Local marketing is not a new concept. In fact, Google wishes that you go for local marketing to earn those brownie points when you have a local shop or store in a particular area. Let me tell you, there is nothing as amazing as foot traffic in your store and it helps to boost your revenues and ultimately, the bottom line- profits.

The issue is some marketers don’t find relevant local marketing enough to drive sales. For them, the option is hyperlocal marketing that hits a specific neighborhood or streets or few blocks with an intense, carefully crafted marketing strategy.

It is a smart concept to understand first. They are directly making the blows where customers are drinking or sitting or sleeping and it can boost your local traffic to a great extent.

Let’s understand the concept of hyperlocal marketing in detail to understand what it is and how it can be helpful to your business.

What Is Hyperlocal Marketing?

You must be aware of a universally popular search pattern- Near Me. People love to find things that are near to them rather than driving miles away. Hyperlocal marketing concept directly targets those specific areas, sometimes, a few blocks or streets to gain the competitive edge. They hit the narrowed down area and target their potential customers there to let them get what they want.

Have you searched something like- “grocery stores near me?” congratulations, you have already used hyperlocal search for yourself.

You are running out of sugar at your home and you visit your regular grocery store just to know that they are out of stock. What will you do? You will search for grocery stores near me as you don’t want to drive to the grocery store located few miles away from your location. It is called hyperlocal search and it brings tremendous joy to the customer when he can find what he wants instantly.

Why Should You Opt For Hyperlocal Marketing For Your Business?

If you have a business with one or multiple retail stores or physical shops, a successful and carefully crafted hyperlocal marketing strategy can work wonders for you.

Near-me searches are trending in Google since 2014 and as per the Google data, these searches grew in volume by 130% in 2014-2015 alone. Whether it is a simple book to a post office to an Easter gift, people are highly using near-me searches.

In addition to that, users now want Google to show highly relevant local results first even if they don’t use terms such as near me. According to a Google study, searches without Near-Me term has increased 150% faster than searches with a term Near-Me. The perception is simple- When people type something, they want local results instead of nation-wide or global results.

Also, the buying patterns are changing every year. The concept of ROPO (research online, purchase offline) is worth mentioning. People prefer to buy from physical stores as they offer more superior shopping experience and fun time.

The story is simple- if you have a physical shop, you need to optimize your hyperlocal strategy to target your local potential buyers who are more genuine than you find visitors online.

How To Create a Hyperlocal Marketing Plan?

An ideal hyperlocal marketing plan is one that has carefully controlled geolocation settings. However, there are other important aspects too that we will discuss in this post.

How to find hyperlocal keywords:

Finding and targeting keywords for a specific tiny town is annoying and sometimes, frustrating too. The first hurdle is that you don’t have volume data for keyword research and on the other hand, reaching out to the local audience is highly important. What will you do in such case? Here is a list of steps to find hyperlocal keywords.

When it comes to targeting a very small town, there are chances that you will not get volume data that you need for keyword research, irrespective of the keyword research tools you are using. What can you do about it? Here is a quick solution:

Use keyword data for larger, similar regions:

If you are not getting enough information for a region you want to target, just modify your search with nearby regions with the good population. Suppose you are looking to target the region called ABC with a population of 6000. Now, you need to modify your search by using the name of the town called XYZ with a population of 20,000. it will give you more keyword volume you want to fetch some data.

Google Autosuggest is darling:

Google always helps and it will help you to find right keywords for a specific region you aim to target. All you need to do is to enter the name of the region on the Google bar and you will find autosuggest options.

Google does not care if a specific keyword was searched for once a year, twice a year or not at all. Not just Google, this technique works well with Bing, YouTube, and Google Maps too. All you need to do is to rely on it and that is all.

Lexical or related SERP suggestions:

Lexical keyword search is very popular with semantic relationships between words and phrases and it can help you out to find a right set of keywords. Another keyword research technique is related SERP suggestions. This technique enables you to get different types of search results with potentially similar to the search term you have typed.

All you need to do is to remove the region name and instead, search for a term that you are looking for. It will give you search results with closely related topics. You can add the region name and you will see similar topics for a particular region you have typed.

Google Business Page:

Google my business (formally known as Google Places) listings is a place where Google sources all the local business details of your business such as name, contact details, photos, working hours, reviews and other things. Even, for specific results, you can add graphical data about peak hours.

User Reviews:

When it comes to local business, reviews play a prominent role in buying decisions. You need to ensure that you have reviews on your local Google My Business page. It is an indirect word of mouth marketing that will beneficial for your business.

According to a research by the 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors, review signals play an important role how Google will show your local business on rankings.

Google Adwords:

Google Adwords is also a tool that you can use for your hyperlocal marketing and it can serve you best results. You can start a campaign for a specific location based keywords searched for a particular location. By choosing a radius in Adwords, you can start a campaign.

In a PPC campaign too, you can target those keywords to attract local visitors. Keywords might be anything such as regional landmarks, colloquialisms and popular cultural words too, anything that a local user can identify with.

Facebook Advertising:

Thanks to the social media, you can target local markets more easily and effortlessly. Have you heard about Facebook ads? These ads are geographically targeted ads that offer best Return On Investment to the users than any other marketing ads.

Facebook is one of the most used social media platforms to hit the right button. Whether you want to hit locally or hyperlocally, all you need to do is to create an ad on Facebook and that is all. It offers best conversion rate than any other traditional or new marketing channels.

In addition to that, you can also use other filters such as age, gender, location, language and others. It is the best tactic for hyperlocal marketing.

Similar to Facebook, you can target your Twitter users by creating an ad via city, area or a zip code.

Use Local Ads:

Local ads are also an effective way to reach out to local users. Formally, it was also known as Home Service Ads and were quite effective too. Generally, the ads appear in a carousel. The stars and reviews too placed along with it and it can work perfectly fine to create brand awareness in a local area.

Conclusion:

Hyperlocal marketing is gaining popularity among masses due to superior conversion rates and improved revenues and profits it offers. Hitting the local market will bring you good foot traffic with genuine inquiries. Aforementioned tips might help you to design a best hyperlocal marketing strategy for your business. All the best!