Why Location Matters in Marketing

This month's guest blog is from the full service agency Matrix Internet. They will be taking us through why they believe location is an integral part of your marketing campaigns.

Making sure your customers know where your business is located is a pretty basic part of advertising.  But it is no longer as simple as making sure your address is correct in a print ad.  Now, marketing is a lot more than an ad in the local paper. Today your company needs a comprehensive strategy for marketing that covers traditional advertising, targeted postal promotions and digital marketing.  And location plays a key role in all three.

Your customers need to know where your premises are located, and just as importantly – you need to know where your audience is located.  When people are looking for a shop, restaurant or other brick and mortar establishment, they want to find one near them.  Therefore, the target audience for any brick and mortar business is those who are or are planning to be near it.  This is a critical factor in all of your marketing.

Digital Marketing in the Mobile Era

Because the internet is global, it is easy to forget how much location matters in your digital marketing.    Mobile devices have surged to the forefront and changed the way people shop online.  Now, we are using our devices to find local businesses that we want to visit right away.  We’re looking online for a good café as we leave the cinema so we can chat about the film over a drink.  So if you have a good café, you want to be sure that those folks find you easily!

As part of a comprehensive digital marketing campaign you must ensure that you’re using a strategy that focuses on location.  This includes:

• Mobile first design
• Local search engine optimization
• Google AdWords and other Google tools
• Social media campaigns that engage your local audience
• Analysis of your stats to monitor local reach

Before people can do business with you, they must find you.  And the right digital media campaign can make it very easy for them to do that.  A decade ago, many local businesses could thrive largely through word of mouth and local advertising such as print and radio ads and sponsorship of local teams and events.  Those are still good tools.  But today, they are not enough.  Today, when so many people are using their mobile devices to search and shop, you need a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

Key Elements of Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing comprises many different online tactics.  Using them in isolation won’t get the results you want.  To succeed, you need an overall marketing strategy that weaves together your digital and off-line tactics into one compelling brand that draws the people most likely to make a purchase from your company.  Your visuals and your message need to be consistent between all of your marketing outlets.  

What is involved in a digital marketing campaign?  What do you need to compete online?  No single formula will apply to every business.  To get the best results you need to use a combination of digital marketing tools, including:

• Website:  Depending on your business, you might want a simple brochure website where people can see photos of your location and read about the products and services you offer.  Or perhaps you’d like for people to be able to make reservations via your site or an app or to order products to be collected or delivered.  Whatever type of website you need, it must offer users an excellent experience, particularly when they access it on a device.
• Blog: A blog is a powerful tool to get the word out about all that your business offers.  Your blog can be optimized for the best search engine rank so more potential customers discover you.  You can also use your blog to give your audience more in-depth information about whatever your product or service does or how it can help them.  People want more than just sales information.  For example, if you have an Indian restaurant, your blog can give them interesting information about everything from Indian culture and history to the ingredients you use.
• Social Media:  The beauty of social media marketing is that it is shared organically between friends.  This means that once you capture the attention of one potential customer, that person can be motivated to share your content with many more potential customers.  You can use a range of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more to promote your blog content, special offers and events.

Matrix Internet is a complete digital marketing service celebrating 16 years of service and more than 1,250 completed projects for 640 happy clients.  Whether your company has outgrown its website and needs to upgrade or you’ve never tried marketing online, Matrix can develop the campaign you need to grow your business.