How to Map Out a Local Marketing Strategy
Local marketing offers advantages over marketing on a larger scale; because you are closer to potential customers, you can use insider knowledge to tailor a more personal marketing message. As you develop a marketing strategy, consider how you can reach out to people in the area using the emotions and buying factors that matter most to them. By using an organized strategy, you can approach marketing systematically, which can make it more efficient and cost-effective.
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Instructions
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Create a profile of your local target audience. Collect as much information as possible about them: jobs, where they live, shopping habits, personal hobbies, economic data and family information. Interview people who are representative of your audience group and ask them questions about where they shop, what factors affect buying decisions, personal ambitions, and the things they love and hate about current businesses in the area.
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Look at what your local competitors are doing. Note how they present their products, where they advertise and the type of people who purchase their products and services. Analyze their products and services and identify the things you do better in terms of service, price, features or value.
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Identify the things that will make your business attractive to the shoppers in your town based on the information you have collected. Cross-reference the factors that are important to your customers with the things you do better than your competitors. Write down the points where the two intersect and plan to use them as your main selling points.
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Choose the best ways to reach your target audience based on their behaviors and activities. If they tend to patronize local businesses, plan a poster campaign to cover the bulletin boards at coffee shops, grocery stores and laundromats. Consider marketing strategies like online advertisements on local newspaper websites and blogs, print ads, postcard mailing campaigns, booths at festivals or fairs, or sponsorship of local events. You can also print ads on the back of tickets for local events, advertise on buses or volunteer to share your knowledge in a local education series.
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Investigate costs and requirements for each type of media. Ask about deadlines for print and online ads and get a copy of the editorial calendar. If you will need to submit a digital file, find out what the preferred format is. Gather all of the practical information into one place for easy reference when planning a marketing calendar down the road.
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Tailor your message for each marketing strategy. Write copy for each channel using your selling points. Edit the copy to work with the limitations of each format: short and to the point for radio, segmented for easy scanning for print and online, and distilled to a few words for visual advertisements.
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References
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