6 Tips to Market Your Small Business in Door County, WI for the Summer of 2025
“Shopping locally is an act of love for your community and the people who make it special.”
- Dolly Parton
As the Summer starts to unfold, those of us who grew up in Northeast Wisconsin (particularly around the Door County Peninsula of Wisconsin) are preparing to experience a surge in tourism, with approximately 2.5 million visitors expected annually between the months of May and October.
For small businesses in this vibrant community, this influx presents a golden opportunity to enhance local visibility and attract both seasonal tourists and local residents. Here are some tips to help you navigate the local marketing landscape effectively for the upcoming months!
1. Leverage Local SEO to Enhance Online Presence
In today’s smartphone age, ensuring your business appears in local search results is a top priority! Here's the fastest way to optimize your online presence:
Google Business Profile (GBP): Claim and regularly update your GBP listing with accurate business hours, location, and engaging photos. This enhances your visibility in local searches and Google Maps.
Local Keywords: Incorporate location-specific keywords into your website content and meta descriptions to improve search engine rankings (we can help with this!).
Customer Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and your social media pages. Positive reviews build trust and influence potential customers, search engines like Google love them, and they are a fast, free, and easy way to support local businesses!
2. Engage with the Community Through Events and Sponsorships
Participating in local events fosters community engagement and brand recognition. I have seen amazing community support develop behind local businesses, just by the owners making a point to get involved and being supportive of their peers!
A simple way to do this is to partner with local businesses to host festivals, farmers' markets, or charity events to help the local community and at the same time increase your brand visibility.
You can offer free or low-cost workshops related to your business to attract local attendees. This gives you an opportunity to meet people, show and demonstrate your business, and also build positive word-of-mouth advertising momentum!
The main idea here is that teaming up with neighboring businesses for cross-promotions or joint events is a simple way to build relationships and make your business money. An event like a local “First Friday” event, or maybe a sale where you get a discount on ice cream if you bring in a movie ticket stub, or a free drink if you bring in a dinner receipt, could be a simple way to manufacture success. Just be creative and think of something that pairs services to get more customers for both businesses!
3. Utilize Social Media for Targeted Advertising
Social media platforms are powerful tools for reaching local audiences. Something as simple as a “community blitz” where you share a deal or promotion to all of your local community pages could be a way to get a few quick wins for your business!
You can also use things like targeted social media ads to target a geographic area. Facebook and Instagram's geo-targeting features to run ads aimed at users within Door County and the surrounding area.
Share behind-the-scenes content, customer testimonials, and user-generated content to build a connection with your audience. The easiest form of content is the kind that you don’t have to create or rack your brain coming up for ideas for. Let your customers do it for you!
4. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users
With the increasing use of smartphones, ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Most tourists will be doing searches from their smartphones, so you want to make sure that your website is setup to send the message that you are trying to send. If your text runs off the page, or your pictures don’t load, it not only looks bad, but it makes YOU look bad.
Here are some simple tips to make sure users have a good mobile experience:
Have a Responsive Design: Choose a website design that adjusts seamlessly to different screen sizes. Formatting for mobile devices is relatively simple, and should be a main priority when designing your site.
Make Sure You Have Fast Loading Times: Optimize images and scripts to ensure quick loading times, enhancing user experience. You want to minimize loading times so that you can WOW customers with your site, not frustrate them as they wait for a menu to load.
Use Clear Calls to Action: Make it easy for visitors to contact you and/or make a purchase with prominent and clear calls to action.
5. Collaborate with Local Influencers and Bloggers
Influencer marketing can effectively reach a broader audience. Now, “influencer” does not necessarily mean a celebrity endorsement or someone rich and famous. While that is great (and if you have connections, by all means use them!), an “influencer” is just someone who has an audience in your community or line of business. This could be a local newspaper or podcaster, maybe another business who is willing to do an interview and you can feature each other’s website on social media, or even just like-minded people that you can work with to create mutual value over time. Is there a travel page on social media? A food blogger that can review your restaurant? Or maybe a magazine or newspaper that can feature a story and you can share each other’s pages for backlinks? Or even better yet, YOU write guest posts for local blogs to share your expertise and promote your business! If you need a starting point for this, WE can partner on this to! Just let us know!
6. Join groups like Destination Door County
Becoming a partner with groups like Destination Door County (or any local tourism group/chamber of commerce) provides access to valuable resources:
Marketing Materials: Gain access to special promotional materials and advertising opportunities.
Event Listings: Have your events featured on Destination Door County's official website. Have them share the link to your website or social media event, and then you can share their posting, and you will both get the benefits of backlinks!
Networking Opportunities: Connect with other local businesses and tourism professionals every chance that you get. This is how we find the partnership opportunities, like I mentioned earlier!
The Summer of 2025 offers a unique opportunity for small businesses in and around Door County (and anywhere really!) to enhance their local visibility and attract a diverse customer base. Remember, consistency and community engagement are key to building lasting relationships with your audience.
For a more personalized approach, consider reaching out to us at Lange Digital Solutions to create a plan for your business marketing!
And if you have read this far, consider allowing us to help you with a Small Business Spotlight feature! We will share your business on our website, social media pages, and in a blog post like this one, all of which will be shareable on your social media pages!
Just email us at [email protected] and we can talk about getting you set up with a Spotlight!
Best wishes,
Dr. Travis Lange
