Over the past few years, Google searches for terms like “Where to buy” and “near me” have increased by more than 200 percent.
What’s more, over 50 percent of consumers are using search engines like Google to find new brands—and 59 percent of shoppers shared that they use Google or other search engines to research a purchase before buying in-store or online.
Why is this? Google chalks it up to the fact that consumers are using mobile nearby search options to research and find almost everything they need, “from restaurants to mechanics and from New Year’s Eve firework celebrations to post offices.”
With more and more consumers (and business leaders) using their phones and search engines to locate the products and services they need, brands need to start paying attention to hyperlocal marketing, if they haven’t already.
Hyperlocal advertising can have a big impact on your brand and your sales—provided you understand the ins and outs of this marketing strategy. This article will take a look at what hyperlocal advertising is, how it can benefit your business, and what it can mean for your brand.
What Is Hyperlocal Marketing?
As the moniker suggests, hyperlocal marketing is a kind of marketing strategy to focus your efforts on reaching a target audience in a very specific area. Generally, it’s used to target those who are fairly far along in the buying process; they are searching for a solution and generally ready to make a purchase.
“Hyperlocal marketing is a method of marketing that focuses on a targeted audience within a local area. This tactic zeroes in on a small number of consumers who want to buy from businesses near them. Hyperlocal marketing accomplishes one main goal: raising foot traffic to a store's physical location for people who rely on "near me" queries for shopping.”
What does this mean? Hyperlocal advertising is a niche marketing technique used to bring in consumers who are looking for a product or service in their area when they find your brand. Most of the consumers targeted by hyperlocal ads are already looking for a particular item or service when they are targeted by a hyperlocal campaign.
Hyperlocal marketing is carefully designed to bring more foot traffic to your business by placing the right ads in front of consumers or other businesses when they will have the most impact. It can also be used to increase brand awareness in your area or in a specific location.
An example of a hyperlocal ad might be geared towards reaching a consumer looking for a nearby coffee shop. After conducting a search for a coffee shop “near me,” in your locale, your coffee shop appears as a recommended location on their search engine results page. It could also look like an ad on a social media timeline to nearby consumers or a push notification letting nearby consumers know about a special or sale.
Depending on budget and marketing goals, hyperlocal advertising can exist in a variety of channels, including:
- Small print ads
- Television
- Radio
- Newspaper
- Pamphlets and direct mailers
- Digital advertising
- Sponsoring local events
Hyperlocal marketing also involves optimizing your Google My Business page, making the most of local searches, creating hyperlocal web content, and building an accessible, easy-to-navigate website—all important steps to take to ensure that you can be found online in your desired geographic location.
The Perks of Hyperlocal Advertising
When you choose to market your brand in a very localized area, you’re already reaching a niche market. When you add in the fact that these consumers and businesses are searching for a specific product or service on their mobile phone (and usually looking to make a purchase), the campaign becomes much more focused.
Based on their search queries and geographic location, hyperlocal marketing delivers action-oriented ads to consumers that allow advertisers to share messaging that links community insight to their brand, offering an immediate solution to a consumers’ problem.
According to Financial Express, “hyperlocal marketing provides an incredible return on investment.” Brands can use hyperlocal marketing to put their name in front of the right audience. Financial Express further shared that hyperlocal marketing can even help generate positive online reviews to boost local rankings and brand recognition in the nearby area—people will start to know a brand by name, product or service, and reputation.
Just what kinds of benefits does hyperlocal marketing offer?
- Attract hyperlocal, eager-to-buy leads: Hyperlocal marketing brings in leads who are ready to purchase. The target audience of hyperlocal advertising are consumers and businesses that are already looking for the product or service your brand offers.
- Low cost, effective marketing: Hyperlocal marketing doesn’t require the same kind of ad spend that comes with regional and nationwide campaigns. Additionally, brands can use these localized marketing techniques to target a hyper-specific group. It reduces the cost of acquiring a customer while at the same time improving your return-on-ad spend.
- Simple set up and maintenance: Hyperlocal advertising is easy to set up and maintain, segues right into personalized ad campaigns, and offers higher conversion rates compared to other marketing strategies.
- Helpful in building relationships with customers: Hyperlocal marketing has the added benefit of helping your target audience in your geographic location trust that they can count on you when they need the particular products or services you offer. As a result? Many customers who are hyperlocal marketing conversions turn into repeat customers and brand ambassadors.
- See progress in real-time: Hyperlocal advertising and marketing works in real-time. What this means is, you can offer prospects deals on the products and services they are looking for, which increases conversion rates.
What Hyperlocal Marketing Can Do For Your Brand
Hyperlocal marketing is a unique opportunity to solve a problem that your target audience has at that exact moment—all at a relatively low cost. When you do this, you create a reputation as a reliable brand plus it shows that you are part of the local culture.
An example of how one brand connected to a hyperlocal market? The acclaimed national beauty brand Glossier opened a pop-up shop in Seaport, near Boston back in 2019. Not only did they employ hyperlocal advertising opportunities by posting plenty of local ads and out-of-home (OOH) advertising throughout Boston and the nearby areas to build interest with this focused audience, but they took advantage of momentum when their OOH bus stop ad was heavily featured in a photo of New England Patriots fans celebrating in the streets after their Super Bowl win.
When Glossier saw this photo, they jumped at the chance to share the news about their upcoming pop-up shop on Instagram in a humorous way—with the aforementioned photo along with the caption, “What happened when Boston saw our Boy Brow ads.” They tapped into a niche market in a memorable way, demonstrated that they had their finger on the pulse of what was happening in Boston, shared the news of their pop-up shop, and raised the return-on-investment from the cost of one OOH ad and an Instagram post. It also helped the cosmetics brand gather momentum for their campaign on both a hyperlocal and national level.
As marketing guru Neil Patel shared:
“Hyperlocal marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar business. Especially in this day and age when competition for customers is stiff, you need to up your game to achieve your marketing goals. And hyperlocal marketing could just be the shot in the arm that your business needs. While it may seem counterintuitive to market to a smaller target group, going hyperlocal has the advantage of improving your lead quality.”
Are you interested in connecting with community members at the local level? At MBI, we understand that hyperlocal advertising is simple to execute but requires precision research, and insight. We’ll help you target the right channels and venues to make the most of your hyperlocal advertising efforts and be the solution your target audience is looking for in their moment of need.
To learn more about how we can help with your next campaign, connect with our team of seasoned experts today!