What is localization strategy?
It’s marketing with a focus on attracting customers from a specific location. Every business can benefit from a powerful, local marketing strategy. It’s as true for large corporations as it is for local ‘mom and pop’ operations. Consider the example of Shane Company. It’s one of the largest jewelers in the United States, and has more than 20 locations.
Now the plot twist. If you didn’t know this, and heard one of their famous radio commercials, you’d think they were a locally owned company. That’s because the owner and founder Thomas Shane localizes every commercial by providing hour and location information of the stores located in that region. The technique is used to drive local customers to those locations. There are other reasons to market locally as well:
- You can connect with your audience in ways that larger competitors cannot.
- You’ll have a better chance of landing in Google’s local three spots.
- You can seamlessly combine online and offline marketing efforts.
To get local marketing to work for your business, try some of these powerful techniques.
Prepare Yourself For Local Online Search
Some of the most lucrative searches are local. When people are prepared to spend money, or find other ways to move through the sales funnel, they’re more likely to search out local businesses. Being prepared for local search is part of any local SEO and marketing campaign. You can take the following steps to do that:
- Complete your Google my Business profile.
- Register your business with local directories.
- Include all of your location and hour information on your website, and make it easy to find.
- Complete your company’s social media profiles and include location and contact information on those as well.
Maximize Local Events
Most communities have at least a few major events throughout the year. These include sporting events, concerts, charity events, and festivals. If you can find a way to tie your marketing to these, you can really strike gold. Some event localization strategy examples include:
- Contact event organizers about sponsoring the event.
- Set up a booth or find another way to be present at the event. Give away swag and use it as a reason to collect email addresses.
- Hold event themed contests and giveaways.
- Donate gifts or food.
- Make your team a visible presence at charity events and volunteer opportunities.
- Write content about local events for your website and blog.
Write Locally Focused Content
Content localization is a key component of any local marketing effort. One of the most important things you can do in your localization marketing efforts is to write content that is optimized for local keywords. It can help to create a list of locally optimized, long tail keywords to focus on in your content. This can be as simple as incorporating city and other location names into your keywords. Think of the ways that you search for local businesses, and apply the same strategies to your own content.
It’s also important to create content that is relevant to your local audiences. Learn what topics your target customers care about, then create content that meets their needs. If you’re trying to reach local audiences in markets outside of your own, this is the time to consider localization services.
Localization professionals understand the traditions, culture, and needs of people living within a specific area. They can help you tailor your social media posts, web pages, blog posts, ads, and other content so that your messaging is appealing to locals. The best way to connect with localization services is often through review sites such as Pick Writers where you can learn more about these companies before selecting one.
Connect With Local Media And Influencers
Influencers can be extraordinarily helpful in connecting your business with a wider audience. The same is true for local marketing. The only difference is in who you choose to work with. If you can identify local bloggers, writers, reporters, even other locally owned businesses, work to create relationships with those folks. If they’re willing to partner with you in some capacity, that can carry quite a bit of weight with local audiences. Some influencer, localization strategy examples include:
- Searching for local HARO requests.
- Guest blogging.
- Writing articles for local publications.
- Contacting local media with press releases and pitches.
Use Geo Targeting in Your Ad Campaigns
Both Google and Facebook have location targeting options if you decide to use their paid advertising services. This way, not only can you create marketing and advertising content that is locally optimized, you can ensure that it gets to the people who are in that location. Keep in mind that this doesn’t only include people living in a certain area. You can target people who travel to your area, work there, or who have recently visited.
This helps you to create a personalized marketing experience for your locally targeted audience. Your content will seem that much more relevant to your theme, and will be more likely to drive traffic to your landing pages.
Promote And Solicit Local Reviews
The one thing that is more likely to influence your audience than your own content is the word of your own, satisfied customers. Fortunately, customer reviews tend to be very locally targeted by their very nature. They usually include location and contact information as part of their metadata. Customers tend to use locally relevant keywords in their writing as well. In addition to this, many review sites organize reviews according to location.
You can capitalize on this by quoting local and linking to local reviews on your social media pages, landing pages, and web content. You can also encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews as part of your local, target marketing campaign.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re a local business that needs to connect with your target audience, or a global operation trying to gain traction with communities around the world, you need a local marketing strategy. By applying the tips listed above, you can increase your chances of connecting with local audiences through your marketing efforts.
