Even before the Internet gained popularity as a marketing platform, location-based marketing has always been a widespread practice. Online marketing offers such a wide reach and most businesses would want to have their presence known as far and wide as they could with minimal effort. So why should you still tailor digital marketing tactics based on location instead of using the same one for your wide reach?
Why use location-based marketing online?
Location-based marketing or geomarketing can help you attract more customers by making your business known to consumers who are interested in your business. Businesses that target local clientele, such as fitness gyms, could use location-based marketing online to limit the reach of their online ads within their zip code. This way, you are more likely to reach clients who would be most interested in buying your product or service.
Segmenting a group of potential customers according to their location and creating a message tailored for their area would make your marketing more relevant. Most online marketing platforms, specifically in social networks like Facebook, would make it a lot easier for you to customize your marketing message based on location.
You could also maximize your return-on-investment through location-based marketing activities. Digital marketing platforms offer access to location data that can help you generate more engagement for promotions and improve the return on your advertising costs.
How to use location-based digital marketing to your advantage
Optimizing for local SEO could immensely improve the probability of attracting customers. This would typically involve the online traffic generated by listing your business on Google My Business. To improve your local SEO, consider making location-specific content on your website and encouraging five-star reviews from customers. Investing in SEO has a long-term value as well, because you might need to pay less for advertisements by attracting more local customers organically.
If you run a small business operating in an intensely-competitive or populated market, it could benefit you to target customers who are considering your competition over you. To do this, you may use a location-based tactic called geo-conquesting that entails digitally sending discount offers to potential customers who enter a certain area near your competitors’ stores.
Geotagging is a geomarketing tactic that makes use of tags to increase the online visibility of a business. This helps a lot in social media platforms like Instagram, Faceobok and Twitter where they filter user-generated content based on the tags they use when posting. A digital marketing agency in California, for example, can gain more organic traffic on their Facebook page by using location tags that pinpoint their agency’s location whenever they post something. Doing this will also make it easier for potential customers to physically locate your business.
One of the best ways you can grow your brand within your area is through community activities and promotion of social awareness. Consider sponsoring an event in your locale or hosting a fundraiser for a local nonprofit organization, which you can promote online. Your audience will become more aware of your brand the more active you are in your location.
Effective marketing is getting your brand in front of the right audience at the right time. Geomarketing allows businesses to be constantly mindful where their target markets are. If you cannot locate your target audience, you will have a hard time delivering your message to them and could cost you a lot of resources.