that you said it, the way that you said it made it sound like they brought the Santa and they brought the kids. Yeah.
Like they brought their own kids in, they brought their own Santa Claus. These kids are hired help. Yeah. No, so that's pretty much it. So just know and understand whether it's television who now offer streaming services. And let's take television. Perfect example. They do the same thing. So now when it comes to television ads, you not only are talking about like, you know,
programming on like channel four, if you're doing something through them, they now also have a website, which means that your commercial shows up on their website. Now, now all of this is in the contract. You negotiate the terms and you negotiate where your ad shows up, where your commercial shows up. But these are,
things that they've adjusted and now include because of the way things have changed and the way people are consuming information. So just know if you,
you're poo-pooing on traditional advertising opportunities, we want you to quit that and just think if it makes sense, then maybe it's something for you to consider if it doesn't make sense. And do I want to be doing television advertising? No. That doesn't make sense for what we're doing. We'll get much better return on investment spending our money on digital ads or somewhere else.
So moving into speaking of digital ads, let's go ahead and talk about that, Chels. Okay. Digital ads are another great avenue for small business owners outside of social media. Now, some people, when I say digital ads, they may be thinking Google ads. Right.
That's correct. You could go in there and spend Google ads to, you know, highlight certain keywords or phrases and ensure that your business gets populated at the top. Remember though, we've had in a previous episode, a discussion about SEO search engine optimization and how it's changing moving into 2025 because now Google's integrating AI. And so those, those,
you know, ads are now going to be somewhere else on the page. But it has been said that potentially Google ads could become increasingly more expensive just because less and less people are going to be going to Google. Yeah. So that's still to be determined, but it's a viable option for now. The other part of it is digital ads, as I mentioned, when they're
under the umbrella of that traditional advertising, whether it be through the local newspapers or through the local television stations or also social media. And let me introduce an idea to you if you have not heard this term. It's called cross network in a digital ad. What that means is
I could go into, let's say, Facebook and Instagram, and I can choose to run a campaign where I upload my ad, and in there, there's an option to do cross-network. All that means is they partner with other websites online to provide opportunities for your ad to show up there. All right? This is why sometimes if, let's say, you're on a...
on a blog for a recipe, right? You're making a recipe, you're on that blog, you're looking at it and you'll see a familiar ad come across for a local business. And you're like, oh my gosh, they're advertising on that blog. No, they're doing a cross network ad that they just input it, right? The network said, hey, just stick this ad here because that lady is within 20 miles of, you know, that store or something like that. So you do have resources
really great opportunities to customize something that works well for your small business. Yes. Love that you gave all those examples of digital ads. We're going non-digital now. And for our last example, we're focusing on community and community-specific opportunities.
So what do we mean by this? Vivian, we grew up in the Air Force community. Our father was in the Air Force. We moved around a lot. Air Force bases have, I don't want to say community, but Air Force bases have their own ecosystem. You know, they have their own newspaper. They have their own gym, their own events, their own stuff going on. You can be a part of that community.
Let's think of a less exclusive community. We have the new Nextin community here in Somerville. They do an amazing job of hosting events. They had a tree lighting. They have like a, well, I don't know if they have a third Thursday. That's a Somerville thing, but they have events
things going on in their little community that you can be a part of as a small business. I'm so glad we're not drinking like we're not doing a drinking game right now because I feel like I would be on the floor or as many times as we said community there. I know, right? People have to be so tired of us.
I'm sorry. Not true. Not true. Yes. Well, to your point, let's go back to like the military base thing. Uh-huh.
If I'm a small business owner and let's say I'm on the outskirts of an army base, okay, Fort Jackson here in Columbia, South Carolina, I own a little donut shop outside of that. The one way I can tap into them is to, for one, contact their local newspaper for Fort Jackson specifically and say, hey, I'm
how much are ads? You know, that could be a great way. The one thing that we used to do as a long time ago in a previous healthcare company that I used to work for is I made, um,
through one of the networking opportunities, I made a connection with the lady that ran all of their like family programming on the Air Force Base. And so I flat out just told her, I said, look, anytime you guys want a healthcare organization there, if it's for a family event, if you are doing anything health related for the airmen organization,
or whatever we'd be more than happy to do. And the reason that was such a good connection, and we did it for many, many years, but at their gym on the base, she was in charge of trying to engage with the airmen, right? And just provide opportunities for them. And so she would set up little events and they were early in the morning, girl. I mean, I would have to get up super early, but
She would reach out and say, hey, if you guys want to be a sponsor, here's how much it would cost, but you'll be able to come set up a table. You can give promotional items. You can bring snacks, coffee, whatever you want to do. And so for us, it worked well because for one,
I know for a fact they all have TRICARE. What a great target audience, right? For a healthcare company, that's like a dream come true, right? And so that was a great opportunity for us to tap into that community.
So I'm just saying, yes, I hope you guys are playing a drinking game by now. So we're just saying if there's any type of close knit niche down, um,
audience, okay, that you want to target, then consider reaching out and just asking. The other one that I think a lot of people don't think about, and sometimes these are super, super cost effective. And then in some areas they're not as cost effective. They actually get a little more expensive. I used to live in a neighborhood called King's Grant. This was a
smaller neighborhood, but we had a monthly, what do you call it? Little newsletter that came out. I had asked them one time, I said, by the way, like, do you accept sponsors for this? Yeah. $25.
Okay. Well, all day long, I'll pay $25 for you to be able to let me put an ad of one of our physicians in there. Very targeted. It was a captive audience because it was a, I don't want to say older neighborhood, but it was people that checked their mail. Okay. Yeah. They read their mail. It was still print and we happened to have an office right down the road. Bingo. Check, check, check. Checked everything off for me. So
Also think of it like that, which is why Chelsea brought up the Nextin community here, because it's a newer neighborhood, a very big neighborhood where actually I would call it a development. That's a better word. So it has shops, it has businesses, it has grocery stores, restaurants, neighborhoods.
I'm going to be honest. At this point, it's going to be like its own little town. Yeah, I'm surprised. Like Somerville, Goose Creek, Nexton. I'm surprised they don't have a Nexton, South Carolina. But right now, it's still a big, sprawling development. To Chelsea's point, go in there. I know the one thing that I've also done there is, and it was really cute. Mom and Dad came out to this because it was on a weekend.
And I worked it and it was early morning, but they do these like health.
classes every once in a while. So maybe two to three times a year, they'll invite everybody that lives in that surrounding area in their neighborhoods. And they say, hey, we're going to do yoga on the green, right? We're going to have vendors there. And so because I know lots of families live there, I set up a table on behalf of the organization and it's always kid friendly. We're
right? We bring little goldfish out or whatever it is just to snack. Yeah.
Just saying. I'm not transporting little fishies. Well, and then I do like a little photo op. Like we did a little styrofoam board that was like a fish in a fish bowl and they could put their little face in and it had our logo and they could take a picture. All those things because at the end of the day, it provides value for them to know that we're there and available, but it's tapping in to everyone that lives in that geographic area.
Okay, also, let's go ahead and do the TLDL. Too long, didn't listen. So if you have skipped all the way to this chapter, thank you for listening to our little summary. When you get the chance, go back and listen to the entire episode. Maybe play a drinking game because we say community way too many times.
Here is the low down of what you need to know. Small businesses, you are not required to do social media marketing. We're not saying it's not a good option, but if you're getting tired of it or you just want to diversify, which is very important, here are some options that are not social media. We have sponsorships. We have PR in general. Networking, email marketing, traditional advertising,
community-specific opportunities, and digital ads that includes cross-networking and geofencing, all of that stuff. So these are all options that you can use to grow your small business. These are all marketing initiatives that do not involve social media.
So again, to really understand each of these marketing initiatives, you want to go back and listen to this whole conversation. But thank you guys again for listening. If you have a topic you want us to talk about, please let us know. Send us an email at help at the season marketer dot com or you can send us a DM. You can leave a comment in the comment section, whatever works best for you. And if you're a small business owner who
who has something they want to say about marketing, we'd probably love to have you on the podcast. So just reach out to us and go be the best SOB you can be.