When you set up an advertising campaign for your company, it can be a challenge to maximize your dollars to reach the customers who will shop at your store. Using geo-marketing in your marketing strategy allows you to focus on those who want what your business offers in the area that you are able to serve. Here are a few ways this method can assist your organization in finding new clients.
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Online Marketing
Geo-marketing picks up the IP address of a potential customer and pinpoints where in the world they are located with the help of global information systems, or GIS. It then can post ads for companies that are in the area of that person instead of one that is across the country. It can adapt the marketing you want to do to fit that particular person. It can also translate the marketing to the language that they speak instead of the one you wrote the advertisement in. With the use of cookies, it can target the website search and social media platforms of a potential client who is already shopping for the items that you sell and place your ad before them while they are looking for that particular thing. This can conserve your marketing dollars by spending them to focus on customers who are in the proximity to shop at your store instead of someone who has yet to hear of you and is too far away to visit.
Targeting Local Markets
To increase the sales around your storefront, geo-marketing can compile the data on the consumers in your area. It draws this information from cellular phones, rewards cards, internet shopping, and other sources that gather information from customers. It can pinpoint a specific distance from your shop and provide you with the exact demographic you need. This allows you to market to those clients who are likely to purchase from you. It also lets you customize your advertisement to fit the person who receives it or the location it will be displayed in. It also can assist you with sales territory mapping, letting you assign spots in the community that can work to a particular sales representative’s strengths.
Reaching Mobile Devices
There are multiple ways that geo-marketing can put your company in front of your customer’s faces. There are programs that will send a consumer a discount or offer if the cell phone is in proximity of the business offering it. This gives the customer an incentive to stop and purchase something there to take advantage of the sale. This can be done by email or by SMS text. You can have an application built for your corporation that lets the end user shop on it or earn rewards that they can use in your store. You can then use this program to reach out to them if they are shopping with you to offer a special deal on a product in the proximity of where they are standing. With the social distancing that is recommended recently due to Covid-19, many convenience stores use geo-marketing to pinpoint where a driver is so they can activate the pump they are parked next to. The consumer at the pump is able to pay for their gas instead of having to go inside to pay the cashier, limiting the contact they have with others.
Marketing On Social Media Platforms
Geo-marketing can be used two ways when advertising on social media sites. When placing an ad on one of these platforms, you can choose the area in the world where this post will be seen. It then can target both the computers and cellular devices in this location for your marketing campaign and display it on their news feed if they indicate that your product is something they might be interested in. It also works when a consumer visits your storefront and checks in on your social media page or on an app that they are there. This gives you a new potential client to send coupons and offers to in hopes that they will return and become a frequent shopper at your business. Other than the minimal charge that is applied when you boost a post, this type of advertising costs very little to use and can bring a large return in the long run.
Define Your Demographics
Investing in a geo-marketing program can assist your company in defining where your target demographics are in your community and around the world. The data is compiled from different sources such as online transactions, warranty cards, and multiple other origins. This information is then transcribed to a digital map to indicate the physical location of the user. From this point, multiple reports can be drawn from the map. This can include finding the median income in a certain section of a community, where the largest saturation of coffee drinkers are in town, and any other data that would be beneficial to your business. However, with the ever changing number of consumers signing up for rewards programs and shopping online, the base pool of information fluctuates constantly. The geo-marketing map must be updated regularly for the reports that you receive to be up to date and accurate.
Areas In Your Business That Benefit From Geo-marketing
The staff member who manages your marketing department will get a great use out of the data you receive from geo-marketing. They have another program that can sort demographic information and potentially give them a sharper focus on categories that they want to reach. It also provides them with an additional advertising tool to reach a more technologically advanced group of consumers that you may have missed before. The employee that handles your customer database can also use this feedback to record data on your current customers that could be absent from your records and add information on potential clients to draw from in the future. When you set up your marketing campaign, it can be difficult to determine where to advertise to get the best result. Investing in geo-marketing can help you find the customers that will buy from you and give you new, innovative ways to do this.