Toronto is huge – so big, in fact, that the districts of Toronto are large cities in their own right. Etobicoke was its own city, of course, before amalgamation, and if it was considered a city by census takers, it would be in the top 20 largest municipalities in Canada. That means that when you’re marketing to Etobicoke, you’re marketing to a city’s worth of people who live in a space that isn’t recognized as a city.
That’s an interesting task.
Using traditional marketing techniques, like television and radio ad buys, isn’t going to cut it. Sure, some people in Etobicoke are going to catch your ad, but you’ll also be advertising to people all over the GTA. When you’re trying to move the needle on a particular region – especially the region your business is located in – it can be useful to use a more targeted approach.
Enter online marketing.
Two big advantages of online marketing: it’s data-driven and it’s targeted. In other words, you can tailor your online marketing strategies to attract people from Etobicoke specifically, instead of wasting your marketing budget casting a broader net. Online marketing is also less expensive than traditional marketing. That’s not to say traditional marketing doesn’t have its place. It’s just not as useful for local targeting, and Etobicoke, while very populous, is going to be easier to target with online marketing.
Let’s start with search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is one of the best online marketing strategies, because it finds clients who are actively looking for your services in your area. In other words, if you’ve got a business in Etobicoke, it means people from Etobicoke who are looking for the products and services your business provides will find you much more easily when you use SEO.
There’s a lot that goes into SEO – in this case, specifically local SEO, which helps you find people making “business near me” types of queries. We can’t cover it all right now, but let me give you some pointers and easy wins. To help keep things clear, we’ll imagine that you own a ramen shop in Etobicoke.
How are you going to let search engines know your ramen shop is in Etobicoke? Making reference to Etobicoke on your home page is a good start. You might also mention the specific neighbourhood in Etobicoke that you’ve set up shop in – let’s say you’re in Humber Valley Village.
Imagine you’re located on Bearwood Drive – you might mention on your home page or About Us page that your shop is “just blocks away from James Gardens”. This gives potential clients a sense of where you’re situated and it lets search engines know that you’re in Etobicoke, and more specifically, Humber Valley Village.
Now imagine your ramen shop has multiple locations around Etobicoke – you might make a location page for each of those locations. You’d have one for Humber Valley Village, one for Islington, one for the Kingsway – you get the idea. You can do this even if you don’t have multiple locations, but that’s a bit trickier – talk to your SEO specialist to know if multiple location pages will get you better or diminishing returns.
Now while there’s a lot more to say about SEO, let’s look at some other types of online marketing. First, social media. One of the great things about social media is that you don’t necessarily have to invest a lot of cash into it – it’s more of a time investment than anything. That isn’t to say there aren’t right ways of doing it, and you could very well find that having a social media coordinator on your team is a huge boon. That said, posting regularly on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms can boost awareness and sales.
Given that our ramen shop is in Etobicoke, it’s more than likely that people who are eating there are from Etobicoke. Those people will have friends in Etobicoke, and they’ll learn about the ramen shop through their friends’ posts! You can also join or create local groups that celebrate dining or business in Etobicoke.
While we’ve mostly addressed online advertising so far, don’t forget about tried-and-true community-building techniques. Give a donation or volunteer at a charity like Haven on the Queensway. Participate in events like the Etobicoke Jazz Festival or Festival of Beer, or any other local festival that you’re interested in. Make sure you’ve got attractive signage that can be seen from the roadside. Tell your customers to tell their friends – word of mouth is still fantastic. Once you’ve boosted business in Etobicoke, you can expand your marketing out to the rest of Toronto!
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