A successful company knows their brand inside and out. They know their value proposition and their target markets and offer products and services those markets demand. But that is all for naught if no one outside the company has ever heard of them.
Remember the concept of ‘think global, act local’? Your brand should be recognizable in your own backyard first and foremost before you can realistically expect it to be recognized nationally. And if you want to be recognized locally, you have to find ways to tap into the local market. Enter targeted marketing.
Targeted marketing helps you reach local audiences by making it easier for potential clients to find you. It showcases your business as a local entity and gives you tools to build a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness in your community.
We’re addressing several strategic marketing tips and techniques that target your local market, creating ROI in the form of increased brand visibility and sales, positive engagement, and overall goodwill. We recommend using a combination of these strategies for the best results.
(Before you read any further, if you need a primer on branding, we recommend you check out our blog on branding and how it helps business growth.)
Target Local Through Value-Adding Services
It’s no secret that customers tend to trust what they know and prefer what is convenient, which is why making sure your local community knows who you are is imperative. Plus, more and more people are looking to be more environmentally friendly and are choosing to patronize companies that incorporate sustainable practices in their operations. Local companies offer certain value-adding services and benefits national companies can’t provide, including:
- Personalized customer service: Staff are often familiar with the area and can provide in-person, on-time services in addition to online sales
- Reduced shipping costs*
- Lower environmental impact
- May be able to more easily source locally manufactured products
- Support of local economy and growth
*A very simple way to attract local customers and build brand visibility is to create custom shipping costs (or provide FREE shipping) for local customers only! If you’re a Logicblock customer, it’s so easy to set up your shipping methods to accommodate your local clientele this way.
Another simple way to attract local customers? You can also create promotional codes and sales and build loyalty programs aimed specifically at your local community. These simple tactics go a long way in demonstrating that you are invested in your local community, and you value their patronage.
Target Local with Your Website
You can also target your local community through your website by applying geotargeting techniques. Geotargeting uses precision-based data to help companies create highly personalized and effective content that is relevant and valuable to their intended audience, making it an indispensable tool for business aiming to increase local engagement and sales. Despite the name, geotargeting isn’t just about targeting a geographic location. It also includes targeting for demographics, behaviors, and interests.
The thing is, more people around you need your services than you might think. Tools like geotargeted advertising leverages technology to connect you with your local community, encouraging visits and supporting the global “shop local” movement. This method not only brings customers to your door but also increases the likelihood of referrals.
We’ve put together several suggestions on how to utilize geotargeting techniques, broken down by the level of ease of implementation. Don’t forget – if you need help with any of this, we are only a phone call, email, or online chat away!
The Simple Stuff
- Include your address or location on your website and make sure your it is easily identifiable (About Us, Contact Us, footer)
- Banner it up: Make sure banners, imagery, graphics and text make it evident of location and local service area (even if you still ship nationally too)
- Local love page: create a custom page specifically about the importance of shopping local
- Humanize your brand
A Bit More Advanced
- Include your location and service areas (state, city, region, etc.) into your website copy
- Register your local business on Google Maps: even if you don’t have a storefront, doing this shows that you’re a real business with a real location
- Meta Data: Include geotarget location information within titles and meta data within pages
- Main Site Meta Settings
- For Categories: See SEO & Meta Data
- Local Business Schema Markup: Add local to your HTML to help improve the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs
- Google Maps: Have a brick-and-mortar store? Embed a map in your site. Bonus points if you make it interactive with directions to your location.
- List your business and services with free accounts on
- Google My Business
- Bing Places
- Yelp
- Google Search Console: Sign up and register your website and sitemap there
- Auto-generate Your Sitemap: you can set up your sitemap to update daily via the backend marketing tools of your Logicblock site
Above & Beyond
- Social Media: Promote your brand across social media platforms and encourage locals to share your content. For some inspiration, check out our suggestions on improving brand recognition.
- Contact relevant local bloggers or any local businesses that have blogs on their website and see if they’d be willing to write a nice blog post about you that you can include (and/or link to) on your website. It’s great advertising for both of you, plus the linkbacks can be very valuable when it comes to improving your search rankings.
Show Up!
It’s very important to add that, in addition to implementing these tactics online, you should also remember to show up IN PERSON. Word of mouth works offline as well as online and can, in fact, be a critical factor in building your brand name in the local community. Get out there, network, and promote your business at local events by doing things like becoming a sponsor. Give current and potential customers the opportunity to get to know the face behind the brand (see also ‘humanize your brand’ above).
If you’re not part of local groups, get involved in some. In addition to the obvious in-person networking benefits, these groups often have their own websites that feature online directories that link to their members’ businesses. Being included on these sites is a great way to grow visibility for your brand locally and nurture local relationships.
If you aren’t already implementing targeting into your website and your marketing strategy, what are you waiting for? Logicblock offers plenty of tools to simplify the process, plus experts on hand to help you build your brand in your local community.
Already a Logicblock customer and need help implementing these strategies into your site?