It is not necessary to aggressively promote your business only if is an online venture. You can easily advertize your business even if you operate from a brick and mortar store or office. There are several ways with most of them being free, to attract local customers towards your business by using the internet.
Google offers several options to advertize and you can simply begin by using the free Google Places for Business feature to put your business address and other details on the internet. You can mention your business timings, special features if any, and even include images. In addition, you can also opt for paid advertisements through Google AdWords Express if you wish increased prominence.
You can also use Google’s new social networking feature, Google+ to market your business locally. You should visit the Google+ business page to create your own business page and can also share, promote, and monitor your marketing strategy using various features offered by Google+.
Another method to advertise could be on other social media websites such as Linkedin where you will have to pay to advertise. You can try advertising on such sites for a few months while monitoring the results to gauge if the amount spent is well worth the effort. You should also opt for free listings wherever possible and a short search will provide a list of websites that offers such services.
However, you should definitely create your own website in order to advertise your local business as well as develop that vital trust factor that is so important in these competitive times. Web designing and development charges have dropped drastically in recent times and you should opt for a web team that can design and display an optimized website that results in high page ranking with major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc.
With an increasing number of people using internet searches to locate local businesses, you too should ensure that you have an online presence for your brick-and-mortar business. The cost of going online is quite negligible and the benefits will truly be huge.