4 Tips for Spot-on Hyperlocal Marketing
Hyperlocal targeting displays your marketing where people live, work and play. It shines a spotlight on how well you fit their needs – and how conveniently you’ll meet them. It should highlight your unique value proposition at just the right moment in the buying journey to drive in-store and online sales.
These four, easy-to-implement tips are designed to help your hyperlocal marketing efforts produce stronger results.
1. Know the hyperlocal marketing access points
Use the unique characteristics of the three most common customer location touch points to create marketing that is truly “right time, right place.”
- Mailing addresses. When you want to put your marketing materials in the hands of local households and businesses. Drill down even further by selecting for lifestyle, demographic, income, type of business, shopping habits and much more.
- IP addresses. Used to decide if the customer falls within the geographic target area that trigger your paid web and social media ads. The IP address location is calculated using the customer’s access hub’s latitude and longitude. It’s roughly accurate, but the customer clicking on your ad may live a hundred miles from the location hub – not the best scenario for hyperlocal marketing.
- Mobile addresses. The built in GPS in smartphones broadcasts the phone’s location to within a few feet. Consider triggering location-based marketing when customers are close to your business, close to a competitor’s business or when they search by location.
2. Take advantage of your existing customer data
The most minimal customer data, like postal codes, can be a treasure trove for your business.
Even without a full address, postal codes – which most customers are comfortable sharing – can:
- Reveal clusters of high-value customers. You can target physical marketing in these micro-neighbourhoods.
- Fire up your acquisition efforts. A service like Postal Code TargetingTM can leverage your existing best customer data to find areas rich in more of the same.
- Bring back customers who’ve opted out of digital contact. You can use direct mail to give them a reason to shop with you and accept your email and mobile marketing offers – while staying CASL compliant.
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3. Be the boss of your own digital profile
A recent Forbes study found that 82% of customers, even those who buy in store, research online during their buying journey. In 2015, Google searches with hyperlocal keywords like “Near me” or “Nearby” were double that of the previous year.
You can actively direct the results of these searches, rather than leave them to chance. It’s as simple as taking control of your profile pages on sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, My Business, and Zomato.
To give highly motivated customers the information they need to decide in your favour, make sure your profile on each site includes:
- Your address and directions
- Opening hours
- Phone number
- A short description of what your business offers. For example, “The tastiest burrito in Saskatoon |Mexican restaurant” or “Taxes and book-keeping for small businesses – always friendly.”
- Images that instill these potential customers with the desire to drop by or visit your e-commerce site.
Bonus. If you have more than one location, build a page for each spot to help create what Google calls “I-Want-to-Go moments.”
4. Better together: make a stronger impression by integrating your marketing channels
Businesses face the dual challenge of consumers’ shrinking attention span – less than the average goldfish’s – and the estimated 1,000+ marketing messages a day that they see. Campaigns that integrate physical and digital channels are proven to be more memorable and increase consumer action.
Connect your long-term strategy with hyperlocal marketing by:
- Keeping your brand messaging aligned across all channels – it helps to make it “stickier.”
- Build a relationship with repeat impressions – the Rule of 7 still holds true. If customers are familiar your business, you stand out more to them in the list results of a hyperlocal mobile search.
- Target coupon-loving millennials with direct mail and mobile offers. They keep paper offers handy (keeping you top-of-mind) and are influenced by mobile ones when searching for nearby businesses that match their needs.
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Canada Post’s newest acquisition marketing solution, Postal Code Targeting, finds your most likely prospects –whether you’re a brick and mortar or e-commerce business.
