Ask HN: Building momentum for a localized marketplace

Getting traffic on a localized site is hard enough, but we've seen with Groupon and other sites that it's pretty doable if you have the right pull, especially from the urgency of the deal.

So I've built this amazing localized marketplace (skyara.com) that has gotten extremely positive feedback across the board and a good amount of press (initial traffic spike), the only problem is given that we're focused on SF, only a fraction of the traffic is SF while the rest is across the country (currently not useful). Our return rate is incredibly high, but our localized growth rate is just sluggish.

Given most web start-ups are able to leverage a national scale given it's web, I'm struggling to figure out how to build marketing campaigns centered locally. Some of my ideas are holding localized events, similar to the Yelp elite events back in the day when they just started. Other thoughts are using contests and giveaways to spur more local WOM and action or possibly engaging a PR firm to help build local awareness.

Curious to see everyone's thoughts on building up this type of presence, I guess in the same areas of Craigslist and used car online marketplaces.