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As the saying goes, you’ve got to meet people where they live — and here at Balihoo, we mean that pretty literally.
People often think of advertising in grand terms: a Super Bowl ad with fifteen celebrities and a million-dollar budget, or a billboard in Times Square a hundred feet wide. Breaking through to a global audience with an ad that goes viral, or crafting a jingle that drives people nuts for decades to come. But those kinds of successes — while obviously great — are also fairly rare, and while you’re waiting for that kind of runaway advertising juggernaut, there’s something just as important you should be working on in the meantime.
Local-ad targeting should be a key plank in your marketing platform. While it’s not the sort of flashy advertising that Don Draper would cook up in an episode of Mad Men, hyperlocal marketing can make a big difference in your monthly margins.
Here’s why:
4) It’s What Your Customers Want
Four out of five consumers prefer ads customized to their city, ZIP, or immediate surroundings. We’ve all experienced the pain of seeing an ad for a store or restaurant on TV only to discover that the nearest location is hours away on the opposite edge of the market, or seeing a national ad for a product or service that doesn’t have any local outlets. Sure, the online world has made some of those distinctions moot, but your customers still live in a brick-and-mortar world where things like availability and drive time could mean the difference between a satisfied customer and an irritated one.
3) Your Customers Are Mobile
When’s the last time you left the house without your smartphone? Chances are, not recently and not on purpose — and your customers are the same way. When they’re on the go, locally-targeted ads help ensure that your advertising goes with them. Over 60% of all web searches are initiated from a mobile device, and the number of users searching for the words “near me” has increased over 500% in the past three years. When your target customers are hungry, they search for “restaurants near me.” When their car breaks down, they search for “mechanics near me.” That results page is something you desperately want to be a part of if you want to see results.
2) It’s Efficient
Obviously there can be edge cases where this isn’t true, but hyperlocal marketing is all about precision. And if you’re focusing on getting your ads in front of the right eyes, you’re not wasting money getting your ads in front of people who won’t find it relevant. Our clients are franchise and multi-location brands, with marketing funded by the local franchisees and partners. We can’t waste a dollar! This means focusing on strategies with a solid ROI and reliable results. And that’s where we come in to help.
1) It’s Profitable
Obviously, making your customers happy is good, but the equally-important question is: is it profitable?To which we say, “absolutely!”With hyperlocal marketing, our clients see measurable results out of the box. Here are some quick case studies:With a local pet-boarding business, Balihoo successfully reduced their cost-per-reservation by a remarkable 40%, while significantly expanding their Facebook ad platform presence to drive nearly double the range of locations.When we took on a client in the veterinary space, we improved click-through rates by 60%, and the cost-per-action dropped a corresponding 60%. Conversions jumped 72%.And as much as we love pets, our results don’t stop there – we’ve shown similar improvements on deliverables with healthcare advertisers, kitchen-and-bath remodeling hubs, vision care, and more.We’re not saying that hyperlocal marketing is a ‘magic bullet’ — but we’re definitely saying that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and whether or not you’re putting the proper focus on hyperlocal marketing is a conversation you should absolutely have. If you’re interested, Balihoo has folks on standby waiting if you’d like us to walk you through how it works.