Local Marketing has gone digital. The days when an advert in the local paper and a generic mailshot of leaflets into people’s letter boxes would fill your order books are over – in 2015, the power lies literally in the palm of your customers’ hands: the smartphone. Fuelled by developments in mobile and social technology, Local Marketing is metamorphosing from the generic to the geo-targeted; from one-size fits all to one to one. Read on for 12 mind-blowing stats that really drive home the importance and benefits for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) of implementing a SoLoMo (social-local-mobile) approach.

Social and content

1. 80% of SMBs use social media to drive their business growth (1).
2. 60% of SMBs have gained new customers by using social media (2).
3. 90% of users say that seeing a video about a product helps them make a purchase decision (3).
4. Small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog (4).

What this means: according to research, 70% of consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information available on a social media site. Social media – and by extension, content such as blogs and videos – can be a powerful way to connect and converse with local customers and grow your business. Building a presence on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram allows you to engage directly with customers, and – if properly managed – can really help to build brand awareness and credibility. Carefully crafted and on-message content – blogs and videos, for example – enriches your social profiles and builds bonds between you and your customer.

Local

5. 5. 91% of adults have their mobile phone within arm’s reach at all times (5).
6. 47% of mobile consumers want retailers to send coupons to their devices when they are in or near the store (6).
7. 73% of consumers say they have used their mobile phones to guide purchasing decisions when in store (7).
8. 70% of consumers found all types of push notifications, including order updates and location-based messages, to be valuable (8).

What this means: with our smartphones never far from our sides, location-based marketing services have never had more reach or more impact. Using geo-fencing, you can build a virtual fence around a specific area – a set radius around your physical store, for example – so when people enter the space they can opt to have discount information and coupons delivered directly to their smartphones. You can reward customers for ‘checking in’ to your location – this offers an incentive for others to visit your store. Be careful, though, and make sure you target the right audience with the right content. 90% of the respondents to a location-based marketing survey said they had developed an unfavourable attitude to a company or taken some kind of action to limit the messaging in response to a company that consistently sent irrelevant or unsuitable offers or content.

Mobile

9. 80% of local searches on mobile phones convert (9).
10. One in three searches on a smartphone occurs right before consumers visit a store (10).
11. 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day (11).
12. 18% of local searches on smartphone lead to a purchase within a day versus 7% of non-local searches (12).

What this means: 56% of smartphone searches conducted on the go have local intent – searchers are looking for your store address (50%), business hours (54%) and directions (53%). They use their smartphones to search for local information at all stages of the purchase process, from the point when they realise a want or need to make a purchase, through product and company research, and on to purchase and post-purchase. Make sure your website is optimised for mobile – 61% of mobile users will simply leave a website that is not optimised for viewing on their device. Give prominence to essential local information such as address, phone number, directions, maps, business hours, and so on, to allow customers searching ‘on the go’ to find you as easily as possible. Also, make sure you claim and populate your Google My Business listing.

Sources:
(1), (2) http://www.go-gulf.ae/blog/businesses-social-media/
(3) http://www.insivia.com/50-must-know-stats-about-video-animation-marketing-2013/
(4) http://www.thinkcreativedigital.com/blog/bid/136585/Increase-Lead-Generation-by-126-Through-Better-Blogging
(5) http://www.slicktext.com/blog/2013/08/dont-need-mobile-youre-nuts-infographic/
(6) http://loyalty360.org/resources/article/customers-want-online-shopping-options
(7) http://www.themobilists.com/mobile-stats-shopping/
(8) http://www.responsys.com/blogs/nsm/mobile-marketing/give-mobile-marketing-push-infographic/
(9) http://www.b2bmarketing.net/blog/posts/2014/11/16/80-local-searches-mobile-phones-convert
(10), (11), (12) https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-advertisers-can-extend-their-relevance-with-search.html

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