South Brooklyn is a Misused Term That Can Cost You

By Writer45 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48316112

South Brooklyn is NOT one Place

South Brooklyn is an often misused term for the collection of neighborhoods. Historically it was part of the City of Brooklyn, but that was in 1898. 

If you mean the historical South Brooklyn, that is Boerum Hill, Carroll Garden, Cobble Hill, Gowanus, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Sunset Park, and Red Hook. Some of these neighborhoods couldn’t be more different. For example, you have posh Park Slope and rough-edged Red Hook.

It’s also sometimes confused with the southernmost part of Brooklyn, which is Gravesend, Sea Gate, Coney Island, and the beaches (Brighton, Manhattan, etc.). Again, not useful when developing targeted strategies for local businesses.

How to Evaluate Small Business Marketing Firms

Use the 6 Key Factors

6 Factors Great Small Business Marketing Agency

You Need to Know Where You Are Going Before Choosing How to Get There.

Strategy is a term that is misused often. A strategy is making a clear choice of between options. As a metaphor, I like to use a vacation as the example. The strategy is choosing where to go. The tactic is the means of transportation. Here, you need to evaluate if the agency you choose has a clear understand of where you are going and how it can deploy its tactics to help you win.

Your Marketing Needs to Deliver a Return

Sometimes marketing is an investment. Sometimes programs work. Sometimes, they fail. Regardless, you need a measurement plan in place to know which to kill and which to grow.

Testing is How You Learn

Learning is part of any marketing campaign. It is how you improve and grow. The market is constantly changing. You will be best suited to meet that change if you constantly testing.

Digital Marketing Knowhow is Fundamental

Digital marketing is a diverse field. One group specializes on web design and another on social. If you need a specialized agency for each, the costs add up quickly. Each have overheads they need to cover. This is where a full service agency can help. Those overheads are shared the different disciplines. Now, one caveat, it is important to know that the full service agency can provide the same if not better quality as the specialized.

Small Business Experience Can't be Beat

Large company solutions or carbon copies of other campaigns rarely work for small businesses. If you are seeking marketing help, make sure that the firm you chose has the experience in small business.

Risk Sharing

If a marketing firm will not share some of the risk with you, then they are not as vested in the outcome as you are.

Creativity Wins Points.

According to Best Designs, original graphics are the most successful. 

“Original graphics make up 40% of all successful visual content that accomplishes marketing goals, but 43% of marketers struggle with the consistent production of captivating visuals.”

Since we are communicating one message, the artwork that supports it must work very hard to support the message. This is where local market know-how can really help. Original photos and images of your business in Kipps Bay interacting with your neighborhood can add value.

It also helps with when your calls to action focus on local events in and around South Brooklyn or at your business location.

email marketing for small business call to action

Call to Action

Every email, no matter how trivial, should have a call to action. This is where all the hard work above pays off. If we omit one, we just wasted resources that could have been spent more cost effectively.

We cover email list building in great detail in our post on small business email marketing. Again, we will just hit the highlights here as it pertains to South Brooklyn. Every neighborhood has summer fairs. While these were severely impacted by COVID, in our post COVID world they should roar back with a vengeance. It would be smart to see if you could piggy-back off one or more of them.

Incentives, deals, free trials, and samples are all great options when developing your calls to action. See if you can partner with your neighbors to create a shared promotion. This way one shopper in South Brooklyn has two or more places to visit while out in the neighborhood.

Size Does Matter

I wish it were otherwise, but it is like a law of nature. The size of your account is directly proportional to the time the agency will spend on it. It is also proportional to the quality and experience of the talent that we are assigned to your business. Luckily, you can solve this problem by finding an agency where your business and budget matters to their bottom line. This is why smaller firms are preferable for smaller businesses.

Location is equally important. Most small businesses are local businesses, where the target audience is within a few blocks to mile radius from your location. Each place is unique. It has its own quirks. It takes someone who knows the area to understand those nuances. This is important because you want your ads to be perceived as authentic. Customers are easily turned off by cookie-cutter responses or creative.

Are They Willing to Share the Risk?

Marketing is not an exact science, where you say X and your target always does Y. This doesn't mean that marketing does not work or that it is a waste of time. It simply acknowledges the fact upfront that marketing contains some risk. It is true that there are best practices that can reduce this risk to optimize your return.

However, you never have complete information so sometimes even the best plans take time or need tweaking. This is why you should seek a partner who is upfront about the risk and is willing to share it with you. You also have to be willing to invest the time in following best practices. If you are dictating all the terms, then it is only reasonable that you accept that risk.

If you need help with marketing your business, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Things to Remember…

If you're thinking about finding help in South Brooklyn for your small business, here are the things to keep in mind.

  1. Find a firm that knows your area. If your small business is marketing anywhere in Brooklyn, you'll want help from someone who understands the lay of the land, character of the neighborhood, and the challenges its businesses face. If someone uses the term South Brooklyn, it’s a red flag.
  2. Find a company you can trust. If you can't trust a business to have your best interests, you're already going to be left in the lurch. Make sure you have a guarantee that your business will be treated fairly by all parties.
  3. Get the size of help you need. A larger firm can provide more resources and can do more things. A smaller firm, on the other hand, can be less intimidating, with the added benefit of one-on-one help from the best the company can offer.

if you are more interest in the borough, you can see our Small Business Marketing in Brooklyn. If you want the full city, you can see our Small Business Marketing in NYC.