Local Marketing

Local marketing is a brand promotion strategy that targets consumers who live nearby. Usually, consumers can purchase products at offline points of sale.

In the article, we explain what local marketing is and why it is important. Also, we provide the top 6 ideas for small businesses and describe effective local marketing campaigns.

Why is local marketing important?

According to GoGulf, 46% of Google users search for local information. Imagine how many clients you will be able to attract with a strong strategy focused on people who live nearby. This fact highlights the necessity of local marketing. Below we explain why it is so important and how it influences companies’ growth.

Local marketing is particularly vital for small businesses and brands producing perishable or fragile goods. It allows them to generate more leads and ensure that consumers will visit their store. Such a strategy is often cheaper because business owners don’t need to spend much money to reach a wide audience. Local marketing focuses only on consumers nearby that are more likely to buy your products.

Also, the local promotion allows companies to discover more about their clients and interact with them better. You can gain more insights into the needs, preferences, and behavior of people who live in a certain area. Moreover, concentrating on a specific audience helps businesses provide a better experience, leading to higher customer satisfaction and increasing loyalty.

Finally, the local promotion allows companies to get more word-of-mouth referrals. Semrush Blog states that 90% of consumers are more likely to trust a recommended brand; consequently, positive reviews can help you save money on advertising and significantly increase the number of clients.

Now you understand why local marketing is a powerful tool to boost your company and generate more sales. Let’s go further to discover ideas for small business promotion.

6 Local Marketing Ideas for Your Small Business

According to Nectafy, 88% of people who search for a local business visit it within 24 hours. This percentage is really impressive and means that discovering a local company is an incredibly vital step in the customer journey. Therefore, the main aim of local marketing is to increase the brand awareness of consumers who live nearby. Below we provide 6 ideas for small businesses to attract more potential clients to their company.

1. Partner with other companies in the area. Building strong networks is especially important for small businesses and can help them promote each other. For example, if you bake cakes and cookies, you can partner with coffee-to-go points in the area to sell your products to their clients. This strategy is extremely powerful when companies have similar values, buyer personas, and aims for future development.
2. Encourage people to create UGC and leave feedback. According to Forrester, 48% of people believe that user-generated content helps them discover new products. These statistics prove the importance of UGC in increasing the audience’s brand awareness and generating more potential clients. Collecting feedback can boost your company even further because 58% of people are ready to pay more to a company with good reviews. Moreover, testimonials help companies rank higher in search results and increase the click-through rate. That is why 88% of small companies actively track their online reputation.
3. Optimize your website and use local SEO. To attract more clients in your region, your company should have a user-friendly website that loads quickly. It is better to make it handy for mobile consumers because 61% of them are more likely to contact a local business with a convenient website. SEO is also essential as ‘Near me’ searches have grown more than 5 times in the last two years. To make your website rank higher in the results, you should add local-based keywords, provide data about your working hours, give contact information, and collect positive reviews.
4. Focus on the local audience on social media. Firstly, you should make your content more specific. You can set a location in your profile, tag it in each post, write more about local events and share photos from popular places nearby. Collaborate with local influencers whose audience may include your potential customers. Secondly, you can use hyperlocal advertising on social media to target people within a small area. Narrow your audience according to their place of living to save money and reach more consumers nearby.
5. Become a sponsor of events nearby. This way of offline marketing allows small brands to increase citizens’ awareness of their products. You can finance local concerts, sports competitions, or charity events to attract the attention of local media and make consumers more loyal to your company.
6. Try email marketing. Lots of marketers use email campaigns as the main channel to generate leads. It proves the effectiveness of email marketing, particularly for small companies. You can collect consumers’ email addresses by offering some discounts or providing free online materials after purchase. Staying in touch with such consumers will encourage them to come back again and again, which is extremely important for small businesses. With SendPulse, you can launch bulk email campaigns for free to help your business save money and make product promotions more effective.

Use these ideas to attract more clients and create a strong competitive advantage in the local market. Continue reading to discover examples of effective local advertising campaigns and gain more insights on how to promote your business successfully.

Effective Local Marketing Campaigns

Launching local marketing campaigns can be beneficial for both global and small companies. In this section, we provide examples of successful local marketing to give you some ideas about your brand’s promotion.

McDonald’s

The world-famous fast-food cafe is not only about the standardized menu of hamburgers and fries. To increase the loyalty of consumers worldwide, McDonald’s has launched a range of localized menus in different countries. For example, in Argentina, the restaurant offers a McFiesta burger with mayonnaise instead of ketchup. In India, you can buy a Vegetable Pizza McPuff — this position is not offered anywhere else in the world.

There is a McBaguette combo in the picture — an original McDonald’s set from France. It consists of a sandwich with a breaded chicken, cheese, and ham, or a hamburger with two hash browns. It is a great example of localized dishes because McBaguette is created to satisfy the high demands of the French people.

PLUS supermarket

A supermarket in Pijnacker, Netherlands decided to launch an original promotional strategy and created a monopoly in this small town. Citizens were able to suggest the names of the streets and companies that should be included in Monopoly. Later the supermarket started selling this game and, in such a way, attracted new customers because all Pijnackers wanted to buy the game about their town.

Below there is a photo of a Monopoly sold by PLUS supermarket. It is a successful example of local marketing because this game will remind people about the place of purchase every time they use it.

KitKat

This local marketing campaign by KitKat is based on wordplay. In Japan, this brand is considered to bring good luck because it sounds similar to the Japanese phrase ‘Kitto Katsu,’ which has the same meaning. Marketers used it and launched a campaign with chocolate bars that had a place to write your messages on the packaging.

You can see an example of such an edible postcard below. This promotion campaign was shown on national news and among bloggers. Moreover, now you can find KitKat bars in Japan Post outlets to send messages with them. The company reached this success by combining creativity and traditions of a local area.

Nike

Probably, the most famous local marketing campaign was ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner.’ Nike and Wieden + Kennedy creative agency launched it in 2018 to attract young citizens of Britain's capital to their brand. While filming the advertisements, the company used unknown areas of London. Also, Nike filmed in their promotions sports stars that were born in this city to make the campaign even more specific.

Below you can see the photo from this large-scale promotion. Later the film collected from the ads was broadcasted in the cinemas and on TV and won several awards at the Cannes Lions. Moreover, online searches for Nike products in London increased by 93%, which means that local marketing promotion was effective.

Congrats, now you know what local marketing is and why it is important. You can use our ideas and inspirational examples to launch successful promotional campaigns.

Last Updated: 23.08.2023