Small business owners—particularly those in service-based industries like beauty, fitness, and wellness—know that every bit of exposure can help them succeed. Once you’ve got your digital marketing campaigns in order with Vagaro, you may find yourself with a bit of a budgeting surplus! With a bit of extra cash set aside and earmarked for your marketing and promotional efforts, you may be wondering how you can get that budget surplus to work for you. There’s an easy way for you to double-down on your efforts and add even more power to your Vagaro business listings and promotions: membership through your local chamber of commerce! The main goal of your local chamber of commerce is to strengthen and promote local businesses and protect their interests at the local level. Here are eight ways that a chamber of commerce membership can help build your brand, create new networking opportunities, and add to your industry authority.
1. Build Industry Credibility
Because of their business integrity, affiliation with a
chamber of commerce tends to establish your business relevance, both locally
and in the online world. Not only will adding your chamber of commerce
affiliation to your Vagaro featured listing
carry weight with new customers browsing your business, but it’ll also help with
discoverability.
2. Improve Your SEO
When your business website and Vagaro featured listing are linked from a
chamber of commerce .org website, search engines regard this link as an authoritative
reference point. This improves your
business SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which is essentially
the key tool that helps a person entering a search query get matched with your
business. Because chamber of commerce websites generally contain powerful, robust
content, direct linkage from the chamber of commerce site to your Vagaro
listings tells search engines like Google, Firefox, and Bing that your site is
important by association.
3. Local B2B Networking
Your local chamber of commerce is in the business of
bringing local tradespeople together, and the best part for you is, they do all
the heavy lifting. A chamber of commerce membership is a great way to network, build,
and promote local business-to-business (B2B) relationships, opening doors for
collaborative marketing, community outreach, and partnerships.
4. Mentorship
A chamber of commerce membership is like the line from a Beatles song – you get by with a little help from your friends! Think of your membership as a centralized source of information, community updates, and crowdsourced knowledge. When you are part of your local chamber of commerce, you’ll be able to troubleshoot better and draw upon the collective knowledge and experience of business owners who have worked in your area or industry for years.
5. Increased Referrals
One of the best benefits of networking through your chamber of commerce is the increase in referrals. You’ll not only make contacts from inside your own industry, but your network will expand to other business owners in your area who can refer vendors and consumers seeking new relationships.
6. Community Outreach
Most chambers of commerce host special events throughout the year that can serve your business two-fold. First, participating in events helps you expand your local connections, which can serve to generate leads to expand your client base. Second, many organized chamber of commerce events benefit local volunteerism efforts. Charity balls, fundraisers, workshops and community activities increase your local presence and are events you can promote with your Vagaro marketing tools. When you work towards community improvement, you create a better base of operations for your business!
7. Advertising
Speaking of adding extra oomph to your Vagaro marketing, a chamber of commerce membership provides you with additional advertising opportunities. Add your Vagaro booking links to chamber of commerce advertising and use Vagaro integrated marketing with email and social media to cross-promote your local advertising through the chamber of commerce. This is an easy way to use multi-channel marketing to your advantage!
8. Local Discounts
Because chambers of commerce serve small businesses across many industries, one of the perks of membership is discounts on products and services your business needs. Chamber business members offer exclusive discounts to other chamber members, meaning you can use your membership to save money on the goods and services your business needs for everyday operations. For instance, if you own a fitness facility that requires equipment maintenance, you might get a discount from a chamber member who provides that service. Likewise, if you’re a salon owner with a plumbing emergency, look no further than the chamber of commerce to find a local plumber who can come to the rescue at a lower rate.
Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce Day is observed annually on the third Wednesday in October, so it’s an opportune time to review the benefits of chamber of commerce membership and how they can amplify the effectiveness of your Vagaro marketing tools. Local benefits, global visibility—put your Vagaro marketing and Get Featured listing to work double-time when you join a chamber of commerce!
Header Image: Sarah Pflug via Burst
