The 4th of July is a holiday that often brings communities together to celebrate with festivities, food, music, and fireworks. These patriotic celebrations, and throughout July, is the perfect time to brand yourself as a community expert for your small business.

 

While you could reprint some of your signs or fliers in red, white, and blue theme or tie ribbons or balloons to your a-frames or storefront, some other creative ideas can bump up your community street-cred:

 

Offer Promotional Discounts

This is a tried-and-true way to bring customers in the door during July. You will see it all over your community. If you are a retailer, offer a discount for specific items or your whole store. Once you set up your promotion…market, market, market! Post fliers, buy ads, and post on social media.

 

Be the Community Festivities Documenter

This one is an easy and inexpensive way to promote your business if you have some social media smarts. Create buzz by taking pictures and/or videos throughout the community during the festivities. Capture the turnout for the local parade, fireworks, the veteran’s celebration, cute pets, and great eats. Consider asking for submissions from your online community, which will spread the exposure, and don’t forget the tag and hashtag.

 

Sponsor a Festival Booth

No need to do all the heavy lifting throwing an event of your own. Join one of the existing community events around your neighborhood. Most community events or festivals ask local businesses for sponsors and allow those sponsors to put up booths to market their businesses. Sponsoring a booth is an excellent opportunity to increase your visibility about your community and develop your name recognition.

 

Create an Awesome 4th of July Giveaway Contest

Giveaways are always a big hit and a great way to connect with your local and online community. People love contests and freebies, so creating buzz around your brand by combining the two is a no-brainer. Additionally, suppose you’re doing a booth at a community event. In that case, you can generate more interest in your booth by combining it with a fabulous raffle or giveaway and collecting contacts to enter.

 

Partner Up with Another Business

Partnering with another business is a great way to cross-market for both companies. You market to your customers to get the word out, and they market to theirs, doubling your exposure. Need some ideas for finding a partner:

• Ask a local food truck to partner with you. You can cover half the cost of the truck’s fees for the rental space, and they can hand out fliers or logo promo items with customer purchases.
• Are you a real estate agent? Go half-sies with a mortgage broker for your event booth.
• Co-host a community get-together, meet and greet, or block party with a couple other businesses. 
• Double your mailing list by partnering with another company on a direct-mail postcard campaign. This may take a little work for your graphic designer to market both companies, but we have seen it done, and it works!
• Know another company that is doing a different event on the same day? Swap marketing materials so you are each getting active and passive exposure. 

 

When selecting another business to partner up with, consider affiliated businesses or companies you regularly do business with. If you’re a pool cleaning company, think about partnering with a pool supply company, or if you’re a veterinarian, you could partner with a dog groomer.

 

Join in the Parade

You can almost always find a community parade near the 4th of July, so why not join in? You can quickly brand your vehicle with custom-printed car magnets or a printed banner with your company logo, or go all out and decorate it to the nines with goodies from the dollar store. You can also give away branded candy, koozies, or other logoed giveaways on the parade route.

 

Regardless of how you decide to promote your business during July, you should use appropriate signage to display your business brand and what your services are. If you’re doing a booth or a float, be well-decorated with upfront signage so people know who you are. Hand out branded merchandise, business cards, and fliers. You will not be able to speak with everyone who happens by, but putting information and branded material into the hands of people will ensure they remember you once they get home.

 

Not sure how to find a local event or festival to promote your business? Check with your city recreation department or local chamber of commerce for contact information for local events.

 

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Need help coming up with ideas for printed promotional items? Send us an email at contact@pigdesigns.com and we can help!