When we talk about selling locally and localised marketing, we aren’t referring to the way you would line your old toys up outside grandma’s house and hope a passer-by wanted to haggle over a wrestling figure with a missing arm. Although, that isn’t a million miles away.
Localised marketing is when a business is marketing to those who are geographically within reach of their shopfront. As augmented reality grows ever closer, you can now market to those using navigation software (eg their car SatNav or the maps app on their phone) as they pass by. Brands are offered the opportunity to enhance customer experience by the technology consumers rely on daily.
In this blog, we’ll look at how your business can make the most of localised marketing, and how if you start now, you might be able to get ahead of the competition.
Geolocation in real-time!
The real beauty of geolocation marketing is in its simplicity. In its most simplistic form, this marketing strategy allows businesses to reach potential consumers once their GPS is nearby. It’s most applicable to eateries and cafes as geolocation marketing allows a company to operate a ‘grab and go’ relationship with its customers. For example, Costa coffee can direct you to your nearest store and enable you to preorder your drinks through an app on your phone. By acting as a coffee-specific personal shopper, the location of your potential customer enables you to drive sales.
You know those annoying messages that say ‘such and such would like to use your location’ well essentially that is the business asking for permission to send push notifications when you are within marketable range. By using geolocation, a business can minimise wait times by allowing pre-orders and also sell to customers who might not have considered your business at the time. Jump on the bandwagon, don’t let it go by.
Social media geotagging ️
Geotagging across your social media feeds is probably the most popular form of localised marketing. Geotagging is when a business or individual, attaches a tagged location to a video or photo post. It has become increasingly popular since the introduction of location-based searching. As most social media platforms now allow users to search for content relevant to a location. Meaning, by geotagging your posts they will show when someone is searching for information relevant to the area your content was created in.
Geotagging can also be leveraged incredibly tactically. For example, if you own a company that manufactures golf balls and you know there is a golf event locally to you. You can geotag your business posts of a new product at the event itself, which means that those in attendance, who will likely be within your demographic, will see your product.
Localised paid search
Finally, we had to mention the most universally used form of localised marketing. The paid search method. This marketing strategy is as simple as it comes, provided you know your way around social media marketing platforms, which is a skill in itself.
So, how can you do it? On ad platforms like Facebook Ads, you can target specific areas with your adverts, meaning they will only show to those who fall within that geolocation. The beauty of this format is that if you are local to the area you are targeting, you can flex your regular advert to suit, with the use of slang or regional dialect, or something else relevant to the targeted demographic. So we might target people interested in graphic design in Manchester, with an ‘Alright our kid’ approach. The ball is entirely in your court with localised marketing, just make sure you fully understand your demographic.
One of the main pitfalls of localised marketing is when a company doesn’t do its homework. You can be targeting an area with a product totally irrelevant to them. You won’t find yourself selling many buckets and spades to people in inner-city London. So make sure your marketing strategy aligns with your business and your demographic.
Speaking of localised marketing, why not get in touch with our Manchester-based team to discuss your next big branding project, your digital marketing plan or your big website revamp. We can’t wait to hear from you, send us a message!
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