Localised marketing through multiple channels
Technology has progressed so much that we have multiple different connections from within the household. Additionally, old mediums such as print are still very much alive and effective, so there are more ways than ever to reach your audience.
There are multiple channels, therefore, to reach your audience through, and creating a localised approach across these channels ties together your strategies and facilitates a greater response to your message. Those more likely to benefit from a service can receive messaging based on that service, and those that won’t will receive messages more relevant to them.
What is localised marketing?
Localised marketing is defined by refining marketing strategy, collateral, and messaging to a specific, localised area. That local area may be small or large, so the size of a brand and their reach can play a factor in how localised the marketing is.
Thanks to various data-driven marketing technologies, these localities can get smaller and effective personalisation will increase the likelihood of a conversion, so targeting specific geographies and demographics works hand in hand.
Localised and personalised marketing decentralises the playing field, allowing small businesses to compete with big brands. A localised approach is less expensive than a wide net, and that cost can be cut down even further through the use of data-driven targeting, meaning a high return on investment at a low cost.
Who will localised marketing work for?
Localised marketing works for brands both big and small. It is especially effective for brands with a local presence. For example, a door drop from a global brand will compete with a local takeaway, and both can benefit from the marketing methodology.
Also, localisation highlights an immediate and close brand presence, reminding the consumer that they can benefit from services around the corner at ease, without having to travel far and wide.
It is always important to review your products, services, brand, and company when deciding on marketing strategies, but localised marketing is a valid strategy for all businesses, whether they’re operating within one locality or multiple.
The question, therefore, is about scalability. How many localised markets should you be targeting, and how big should that locality be? Should it be postcode level, postcode sector level, or wider? Knowing your product and your audience is critical in deciding this, as their willingness to travel further or where your points of sale are will play a part.
Brand and direct-to-consumer marketing
Direct-to-consumer and brand-to-consumer marketing is opened up by localised, personalised marketing, too. With a focus on the household, the user, and the individual, a brand’s messaging can become more local and more personal.
Instead of casting a wide net aiming at capturing as many leads as possible, household-level marketing allows brands to cut costs and get their message to the audience that will benefit from it, and a direct-to-consumer approach also cuts third-party and middleman fees.
This highlights the direction multiple markets are moving towards thanks in large part to technological advancement. Business processes are decentralising, getting closer to one-to-one business to consumer conversations, and omni and multichannel approaches are tying consumer experiences together, reinforcing a one-to-one relationship between a consumer and a business.
Knowing your audience
Knowing your audience, therefore, is essential. If your brand is going to communicate on a one-to-one basis with a consumer, it is critical to get to know them, their interests, and how your brand can add value to their life.
Existing data is a great start, as modelled, first party, and zero party data will help your brand reach your perfect audience. This data should be aggregated and categorised, as zero party data will always be more valuable than third party data as it highlights an affirmative decision to interact with your brand.
Then, the more data you use, the more targeted campaigns you perform, and the more consumers you reach, the more data you get, which means the more you can refine your audiences’ demographic, locality. This will increase the success of your marketing campaigns.
Choosing the correct locality
Data will always be key, and data-driven strategies will create more data. Marketing technologies that integrate critical data will give you a head start in your hyper-personalised, hyper-effective approach.
If you’re a local business, choosing which locality to market to will be much simpler, as there’s a smaller pool to choose from. However, demographics can be applied, still, to further refine your marketing efforts. Specific postcodes may respond better than others, even specific households within these postcodes.
Hence the importance of data. Data will show hotspots. If you’re a local pharmacist, for example, and your advertising flu-jabs for over 50s, postcodes with a high index of over 50s will respond much better than postcodes without.
This is true of everything, from food, to retail products, to pharmaceuticals.
Channels to consider:
When you’re going for a localised, targeted, multichannel approach, which channels should you consider?
Direct Mail & Partially Addressed Mail
Direct mail and partially addressed mail is a medium where print will get sent out to specific households. These households can be chosen from an existing CRM, an existing database, and from marketing technologies using data to create demographics.
Partially addressed mail is addressed to “the household” and often uses modelled data as a targeting method, where direct mail can also use data households have shared with addressed mail. This is a great way to get a message to those that’ll benefit from it and is a great way to minimise spend.
Door Drop
Door drops are similar to direct mail, only without the targeting. They do have a lower unit rate than a direct mailer, as delivery is at a postcode sector level, but the caveat is that there’s limited to no targeting with a door drop.
A door drop can be great, therefore, for a local takeaway and a national takeaway brand, as campaign wastage will be lower on something more universal, such as food. It likely wouldn’t win out over a direct mailer for a more niche or bespoke product, however the postcode sector could be targeted based on indexing scores, too. In other words, postcode sectors, as opposed to individual households, would be chosen based off metrics such as affluence.
Out of Home
Out of home is also great for brands that are selling a product with universal appeal and can play an important part in foot traffic. For example, out of home advertising in the direction of a fast-food restaurant will drive an audience directly into that restaurant.
Out of home is largely demographic-less, however where ads are placed is significant. Similar to a door drop, metrics on the locality can play an important role.
Press Advertising
Press advertising is great for a local approach and has a common group of demographics associated with it. These channels can be low cost and give your brand more space to talk about why and how your service can help those you’re helping.
Radio
Local radio stations, too, have common groups of demographics and also get your message to those who are interested in supporting their local area, whether that’s by supporting local charities, or through supporting local businesses over chains.
Email advertising can also be data and demographic driven. As above, zero party data users that have opted into communications are the best to advertise to as they’ve already shown an interest in your brand.
This is a great way to iterate and improve your messaging, too, as any drop offs and unsubscribes are a valuable resource, as well as any click-throughs.
Television
Television doesn’t have to be prime time advertising and it doesn’t have to be expensive anymore. Mediums such as Sky AdSmart offers marketing based on demographic where the demographic is collected from the broadband owner directly.
This allows brands to create helpful, tailored ads that reach their perfect audience.
SEM (SEO and Google Ads)
Search Engine Marketing will always be important, and localised SEM is sometimes overlooked in favour of the biggest keywords.
Creating a Google Business Profile, joining local directories, and indicating a local presence online can make your brand and message more attractive to those looking for it. Also, Ads can be demographically and geographically targeted, meaning that demographics who won’t interact with your brand don’t need to see it in the first place.
Creating a multichannel approach and tying channels together
Why, therefore, is a multichannel approach beneficial? Businesses will have one or a small handful of flagship sources of truth for the consumer. This can be a website, or it can be in-store, it simply depends on the product and the service and, more importantly, the experience for the consumer.
Tying channels together increases the likelihood of consumers reaching this source of truth. A direct mailer, for example, will likely be confined to double sided A5 with an exclusion zone for an address. How, therefore, do you present your entire offering to your consumers using an A5 postcard?
The answer is simple, you don’t.
A multichannel approach means that your channels are working together to create a journey for your consumers, where instead of disparate efforts, all of your collateral fits together and your mediums power each other.
Omnichannel marketing is a logical extension of this, where you create a single brand experience no matter which medium you’re using, improving your consumers’ experience but also extending brand recognition.
So, how do you tie channels together? CTAs are essential, whether that’s in print or spoken, and knowing which channel a consumer will most likely reach you on will help with this.
However, there’s no better way to tie channels together than a QR code, as a QR code can go on many, many different mediums and take the user to the same source of truth. Using UTMs can also help distinguish which mediums work well and which need more focus.
Benefits of localised multichannel marketing
The benefits of localised multichannel marketing are clear. As an ecosystem, both the business and the consumer are incentivised. The business is incentivised to create an accurate, personal, and well thought out message where the consumer will receive relevant information about products and services that they’ll benefit from.
The incentives aren’t just cost, but also success. An un-targeted, wide-net campaign will at best have a low conversion rate and at its worse be actively damaging for a brand, frustrating consumers receiving an irrelevant or unhelpful message. A targeted campaign will not only be less expensive, but also have a higher success rate, and may even bring in the same number of interested consumers than a wide-net campaign.
This also gives brands a good place to start in terms of data. Data can be refined every campaign, but with a good starting place and a manageable sample size, this refinement can happen quickly. Therefore, not only are the initial campaigns more successful, but this success is carried over for every campaign.
Precision Marketing Group
Precision Marketing Group’s pedigree is in data and personalised messaging. No matter your brand’s message and no matter how complicated the product, we can help you get it into the households of your perfect audience.
With over 28 years of experience in the field, our data-driven strategies are effective and proven, and our services range from eCommerce capabilities, to marketing technologies that facilitate direct mailers, to healthcare and pharmaceutical third-party logistics.
The core of the business is reaching the household and helping brands communicate with consumers on a one-to-one basis, improving business-to-consumer relationships and benefitting both parties.
To find out more about how Precision’s services can help your business, you can contact the team at getintouch@precision.co.uk or call us on 01284 718900. Our range of services span from localised marketing to consultancy and business process outsourcing, so no matter how big or small the challenge, we’re ready to hear it and we’re ready to help.