Get in the (metaphorical) car because we’re going on a summer road trip! This week on the S.O.B. (small owned business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are “driving” along the coast to take you SOBs to different stops/locations where you can find local advertising opportunities.
Local advertising can be a game changer for small businesses, and there are lots of opportunities out there! Don’t skip this episode and go be the BEST SOB you can be.
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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to SOB Marketing
02:10 Marketing HOT TAKE: Traditional Advertising is GOOD for Getting Local
09:08 Local Chamber of Commerce
13:15 Exploring Print and Local Media
14:36 Harnessing Facebook Groups for Local Engagement
16:49 The Role of Micro Influencers in Local Marketing
20:10 Sponsorships: Engaging with Local Communities
22:37 The Importance of Local SEO
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Vivian: I have seen a lot of reporters use this. Okay. I've screenshotted every single time I've seen it. They'll go into Facebook groups, specifically within like a community, if there's a story they're working on, and they'll say, by the way, is there any business related to XY and Z who wants to talk about X, Y, and Z?
*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: 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.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Vivian: Chelsea, get in this car right now. We are going on a road trip.
Chelsea: Is it a convertible?
Vivian: It...you guys, I used to have a convertible, a LeBaron, white LeBaron. Chelsea was, when I started driving she was still a baby, but she always insisted on riding with me down to the beach so her curly hair in the back seat, the baby seat, could get all messy.
Chelsea: I loved that car.
Vivian: I know. I loved that car too. That car lasted me so long too. Love you. R.I.P. Chrysler LeBaron convertible.
Chelsea: Okay, so we're getting in the convertible. Where are we going?
Vivian: Because today we're going on a trip and we are talking about where small businesses can find local advertising opportunities. What I envision this conversation kind of going is-
Chelsea: Summer road trip.
Vivian: Yeah. Summer road trip. Chelsea's going to tell us the pit stops we're making to find certain advertising opportunities. So yeah, climb in the back.
Chelsea: Yeah. Get in the back. Come on. Make sure your hair is, if you're worried about it, put it a scarf. Yeah, get a scarf.
Vivian: Let's go to Buc-ee's first, get all the snacks.
Chelsea: Absolutely. We're stopping at Buc-ee's and then after Buc-ee's, we're going to stop real quick because I have my marketing hot take that I need to discuss first. That is, Vivian, traditional marketing is not dead. If anything, it is a very, they are very beneficial strategies when it comes to local advertising. I mean, think about your print ads. Think about postcards and billboards. Those are things that do a very good job at focusing in on your local community.
Vivian: Yeah, and giving you access to people that potentially are best suited to buy your product or service. At the end of the day, that's all we care about as small business owners, right? Is we just want to be able to tap into people that ultimately, eventually are going to buy from us. I do think also, Chelsea, because there is so much focus on digital stuff these days, this is probably one of the best ways you can set yourself apart.
Chelsea: I know, right? That's how you stand out.
Vivian: Absolutely. I do think it gives this added allure of like you're doing the one thing that most people aren't doing.
Chelsea: You're doing something that's different. I remember, well, I can't remember if we had this conversation on an episode or if we had the conversation in the SOB community, but I think postcards and mailers and stuff like that can be so beneficial. We talked about how a lot of people, most people like getting mail. A lot of people aren't sending out mailers anymore. It's a great way to stand out and it's a great way to get very niche when it comes down to your target location. You know, you can focus on one neighborhood.
Vivian: Chelsea, hand me that thing right there, the newspaper.
All right. I'm going to bring this up very quickly. I'm not going to stay on this too long. So part of the reason-
Chelsea: 30 minutes later...I'm sorry.
Vivian: This is actually, it's political season everywhere, you guys. We're voting for some of these local offices. This is someone who's running for governor, and what I thought was interesting about this, had not heard about this candidate, wasn't on my radar at all. He decided to actually come in and as you can see, this is a newspaper. It's 12 pages long. On here, he actually, he's spent pages talking about my eight commitments, roads and I'll fix South Carolina disastrous roads, dangerous roads, and then my plan to slash income taxes, all this stuff. The reason I bring this up is because for one, not very many politicians are actually thinking about doing, like a 12-page their own newspaper. But what intrigued me was I had never heard about this person. I got this thing and I actually read the whole thing because I was like, very rarely, unless you're watching someone's video or you're watching their political ads or you maybe get a small postcard. Very rarely do you have an opportunity for somebody to sit there and write out everything they want you to know about them.
Chelsea: Well, I was going to say most of the time with politicians, you have no idea really what they're about. So yeah...we're not endorsing anyone just saying.
Vivian: We're not. What I thought though was interesting is as a small business owner, I thought this is actually a pretty good marketing campaign in the sense that he's like, where else can I have a platform? I'll make my own platform. That platform is going to be a direct mail piece that I send to people and it gives me enough space. It could be as big as I want. Now he paid for every bit of that. But, you know, to your point, it's not a quick 20 second ad that I really I'm just left with just knowing it's a political ad and I can get some-
Chelsea: See this is different. All political ads to me sound exactly the same.
Vivian: This one was different. The other part of it too is when I read it, it actually sounded like something he wrote or the person wrote. So I was like, interesting. I would like to think they did maybe.
Chelsea: Who knows? Also, we're out in the country. I think that was very spot on.
Vivian: Community based.
Chelsea: Community based. Spot on, effective.
Vivian: Interesting. Now, sorry I took us down, but all that to just reiterate what you were sharing.
Chelsea: Which is traditional advertising, traditional marketing, not dead, can be effective for local advertising. Now Vivian. We're back in the car. We're driving. We have our first pit stop. *car sound effects*
Was that good?
Vivian: That's good.
Chelsea: Okay, thank you.
Vivian: You missed the exit. Y'all, we did miss the exit one time in Tampa and literally I had to go 20 minutes over a bridge and then back.
Chelsea: We had to go over the bridge and then back around again.
Vivian: Beautiful view.
Chelsea: It was beautiful. The problem with...I don't want to say Hispanic people, but in my opinion, in what I've experienced, when it comes to giving people directions, here, let me rephrase this. When I am giving people directions and I'm sitting in the passenger seat, I talk and then I go, oh you should have been over there. You were supposed to be over there. What are you doing?
Vivian: Yeah, we're...I mean, I don't know. I think we're kind of good at giving directions, maybe.
Chelsea: Maybe Vivian is. I am not. If you want to get somewhere, don't ask me.
Vivian: I would not ask dad if I'm good at giving directions. When I was little, this is family history, you guys. Family lore. When I was little, dad made me the co pilot. I think maybe I was like 11 or 12 and we were going down to Six Flags.
Chelsea: I wasn't born yet.
Vivian: Yeah, Chelsea wasn't, she hadn't graced us with her presence yet. We were going down to Six Flags in Dallas, and we went right past an exit we were supposed to get off on. This was before GPS and all that stuff. I just remember dad was not pleased, not pleased.
Chelsea: So we've pulled off our first stop. We're at the local chamber of commerce. Now, a big part of local advertising is partnerships. Right? It's partnering with other small businesses in your community. Where do we find these other small businesses? I mean, you can also just walk around and show up. But preferably you can join your local chamber of commerce. It's a great place to network. Remember, we asked you guys to at least go to two networking events a year. I also want to say that your local chamber probably has some pretty good connections when it comes to advertising in the community. You know, they probably know all the good print shops or they know who to reach out to if you're interested in that billboard over there, stuff like that. Go ahead and try to consume all of that knowledge.
Vivian: Definitely a wonderful resource that sometimes we talk about things being vertically deep. It's not surface level, right? They have a lot of resources, and so joining as a member is going to give you a lot of access to people, to opportunities, to connections, and like you said-
Chelsea: You can get a, I'm sorry but real quick, ribbon cuttings. We've talked about ribbon cuttings multiple times on this podcast, and every time we do, we say your local chamber can help you with your ribbon cutting.
Vivian: Absolutely. So we love that. Definitely opens up doors to being able to access some of the traditional advertising opportunities that are out there for small businesses. The other thing that helps is they are all about small businesses. Your success is their success. They want to be out there rooting for you and they want to help you with whatever initiative that you have. So great one. The other thing is I know we're not talking specifically about the opportunities that are within there, but you guys, a lot of times they're attached to, they also handle the visitor centers. They do the local community guides. They send out emails to their members. So when we talk about being able to access groups of people, this is the place to be. So I love that this is our first stop on the trip because Chelsea, I think as far as bang for your buck, you're going to get a lot of it.
Chelsea: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up guides. We're detouring. We're already detouring. I'm glad you brought up guides. This was something that I was debating on talking about in this episode. Ultimately, I decided against it just because of the way that we're having this conversation. But I don't want you guys to forget about guides when it comes to local advertising. If you can get into the visitor center's guide, or maybe there's a best places to eat in downtown Charleston. I know in Columbia they have Experience Columbia online, which is like a directory and it also is a guide and it tells you like here are all the businesses in this part of Columbia. Getting in something like that definitely helpful.
Vivian: Also, relocation. I know some communities are experiencing a lot of growth and if you're a dentist, if you're a physician, if you're any type of service that most people need to establish early on when they're moving within the first like three to six months that they move to an area-
Chelsea: If they're responsible adults.
Vivian: If they're responsible adults, then you may want to tap into that. These relocation guides are also super helpful. Plenty of opportunity out there, like Chelsea said. Chelsea, are we back in the car?
Chelsea: Yeah, we're back in the car. *bad car sounds* That one wasn't as good. Let me try again. That was more of a door. Okay. *more bad car sounds*
Vivian: I think there's something wrong with our car.
Chelsea: Yeah, it's because I'm trying to make the noise for it. Vivian, what's our next stop?
Vivian: Okay, the next stop is going to be print and local media. Because traditional advertising is such a powerful tool, we want you to reach out to your local magazines, your local radio stations. Now remember you guys. Their opportunities may look a little different now in 2026 than they did back in 1996, simply because technology has changed. That doesn't mean that they aren't paying attention and trying to tap into your local audience.
Chelsea: Ooh, Vivian, let's not forget also when it comes to print and local media, press releases. Yes. You don't necessarily have to pay for these advertising opportunities. If you write a good enough story, if you have something going on and you send it to a reporter, they'll probably pick it up.
Vivian: Yeah, I do love this part, Chelsea, because this has been on the up and up. Listen, there was one in here, one stop that I'm going to add. So this is a surprise stop. Chelsea doesn't know about it.
Chelsea: We didn't even get back in the car.
Vivian: Get back in the car.
Chelsea: Okay.
Vivian: Okay, okay. We are at our surprise stop, which is Facebook groups. This kind of ties into what you just mentioned about the print and the press releases. If you guys, there sometimes can be really great opportunities in these Facebook groups. I have seen so many people go to them. Most of them, they're local, they're community-based, but they will use it as a way to reach out to people to partner, right? Kind of like your chamber a little bit, but a little more localized. The other part of it, too, is I have seen a lot of reporters use this. Okay. I've screenshotted every single time I've seen it. They'll go into Facebook groups, specifically within like a community, if there's a story they're working on, and they'll say, by the way, is there any business related to XY and Z who wants to talk about X, Y, and Z? Okay. I do think Facebook groups can serve as a really good place to connect and to find a local audience space to tap into.
Chelsea: I love that. I'm so glad that you brought that. That as someone who doesn't use Facebook that much, I didn't realize I was missing out on these opportunities.
Vivian: Yes. Absolutely.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: *bad car sound effects* It's still not good. Y'all, I'm not, what's it called? Like a sound effects person. Yeah, I'm not a sound effects person. Okay. Here's our next stop. Our next stop is going to be social media and specifically micro influencers. Let's not forget about micro influencers and how beneficial they can be when it comes to local marketing and local advertising. Their whole thing is that they're niche down.
Vivian: Yeah, and if you guys just need a reminder, if you're on the Tiki Tok any, TikTok has done a lot to promote these micro influencers in areas. So for example, anytime we are going to go someplace, if I want to know about restaurants, if I want to-
Chelsea: If we're spending 20 minutes on a bridge in Tampa and trying to figure out what we're going to do when we finally get what we're supposed to be.
Vivian: Looking for a place to get alcohol because we're over it. You can go on TikTok and it's going to give you a lot of the localized restaurants, shopping, all of that stuff, things to do in the area. Micro influencers, to Chelsea's point can be a really great source for some of this local promotion because the algorithms are all kind of helping, right? Everyone's conspiring to help them.
Chelsea: So where do you actually find micro influencers? Facebook groups, great place to look. Social media, doing your due diligence and seeing who or what is trending in your local area. You could also use Vivian, Instagram's Creator Marketplace.
Vivian: Yeah. Did you guys know that Instagram had a creator marketplace? Don't lie to us. Tell us in the comments below. Did you know?
Chelsea: I mean, I know you know if you're a part of the SOB community, because we've talked about it multiple times and we actually did a whole here's how you set up your side as a business owner.
Instagram's Creator Marketplace is exactly what it sounds like. It is specifically designed to help businesses search for influencers or search for an influencer that's going to meet all of their requirements for whatever they're trying to do, whatever their marketing campaign is. So it's a great way to filter out micro influencers that you might not be interested in. It's a great way to find that perfect fit so you can have a partnership.
Vivian: Yeah, this is very nice hub to be able to tap into. Also if you guys are not going to use it, I mean, we encourage you just to go check it out. If you're interested in connecting with micro influencers, go in there, check it out, kind of see how they have the database set up so that way you can look, even if you're not connecting with them in the hub itself, it might lead you to a couple people you had not considered before.
Chelsea: Don't skip out on micro influencers just because you feel like you can't find the right person.
Vivian: Absolutely.
Chelsea: Okay.
*Chelsea and Vivian both* We're back in the car.
Chelsea: All right. Are you going to do the sound?
Vivian: *dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun* You have a flat tire. I'm joking.
Chelsea: Don't wish that on me!
Vivian: Chelsea's notorious for flat tires, you guys.
Chelsea: I'm pretty sure two of my tires are leaking air. Actually not pretty sure. I know for a fact because I keep on having to put air in them.
Vivian: I think she purposefully finds every single nail on the road.
Chelsea: I don't!
Vivian: All right, so tell us if we want to do sponsorships, where are we stopping?
Chelsea: You want to do sponsorship, reach out to sports clubs, reach out to high schools. I literally went onto my old high schools website and found where I can go ahead and request to be a sponsor.
Vivian: Is this because you're about to come up on a 10-year anniversary or something?
Chelsea: No, it was for the notes for this. I wanted to make sure that you can actually do that, and you can. You can just go onto their website.
Vivian: Don't forget you can also do this, towns do it. So like the town of Mount Pleasant, the city of Charleston. You can find opportunities to do sponsorships there. So look at your local municipalities.
Chelsea: Look at you, big word. Don't forget about events. You can sponsor an event, so just reach out to the event organizer. Again, usually you can go onto their website and find the information.
One thing I want to mention in this pit stop, in this little stop right here, you don't always have to offer money when it comes to sponsorships. You can get involved in events by offering your time as well.
Vivian: Volunteering or in kind donations. There are a lot of times that you can donate, whether it be food or perhaps t shirts if you're a print company. You could do their promotional items. If you're a florist for a lot of these like legislative luncheons or events like that, people need floral arrangements, centerpieces. You can do in-kind donations of that sort. You negotiate, you say, hey, more than happy to donate the flowers if you're willing to put me in as a sponsor on all the signage.
Chelsea: Don't forget about that that side of sponsorships.
Vivian: That's right. All right. I think we have one last, it's not really a stop. We're done with the trip, Chels.
Chelsea: Yeah, we're done with the trip, but I do kind of, I want to pull over and have this conversation with you guys, is what it is. Cause our focus was local advertising. Now we did specifically focus on where to find the opportunities, where to actually reach out to market yourself locally. I do want to point out a big part of local advertising is your SEO. I don't want to have a conversation about local advertising without bringing that up. That is not something that you go to someone. That is something that you, unless you're outsourcing it, of course, but that is something that you need to work on as a small business owner. So don't forget you need to claim your Google business profile. You need to claim your Apple Maps profile because that's different. You need to I mean, I would suggest claiming your business on Yelp because that's a big thing when it comes to local communities.
Vivian: Just be prepared that Yelp is going to call you every other week to try to sell you something.
Chelsea: Yeah. Just so you know that will happen, but it is good to be on Yelp. Or if you're a restaurant, Open Table, all of those things. It's good for your SEO. Also, if you have already claimed all these things, don't forget to make sure they're up to date. That is a big part of SEO. That is not something that I want you guys to forget about because, there's no one there with you having the conversation. When it comes to local advertising, you're reaching out to print. You're reaching out and you're having that two way conversation. This is all stuff that you're going to have to handle on your own and I don't want you to forget about it.
Vivian: Well, I am glad you included local SEO. We do think that's a big opportunity there and something people must do, local businesses must do. I am going to tease something. I know we had talked about this in our SOB community, Chelsea. Google has officially come out. The words SEO, GEO, all that stuff. We have a whole podcast episode on this. Go listen to it if you haven't. They basically are, they've told us their recommendations for showing up on the search generative experience. so we may do an episode of on that in the future.
Please go ahead and subscribe so that way you guys can get a notification. the reason we love anytime Google tells us exactly what to do is because once they've kind of put their stamp of approval on it, we're not guessing anymore. We want to share the latest information for you. We think in the future we are going to be sharing that. I bring it up because local, the SEO is now part of that GEO and all that because now they're using so much of the AI stuff.
Chelsea: Which go listen to the Google AI conversation, go listen to all of our episodes. I do have one more thing, Vivian, before we move on. I also want to say if you're thinking about local advertising and maybe doing print or maybe another example, billboards or stuff like that, go ahead and reach out to other local businesses.
Vivian: The best partnerships I have had in marketing have been with local printers, local sign companies, people that once you've worked with them on several projects, they understand your priorities, they understand your workflow, and they can adhere to that and vice versa. It is nice to be able to depend on people to know that they're going to be consistent. God forbid, if you guys are ever in a pickle, they can certainly help you out with stuff, especially if you have that established working relationships. So we want you whenever you do have an opportunity to help support another SOB, another small owned business, do it. They're the people that you can rely on to just help with the coordination of all these projects and it makes your life a little easier.
Chelsea: Yes. Okay. This was a nice road trip, y'all. Thanks for taking a summer drive with us.
Vivian: Yeah. Now get out, scram, get out of my LeBaron. Get out of here.
But before you leave, don't forget to go ahead and subscribe. Leave us a review because that will help to get these conversations in front of other small business owners. As you guys know, we just want to build a big army, community.
Chelsea: Army is better. Army of SOBs supporting other SOBs. So you know what? Go out there and be the best SOB you can be.