Today we're going to spend some time introducing you to location marketing. If you haven't heard of it before, it's one of the most innovative ways to get your message in front of the exact prospects you're trying to reach.
If you enter the term “marketing” into your favorite search engine, you will see a ton of strategies for promoting your business. According to at least one report, there are somewhere in the area of 163 different marketing strategies available. Of all the strategies out there, location marketing is one that's rapidly gaining in popularity with contractors.
Location marketing is incredibly efficient. It allows you cut down on wasted ad spend by using mobile technology to precisely target your ads to prospects based on their real world behaviors. This is powerful as you'll see!
So What Exactly is Location Marketing?
The concept of location marketing takes a second to wrap your head around but it's really quite simple. As the name implies, it's marketing that is location specific. It uses a customer's physical location to trigger when they are shown a business's advertising, and sometimes which ads. The customers' whereabouts are identified using the location services feature built into those always with us smart phones.
There are several pretty powerful benefits to being able to pin point deliver your marketing message in this way:
- You're able to reach very targeted audiences
- You can attract new customers that you weren't aware of
- What you learn about existing customers helps you to more finely tune your marketing
- You can automatically reward your most loyal customers
Location marketing is a resource that lets you to reach existing and potential customers in a whole new way. You can connect with them and market your business in a way that’s likely to yield a higher return on your investment.
Location Marketing: Getting the Terms Straight
One of the things that's a little confusing with location marketing is all of the new lingo that comes along with it. Many of its terms sound similar but are in fact different concepts entirely. So let's take a pause to work on your new “Geo-Vocabulary.”
Geographic Targeting or Geo-Targeting:
In location marketing, Geo-Targeting is the big umbrella term. It means serving digital ads to specific geographic areas like a city, zip code, or large radius (several miles) around a location. Let's use the NFL and the great state of Pennsylvania to illustrate.
The Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers are two Pennsylvania teams with rabid fan bases. If your marketing materials prominently feature the color green, it's probably a good idea to target those ads to the southeast corner of the state. Send the black and gold versions to everyone else!
Geo-Fencing/Geo-Retargeting:
This is one of my clients' favorite forms of location marketing. A Geo-Fence is a virtual perimeter that you can place around a real-world location. Geo-Fencing, then, is the process of serving ads to someone based on them entering that specific location. When a prospect enters the area you've Geo-Fenced, their mobile device is tagged and they begin receiving your ad on their mobile device.
Closely related to Geo-Fencing is Geo-Retargeting. When someone enters your Geo-Fence designated area, they may not be in a position to see your ad. Especially, if they're not actively browsing the internet or working on their smartphones.
Geo-Retargeting takes that into account. It isn't limited to serving ads while your prospects are in the Geo-Fenced area. Once they've identified themselves by entering the Geo-Fenced area, prospects continue to receive your ads long after they've left the area. They could continue to see your ads for a couple of days or a couple of weeks depending on your marketing campaign.
Geo-Framing:
It may be a bit irreverent, but I refer to Geo-Framing as “Back to the Future” marketing. It's very similar to Geo-Retargeting but with a slight twist. I like to say that it's designed for the absent minded marketer.
Here in Las Vegas, we have a lot of hotels down on “The Strip.” Those hotels host a boat load of conventions each year. If a particular business missed their opportunity to Geo-Fence an event, all may not be lost.
Benefits of Location Marketing
Location marketing provides businesses with a lot of advantages:
Targeted audiences:
It allows marketers to connect with potential customers in close physical proximity to their business, exponentially increasing the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
Attract new customers:
Location marketing allows businesses to target potential new customers. Businesses can convert both foot and online traffic into new customers at their business locations. By doing this, businesses can take advantage of impulse purchasing and reduce the periods of low activity (sales) during the day.
Learn About Existing Customers:
Location marketing gives you the ability to bracket different locations in town. With the help of location marketing, businesses can track check-ins to get customer traffic and sales. For example, a business can Geo-Fence its competitor area, so whenever a customer goes near to a competitor store, the business can send him or her an offer about their products/services. Knowing how often your clients frequent your competitor is good for understanding their needs.
Rewards to loyal customers:
Loyalty programs are a great way to stay in touch with customers, and social media can increase sales and promote loyalty. So marketers can track the frequency of their visitors' visits to give incentives such as discounts, preferential treatment, and recognition.
Getting Started With Location Marketing
In this article, we've only scratched the surface on the many ways you can employ location marketing. Here is a brief listing of a few more to explore:
- Behavior Targeting – Showing your ads based on a prospect's online behavior
- Household IP Targeting – Taking a list of physical addresses you provide, finding their IP addresses and showing your video or display ad only to those people across all devices
- Mobile Conquesting – Using location based, demographic and behavioral targeting to reach potential customers on their mobile devices.
Hopefully by now, you're starting to realize that location marketing is powerful. It's at least worth investigating a little closer to see how it can benefit your marketing efforts. If you'd like to really dig in to find out how you can get started with location marketing, call us at (702) 582-6708 or use our appointment app to set an appointment for a no obligation consult. https://chriscarter.net/appointments. We look forward to your call.
