DO POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN?

Here in Santa Cruz County, 41st Avenue serves as a hurdle for many business owners who are eager to expand their customer base. While many locals on either side of town make quarterly or semi-annual journeys beyond this invisible barrier, there are strategic ways in which to increase the geographic radius of your target audience. For many businesses, it’s a matter of cracking the code of reaching tight knit communities, combating traffic patterns or possibly debunking the popular myths that accompany a popular tourism area. All of these can be a tough challenge to overcome. Chipping away at changing shoppers’ habits can be very fruitful for your business. Here are some suggestions to get you started!

1. Team up with neighboring businesses to create a reason for people on the other side of town to visit your business district. Maybe it’s pumping up your areas celebration of First Friday with musicians and wineries that possess a deep following with those regions you’d like to invite to your area. You’ll quickly find this increase in promotional power to be amazingly effective!
2. Create a strategic partnership with a successful business from the other side of town. We’ve recently seen partnerships between bookstores and tap rooms, event producers and businesses outside of prominent downtown areas, as well as between breweries and coffee houses.
3. If your business is located in a traditional, tourist-based area and you’d like to attract local families, place a call into parent school groups and offer a specific “benefit night,” but go the extra mile and welcome that community with a special experience. That may just be creating a special welcome sign, drawing (collecting emails) with an extra sweet prize for parents and kids, or having their music group perform, etc…you get the picture.

Bottom Line: If you’re going to begin thinking about any of these tactics, be sure to go big, thinking small just won’t convince folks to get in their car.