10 Tips for your Hyperlocal Marketing Campaign

At the right time, in the right place, with the right offer: Hyperlocal marketing measures can boost offline and online sales. Shifted magazine Experts gives you 10 hyperlocal marketing tips on how you can develop successful campaigns to generate more leads for your local business.

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Hyperlocal marketing is relevant for almost every company

According to a Google study, 80 percent of consumers use online search engines to find service providers and retailers in their area. Every third search by smartphone or tablet has a local reference and 76 percent of users who searched for local providers while on the move visit the respective store on the same day.

In times of permanent online existence and an increasingly networked world, retailers and service providers can hardly do without a good online strategy around to be found with their local offerings. The business has to be thought of digitally.

It is no longer enough just to have print advertising in the insert of the local daily newspaper or a notice in the district. Local marketing, which integrates local offers on the basis of transmitted geodata, i.e. location information, should therefore find a permanent place in the marketing mix of dealers and service providers. While local marketing brings the offer and the location together, hyperlocal marketing goes one step further: In addition to information and the right location, the time factor within a very limited local area is crucial for the success of a hyperlocal campaign.

With a view to the changed search behavior and the subsequent reactions of the search engines, companies of all kinds should deal with the topic of hyperlocal marketing. Anyone who does not occupy a top position in the search results or, in the worst case, does not appear in the first place, loses customers and valuable new business. Especially in view of the growing number of users of virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, a good ranking plays an important role. After all, the voice search only knows the winner. So companies have to do even more to operate efficient, hyperlocal marketing so that they are even noticed by virtual assistants. So that the next hyperlocal campaign is successful, you will receive 10 hyperlocal marketing tips to reach potential customers locally at the right time :

1. Consistency of your own data

The basics of any hyperlocal marketing campaign have their origins in local SEO. Companies must ensure that their location data can be found across platforms and is kept up-to-date, regardless of whether it is in Google MyBusiness or in corresponding business directories. Incorrect opening times, contact, or address data quickly put off interested parties. In addition, the location data should be consistent across all platforms in order to be at the top of the search results. Voice assistants also use the branch or map entries and should ideally provide the customer with the correct results for search queries.

For companies that have hundreds or thousands of locations, effective master data maintenance is a particular challenge. Presence management platforms are helpful in this case. With the help of these platforms, information on any number of locations can be permanently updated, retrieved, and evaluated. Not only does master data maintenance make sense, but the statistics are also especially interesting: This data allows detailed insight into the usage behavior of the searcher. An offer that should be used to increase the attractiveness of each individual location. At the same time, such a tool enables a precise analysis of what information (telephone numbers, websites, addresses, etc.) people are looking for and what they then did with the information found.

2. Mobile websites

Nowadays, users are mainly online with their smartphones: whether in public transport or on the couch at home. With the help of mobile devices, larger investments are now being made. It is therefore particularly important that all websites and landing pages are optimized for mobile use. This not only plays a role for the user, but also for the search engine. Any website that does not offer a good user experience on the smartphone is a potential conversion killer.

Mobile optimized not only means that all-important content is presented in a pleasant form on a small display, but also that the loading times are correct. Users standing at the subway station don’t want to wait forever for the page to load. The shorter the loading time and the clearer the mobile landing page is, the better the chances of a good conversion rate.

3. Develop personas

Personas play an important role in hyperlocal marketing. These should be created close to the customer journey. For a hyper-local campaign, it is crucial to know when and where the user is in order to address them with the right information.

In addition to demographic data, movement profiles, social media profiles, technical data and other information such as local weather data should also be included in the creation. With the help of this data, it is easier to put yourself in the shoes of the target group and to think about where the future customer may currently be.

4. Display of advertising using geo-targeting

Ideally, companies should create the first points of contact with potential new customers before they get specific information about a new purchase or a service to be booked, such as the next vacation. A good way to draw attention to yourself in this phase is classic online advertising via various channels: be it banner advertising on news portals, advertising on Facebook or in the form of a podcast pre-roll.

Points in time and places can be abstracted using the personas. Does the user listen to music while working out? Then z. B. an ad on Spotify or Soundcloud. Does he listen to a podcast while commuting? Then podcast advertising may be worthwhile. Does he read the latest news while waiting for the bus? In this case, the ads should primarily be displayed near bus stops.

When choosing the appropriate advertising partners, it must be ensured that they support geotargeting. Based on the individual locations, micro-campaigns can then be controlled in order to attract the attention of the users.

5. Campaign-specific landing pages

If a locally based company has won the attention of a user with a campaign, it should also provide them with sufficient information on their own website. As a rule, the future customer first resorts to online search engines when the initial interest has been aroused and they want to find out more about a certain offer. In order to actually be found online, retailers and service providers should support each campaign with its own landing page. If the basics have been observed, it is optimized for mobile use and shines not only with helpful content but also with a fast loading time.

6. Review management

If the user is already explicitly looking for a certain brand, sooner or later he will come across customer opinions in different ways. Reviews for local businesses are possible on Google Maps or Yelp, for example. Companies must monitor these evaluations and actively respond to criticism. Therefore, monitoring should be set up, when and on which platform your own company is mentioned and which tonality is selected. Good ratings improve the brand image and have a positive influence on SEO, local listings, and click rate. Customers can be encouraged to give ratings by various means. With continuous review management, a company has the opportunity to actively intervene and thus build a positive image in the long term.

7. Q&A function of Google Maps

Still quite new, but already in great use: the Q&A function of Google Maps. In the mobile Google Maps view, users can ask the owners and the Google Maps community questions about the company and services. Here, companies should show their presence and respond to users’ questions, evaluate helpful answers from the community and thereby signal that the commitment is perceived and valued. Companies should use this opportunity to present their own brand in a positive light and to convince potential customers.

8. Retargeting or remarketing

If the user was on one of the landing pages or directly on the website, retargeting should be used to maintain attention. There are different ways here, be it through Facebook Pixel or through another advertising network. Also with retargeting, geotargeting should be used to address the customer’s location and the topic of frequency capping, i.e. the frequency of advertising, should be kept in mind so as not to annoy the user.

9. Chatbot Marketing

If the user has now collected all the important information, formed an opinion, and finally decided to make a purchase or book a service with a certain company on-site, he should continue to be actively addressed. Of course, there are still some questions unanswered in this last phase. It is therefore advisable to pick up the user with the help of a chatbot. Anyone who uses an artificial assistant on the website or in one of the various messengers to support their prospects or customers with questions should make sure that the quality of the answers is correct. After all, the bots represent the respective brand. Unsatisfactory answers with insufficient information can lead to jumps, especially with interested parties, and a better answer is then sought from a competitor.

10. Store finder

Due to the high number of mobile search queries, the search results are influenced by the current location of the user. So that the potential new customer can find the right way into the business, various locally optimized landing pages should be provided in addition to the campaign-specific landing pages that can also be created automatically with technical aids. For companies with several branches, should have a store finder so that the user can find the closest shop.

Conclusion

Hyperlocal marketing means above all to convince in the right place at the right time with the right content. To achieve this, extensive preparatory work and a lot of strategic considerations are necessary. The entire customer journey has to be thought through beforehand in order to pick up potential new customers at the right time at the right place in every phase of their decision-making. This effort pays off, as high conversion rates can be achieved with Hyperlocal. Anyone who invests here has the chance to reach a very qualified clientele who not only buy once but who remain loyal to the brand or company.

Check out: Digital Marketing Tactics for Growth of Your Business