Photo courtesy of Dobutsu
Updated February 2023
Did you know Step Out Buffalo has a ton of free ways to get free promotions for your restaurant?
From Step Out Buffalo’s free community updates and deals to our free event and business listings, there’s lots of ways to easily get your business in front of a larger, more engaged audience at no cost.
Here’s what you need to know:
- When the pandemic first hit Western New York hard in early 2020, we launched our Community Update Board to help customers find the information they needed to know about their favorite local businesses.
- Since then, we’ve also rolled out SOB Deals, which take things a step further by helping our readers discover all of the great deals, happy hours, coupons, and specials that local businesses have to offer.
- Both are great ways to drive traffic to your business’s physical location and/or website by offering new customers an exciting event or actionable deal to take advantage of.
And if you’re new around here, below is an exhaustive list of all of the opportunities available for free on the Step Out Buffalo website to help businesses to expand their reach:
- Step Out Buffalo Event Listings: These can cover virtually any event of any size, both in-person to virtual. If you’re hosting an event, people probably want to know about it, and we’re here to help spread the word.
- Step Out Buffalo Community Updates: Great for sharing business updates like updated seasonal hours, new services offered, etc.
- Step Out Buffalo Deals: Ideal for driving customers to your business with exclusive specials, discounts, offers, etc.
- Step Out Buffalo Business/Restaurant Listings: These cover basic business information such as address, phone number, hours, curbside takeout available, etc.
Side Note: If you do have a budget for marketing, you can also consider partnering directly with our marketing team here at Step Out Buffalo! Read our case studies for more information.
These free resources are a great place to start, but if you’re really looking to take things to the next level, read on for a few tips directly from our editors on what makes for a standout listing on the Step Out Buffalo website:
- Having large, high-quality organic photos with no text help listings stand out to both our editors and our readers.
- If you have a recurring event, be sure to switch up the photos you submit weekly/monthly to keep things fresh.
- Write a solid, descriptive title for your listing by asking yourself what sort of title might entice you to click if you were a customer.
- Update your business/restaurant listings regularly with seasonal hours, new photos, updated descriptions, etc. The most recently updated listings get bumped to the top, so more people will see them.
- Make sure to fill out ALL of the fields – hours, days, website, social media links, ticket links, etc. As a general rule of thumb, the more information you can provide to both our editors and audience, the better your listing will perform.
- Take a look at all of the other listings that appear on our website. How can you leverage what other people are doing, and how can you get creative to make your listing stand out from the crowd?
