Each and every person has a certain geographical location somewhere in the world. Even if they are outside of the country they grew up on, or the state or province that they used to visit, their location is very important especially to local search marketers.
A perfect example for this is a marketing push by a jeans company called True Religion. Here’s their story:
True Religion had to inform locals about events and new products at their nearby stores. To attract customers, they sent geo-targeted emails to regions with many retail locations. By sending personalized emails tailored to each audience, they successfully increased traffic to True Religion’s stores.
As many as 65,000 geo-targeted emails were opened! And with a CTR of 2.5% and a 1% conversion, it made a huge impact to True Religion’s marketing push and to their business.
The example above proves that geo-targeting enhances the performance of most marketing methods – email campaigns, paid advertisements, paid search, etc. Moreover, geo-targeting doesn’t rely much on what vertical your business is in. Geo-targeted mobile ads perform better than most benchmarks.
As the number of mobile devices grow, so does the efficiency of geo-targeting. Mobile devices has accurate location reporting features through the use of various technologies like GPS, Wifi, Glonass, Bluetooth, NFC, and probably more to come. Data from these devices can be used by search engines to provide geo-targeted marketing campaigns. This placed mobile devices on top of desktops in terms of the amount local searches.
What’s more interesting is that around 70% of consumers may opt to allow their location information to be used by services if they think that they can get something from it. Geo-targeted campaigns like loyalty points, coupons, sales emails, and promotions encourage consumers to allow location reporting. Although there are security threats related to geolocation reporting, research found that this trend will still go up as more mobile devices go into circulation.
Before we proceed further, let’s define geo-targeting. It is a technology that uses the location information taken from the device used, either desktop or mobile, to deliver specific contents to consumers. Basic geo-targeting only allows audience restrictions based on a consumer’s state or city only. But through the researches done over the years, you can also use location information to provide deeper identification, like location- or culture-related wants, needs, preferences, or interests.
To help you take advantage of geo-targeting technology, here are 10 effective tips:
Locate a Venue Where Your Target Audience Have Certain Needs Or Wants
There are venues where people often have common interests, activities, wants, and needs. Such venues include airports, stadiums, malls, universities, colleges, and other places where many people can gather for specific events. Malls can hold events like store openings, promotions, sales, and even meet and greet sessions. Stadiums, on the other hand, are a great place to hold concerts and events, gathering tons and tons of people with common interests. When bands like One Direction perform in a stadium, the audience will likely consist of 14- to 21-year-old female fans.
Aside from the benefits of geolocation, events and gatherings can also be used to your marketing campaign’s benefit. Take airports for example. On regular weekdays, most airports are filled with business-related passengers who opt for the classy restaurants, whereas weekends and holidays mean that airports have more casual visitors and families who look for casual diners. So, depending on your business, you can send geo-targeted emails to your target audience during the times they are expected to be in certain places.
Let Go Of Locations Where Your Target Audience Are Not In
You can target areas where your audience are for your marketing, AND you can also disregard and let go of areas that you target audience wouldn’t be in. You can filter out places, streets, cities, states, and other event-specific locations so that you can concentrate your time and energy on those places that will yield the best results.
Let’s take clubs and bars as an example. During school days, these places can hold events that target university students. But during summer breaks, most students are away, meaning that it is best to disregard these places for the mean time.
You can also exclude high demand target areas where ads cost higher, and instead use the saved resources on other cost-effective things. Some studies found instances of lower-cost, broader area ad campaigns performing well when they are served on particular areas only.
Select a Location-Based On Distance or Time around Your Target Area of Interest
Another technology related to geolocation is geo-fencing. This is when you set a virtual fence around the perimeter of a physical location. You can use this geo-fence to trigger the delivery of ads, or even to trigger an in-store activity. For example, a coffee shop may send an advertisement or request whether a consumer would like to have his coffee prepared, so by the time he reaches the shop, he wouldn’t waste time waiting for his coffee. The coffee shop may set a geo-fence around a nearby business district area, delivering ads to office workers telling them a place where the coffee shop is located. The said coffee shop can also use the geolocation of a competitor and deliver ads to potential consumers. This is called geo-conquesting.
A perimeter can also be set using time, instead of physical distance. For example, a restaurant may send ads to consumers who are within a 10-minute drive from its geolocation. This provides the consumers a precise knowledge about where to take their lunch. This can also help users to skip traffic jams.
Adjust Bids according To a Location’s worth
You may be worrying about the smaller reach of using geolocation. If you have a CTR of 20% and an ad reach of only 100 users based on location, then you only have 20 clickthroughs. This can be such a low number and may even mean that you have spent more money on the ad campaign than the total sales. To stop this from happening, adjust your bid on the ads. You may raise your bid on better-performing target locations to surpass your money’s worth. But don’t totally ignore low performing locations. Instead, lower your bid on these places. This would help to provide a broader reach without spending ineffectively.
Include Location Information on You Paid Search Ads
Using geolocation doesn’t limit you to a user’s physical location. One of the best strategies for local businesses to appear on SERPs is to include location information on their ad settings. Many searchers often include location on their search keywords, like adding the name of a city, state, or venues.
For example, consumers in an airport may search for “best coffee shop in Singapore terminal 3” or “cheap gyms near Petronas tower KLCC.” More and more consumers are doing these location-specific searches, providing tons of possibilities for local businesses. To take advantage of this, include as much location information as you can on your ads – ZIP code, local name of places, area code, community, landmarks, street names, etc.
Use Geolocation Information to “Predict” Your Audience’s Behavior
Many studies had been conducted about people’s common traits, preferences, ethnicity, and spending behavior based on geography. Likewise, you can also predict the inhabitants’ education, ethnicity, income and age bracket, and interests of most neighborhoods.
Take Chinatowns for example. Many countries have at least one Chinatown where most inhabitants are Chinese, and this can provide a good target if your business caters to Chinese people. Likewise, if your business sells luxury bags and accessories, you can target exclusive neighborhoods because they are more likely to buy your product.
Learn From Search History
Not everyone in a specific neighborhood will behave like most of the people who live there. This is where search history can be pretty helpful. For example, someone in France may be searching for diners near the Empire State Building, or hotels near Broadway or Central Park – all these places are in New York, and the consumer may be planning to visit it next week. Taking hints from past searches may help to predict the user’s next travel destination, and businesses like hotels and restaurants may use this trigger to send promotional rates to the consumer.
Learn from a Consumer’s Past Locations
Businesses can gather a lot of information from a target consumer’s past locations. These include what they like to buy, which transportation mode they prefer, what type of hotels they like, how often they visit that place, and what kind of shops they like to buy from. You can launch timely ad campaigns to target consumers based on these information.
For example, a Dunkin Donuts shop may offer discounts on their donuts plus a free cup of coffee to those who frequently go to a Starbucks shop within a 10-minute walk from its location.
Deliver Relevant Contents through Location-Based Landing Pages
Targeting the most appropriate customers is a great goal, but it does not end there. Websites also need to provide the most relevant information based on the customer’s location. Many consumers may look for other alternatives if their preferences are not met on the first click. Websites may use different landing pages according to a consumer’s geolocation.
Google is a good example of a location-aware approach. When you search something in Google while you are in the Philippines, you will most likely be redirected to Google.com.ph. But if you travel to Malaysia, you will instead by redirected to Google.com.my, or to Google.com if you are in the USA. Likewise, car dealers may use location information to deliver landing pages showing luxury cars to high income neighborhoods.
Take Advantage of Location-Specific Events
Holidays, festivals, annual events, and even weather forecasts can also be used to target consumers. Festivals like Thaipusam, Hajj, Christmas, Lent, and Chinese New Year, or events like the election of a new Pope, St. Patrick’s Day, and Oktoberfest, can be an effective means to target consumers. Some unfortunate events like weather disturbances, heavy rain or snow, high UV index and temperature, earthquakes, and sandstorms can also provide a means to target consumers and help them to cope with these calamities.
Summary
The scenarios stated above are just a few examples of how to use geolocation to precisely target consumers and boost sales. Using these may sometimes be tricky, and may also require additional steps to finish the marketing campaign. Local businesses need to consider location information to make their ad campaigns more cost-efficient.