Marketing & Customer Retention
Marketing Resources
There are many local resources for producing your own marketing and promotional materials, and opportunities to collaborate with other businesses in producing a marketing and growth plan for your business. The Tri-City Regional Chamber provides a maintained directory of it's members engaged in Advertising and Media as well as Business and Professional Services.
Businesses are also encouraged to maintain a comprehensive web presence, which allows customers and support businesses to ascertain the products and services you maintain. A minimum level of web presence would be to list your business on location based search services, which may include Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yahoo, Yelp, etc. This allows customers using smart phones or the web to search for your business, and find information like your address, phone number, hours of operation, and website.
In addition to a basic website a business may find it useful to establish a social media presence, which allows the business to publish regular updates about products and services. Social media may include services such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tumblr, and many more.
Customer Contracting Resources
Establishing Governmental Customers
Local and state government entities are required to adhere to strict guidelines in purchasing and public bidding when acquiring products and services for their operation. Washington's Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) may assist in guiding local businesses to work with and sell their products and services to government entities, and operates a local office in cooperation with the Tri-City Regional Chamber.
The local PTAC center offers regular webinars and in-person presentations on how to do business with government entities, and most of these presentations are free and are open to members and non-members of the Tri-City Regional Chamber.
City of Richland Bid Opportunities
The City of Richland partners with Public Purchase, a web based eProcurement service, to list current bid opportunities for working with the City on public projects or purchases. If you're unsure whether you are set up to submit a bid to the City, we recommend your business utilize the resources provided above (Establishing Governmental Customers) to plan for governmental bidding. You may view current City bid opportunities and registration information by clicking here.
Washington State Electronic Business Solution (WEBS)
Register for WEBS to receive notification of state government contracting and bid opportunities. If you're unsure whether you are set up to submit a bid to the State, we recommend your business utilize the resources provided above (Establishing Governmental Customers) to plan for governmental bidding.
Washington State Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprise (OMWBE)
Get certified as a small business owned and controlled by minority, women, and social and economic disadvantaged persons, and receive the benefit of visibility in the organization's database for purchasing and procurement.