Today’s marketplace is massively competitive. When I first started working for marketing agencies it was ‘easy’ to get a website in 1st place on Google and to build a community on social media platforms that hadn’t yet cottoned on to monetisation of creator content.
In 2025, there are more businesses to compete against and on global platforms like search engines, social media, media outlets and AI platforms your business is competing with the world. A strategic approach is needed to get your business seen by more potential customers.
Here are my tips for how to build brand awareness, increase visibility, attract more customers and drive your business growth.
TL;DR?
Optimise your online presence
So many of these guides start with posting on social media, but in my experience, building and optimising an online presence (website, app, Google business profile, SEO) is the first step for traditional local service based businesses.
I know, I know! There are creators and influencers who have no need for this, but for health professionals, food outlets and other service based businesses the strategy is different.
- Website: Start with a fast, reliable and optimisable website platform. If your website is slow, clunky or offline, your potential customers will leave. There are plenty of other websites that are quick to load the pages and they will attract their business.
- Google Business: This often neglected free tool from Google can make all the difference to your visibility. Claim your profile and get it verified. Update your profile regularly and seek reviews from happy customers.
- Search Engine Optimisation: Like, why would you leave free traffic on the table? Optimise your website using keywords and content marketing to improve your search engine ranking. Build this up until it contributes a proportion of your website traffic. Yes, it is a slower method than advertising but it can contribute a fair proportion of your business.
- PPC Advertising: A fast but not cheap way to get your website at the top of search engine rankings and drive traffic. People searching Google for a particular service have higher intent than people who are browsing content.
Content marketing
Content marketing is a big (read time consuming) element of your business marketing. Content creation includes blogging, video marketing, PR and social media.
- Blog Posts: Make sure your blog posts are compelling and interesting. In 2025, with AI producing a lot of content, writing unique, helpful content, it is critical. It has been important since Google started fighting spam with updates in 2003 and most recently ran the ‘Helpful Content’ update in 2023 and ‘Spam’ update in late 2024.
- Video Marketing: Video has become a marketing essential with the rise in social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok. It has the potential to get your company ethos and personality across within a few seconds – essential to capture the short attention span of modern mobile users.
- Press Releases: Are press releases redundant in 2025? No, they are not. They’re important to get your business in front of people who are using digital media outlet sites. Of which there are many. 57% of U.S. adults get their news from digital platforms on their digital devices compared to 6% in print and 33% on TV.
- Social Media: Distributing content through the social media platforms that best align with your target audience is one of the fastest ways to get your business seen by potential customers. This can be sped up by using advertising on these platforms to increase reach, organic reach is dropping year-on-year as everyone knows.
- Email: Always remember that building a community on social media is building a community on borrowed land. That land can be taken away by the landlord or scammers at any time. If your business is overly dependent on sales from social media, I strongly advise you to build an email list of loyal followers.
Don’t have the time for all this?
Networking and collaborations
Build local and online connections through networking and collaborations which will bring exposure for your business to more people.
- Collaborations: Another way to fast track your social media growth is to arrange collaborations and engage with influencers. This strategic method gives your business a boost by borrowing someone else’s audience.
- Cross-promotions: Cross-promote products or services with another local business who is compatible but not competitive to your business. Promotions need to be carefully thought through to avoid the spammers and freebie seekers but they are still a good way to boost your business visibility.
- Community: Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, X, TikTok, BlueSky, etc to engage with your audience and build up a community. Social is meant to be social. This increases user generated content which builds trust in your business.
- Networking: Networking at local events and over social media has been the way to do business for a very long time. People do business with people and they will refer to the people that they have met ‘in person’ or ‘online’.
Increase customer loyalty
By providing exceptional service to your existing customers you can increase loyalty. This might not seem like a way to get your business seen by potential customers but it is.
Happy customers leave great reviews. This social proof builds trust in your business and will make a potential customer choose your business (5 stars) over someone with 3 stars or no reviews. Encourage your customers to leave reviews.
You can make use of this social proof on your website, in your email signature, on your Google business profile, on social media, and in video content.
How to get your business seen by potential customers
Building brand awareness so that your business is seen by potential customers requires a marketing mix that makes the best use of your resources and your budget. Ensure that you have a strong digital presence with a well built website and SEO.
Create great quality content with a mix of text, images and video. Distribute it on the web, pr, social media and email. Leverage the opportunity that networking and collaborating with other businesses brings including being able to borrow their larger audiences.
Don’t forget community building. And provide brilliant service so that your existing customers are loyal. They’ll mention your business in reviews and in conversations. Use reviews to build a body of social proof that encourages trust in your business.
I’ve seen great results from applying these strategies to the local service based businesses that I work with – see the results in my case studies.
