Target marketing is a bit simpler when the entirety of your audience is accessible in one territory.
Things get a bit more complicated when your customer base is spread across a wide range of geographic locations. You have to be more creative and strategic in your communication to optimise effectiveness and efficiency.
The following is a look at several common challenges in targeting geographically-dispersed customers, and strategies and tips for overcoming them.
Precise Message Distribution and Strategy
We all know that getting your message to your target market efficiently is necessary to achieve a high return on investment.
One benefit of a digitally-connected global marketplace is you don’t necessarily have to venture out to track down your buyers. Instead, put together a content marketing strategy that attracts the right buyers to you.
Through blog posts, case studies, whitepapers and content syndication, you have the ability to establish authority and expertise in resolving the central problems faced by your target buyers.
Quality search rankings combined with expert content syndication allows you to pinpoint people based on profile characteristics rather than geography.
Geo-Targeting in Advertising
One of the central hurdles in reaching a dispersed geographic audience is avoiding waste.
You could run mass media campaigns and likely reach people across the country, but you are also wasting investment by targeting people that would have no interest in your message.
Fortunately, advanced pay-per-click channels have targeting tools that allow you to isolate campaigns on specific locations.
You can fluctuate your ad spend to put more money into regions that offer a higher potential return.
Rather than targeting the “United Kingdom”, “Ireland”, or another entire country, use the filters on PPC programs to target users based on a specific region along with other profile characteristics.
If most of your customers reside in Manchester and London, then segment that market into their respective locations.
You can get projections for reach and budget before launching the campaign.
Finding Expert Support
A lack of experience and expertise in targeting geographically-dispersed audiences is a major hurdle.
Many companies don’t have the people, time or resources to plan and execute a geo-targeted marketing plan.
Therefore, consider the advantages of partnering with a speciality firm that has expertise in helping clients connect with markets spread across multiple territories.
Internal Results, for instance, maintains a database of over 15 million B2B contacts. Each contact profile includes an array of geographic and profile data.
This data collection allows us to help you target the people your solutions appeal to in an effective way. The Internal Results appointment setting solution helps you optimise your ROI because you only pay when the communication works in getting you a meeting.
Your marketing concerns, budget and return on investment are just as important to a genuine business partner as they are to you.
Conclusion
There are a lot of challenges when trying to execute a geo-targeted campaign to reach people spread across various geographical markets.
But remember that location is only one of many factors to take into consideration when targeting potential clients as this short video from Madison Logic demonstrates.
Other methods you can use are Intent Data (individuals actively researching your products and services), Interaction Data (reaching individuals based on their interaction with your content), Cross-Device Targeting, Install Base Targeting (understand the technologies and products that are currently installed at a company), and Predictive Data, to name a few.
In some cases, working with a speciality firm that has expertise in targeting precise clients regardless of location, can ensure you get it right first time.