Local business marketing: graphics for Google, flyers and socials

Good local business marketing comes down to four graphics that look like they belong to the same shop: a Google Business post at 1200×900 pixels, a window poster, a flyer that people carry home, and the posts on your Instagram and Facebook. Most local businesses make each of these on a different day, in a different tool, and the result is four different shops. Decide the look once, write one clear message, and produce every size from it.

This guide walks through each surface in the order a neighbour usually meets you: searching on Google, walking past, picking up a flyer, then following you online.

Google Business post size and what to post

Your Google Business Profile is the shopfront most people see first, often before they have decided to visit. Posts appear on the profile in Search and Maps, and they are the cheapest way to show that the business is open, active and worth the walk. The upload size is 1200×900 pixels, a 4:3 landscape frame. Google crops posts differently in different places, so treat the outer edges as background and keep text well inside. The details are in Google Business post size.

What to post there is simpler than it seems. Google shows people things that help them decide, so useful beats clever:

• Changed hours: bank holidays, late nights, a closure for refurbishment.
• Offers with a clear end date, written as a sentence a person would say.
• New stock or a new service, with one photo or one bold line, not both fighting.
• Events: a tasting, a workshop, a market stall, with the date in large type.
• Seasonal reminders: booking for Christmas, school uniform fittings, spring servicing.

Flyer design for a local business

A flyer is the one graphic someone takes home. It sits on a fridge or a desk for a week, so it can carry more than a post, but not much more. An A5 flyer at 300 dpi is 1748×2480 pixels, a size almost every local printer and letterbox drop handles. US Letter is 2550×3300 pixels if you print in North America.

1. 1

   Lead with the reason to keep it

   "Your first class is free" or "New: Saturday morning classes" belongs at the top in the largest type. Your logo can be smaller than you think.

2. 2

   Give three facts, not ten

   What, when and where. Anything beyond that goes on your website or behind a QR code.

3. 3

   Put the address and a phone number at the foot

   People keep flyers to act on them later. Make the action obvious and the details easy to copy.

4. 4

   Leave a bleed

   Extend the background 3 mm past the trim on every side so nothing white shows when the stack is cut. Bleed and margins explains why.

For layouts that work at flyer size, flyer design goes further, including how to handle a photo and a gradient on the same sheet.

Window poster design that reads from the pavement

A window poster has about two seconds and a distance of a few metres. Someone walking past will read one line, maybe two, and the line has to be big enough to read through glass, in daylight, with reflections over it. An A4 poster is 2480×3508 pixels at 300 dpi; A3 is 3508×4961 pixels and is often the better choice for a main window.

Colour matters more on glass than on screen because sunlight washes out pale tones. Deeper grounds hold up better. Window signage design covers placement, height and how to change posters without the window looking cluttered.

Social posts for local businesses

Local followers are neighbours, so the tone can be friendlier than a national brand's. The formats are the standard ones: Instagram post 1080×1350, Story 1080×1920, Facebook post 1200×1200. What changes for a local business is the content. Name streets, name the season, show the people. Small business Instagram has a month of post ideas.

Make every local marketing graphic look like the same shop

The real problem for a local business is not making one good graphic. It is that the Google post comes from one template, the flyer from the printer's template and the Instagram post from an app, so nobody connects them. Recognition comes from repetition: the same colours, the same type and the same kind of background every time someone sees you. That is the idea behind brand consistency.

In Gradiently you design once on a Mark, a living gradient background that becomes your shop's alone once you claim it, and with Pro you resize the design to every format in one step. The Mark finds the calmest part of itself behind your words, so the line stays readable on the window poster and the story alike. If you would rather describe the job, the Designer writes the words and lays out each size for you.