You own a website, you need to reach those local customers you know that are searching for you, but nobody is coming around knocking. So deciding to localize your search results to them is the beginning, this to ramp up your online direct response marketing efforts.
If you own a physical store front, an office, represent a major brand, a manufacturing concern, or a professional business, what’s needed is perfecting your localized search which allows you to provide the exact information that these searchers are looking for.
Doing so helps to effectively develop a digital traffic funnel towards your business, this for collecting online email leads, for offline purchases, offering support, or giving them directions to where you are.
The Purpose Of Localized PPC Search Ads
Paid search advertising originally had one primary purpose, and that was to drive online surfers to your website, this so they could purchase your usually digital product or service.
But know the reasons for spending money on paid ads is continuously evolving. This because of the increasing number of mobile users with devices online, as well as the other digitally connected methods that your customers use when they’re in your local area. Realize that targeted paid search for mobiles has now become the new “Yellow Pages” for these users.
But because the search results remain limited on these mobile devices, it makes it even harder for your listing to show up on the first page when it comes to generic non-brand searches, which are your potential new customers.
Reasons For Localizing Your Site
There are several benefits once you decide to localize your search efforts. When you begin using custom messaging for your users in a particular market, doing so communicates the precise targeted individual stores promotional information, which can potentially lead towards more innovative marketing tactics.
More importantly, local paid search can act similar to a precise online snipers rifle used by a sharpshooter, this when targeting these new customers.
When a particular market location happens to be doing well, then you can use Pay Per Click advertising to snag new potential users directly into your store location immediately, and then capitalize on them physically.
Conversely, for all of your under performing local markets, they can receive supplemental advertising which can help improve your presence.
This can work for a large spectrum of advertisers:
• National brands can support their local stores by helping them improve their consumer messaging, while limiting the wasted ad spend by the local stores who may not be as digital savvy
• Manufacturers who happens to work directly with their reps can spend their Pay Per Click ad dollars to help in creating new local prospects for their top producers, which increases everyone’s profit line while improving vendor relationships
• National restaurant chains who may have multiple locations across the country, can easily reach those “on-the-go” mobile users by getting into their minds, this by offering up to date coupons and promotions at that exact moment when they’re ready to make a decision
Once you have the right structure along with the analytics in place, local search can become an excellent tool that you the advertiser can use to capitalize on the specific regions where the businesses are the strongest, or become a lever which can supplement additional marketing to those locations which are under performing, this to increase awareness while improving foot traffic and sales.
Steps To Effectively Localizing Your Search Marketing Efforts
Organize The Structure Of Your Campaign
Properly organizing the structure of your campaign needs to be based on how the location of your stores are segmented, this along with how you plan to spend and allocate your ad budget.
For instance, if you happen to have multiple retail locations in different market segments, then mass level targeting is all you may need to do, where if you just have one location per market, then you can zero in on the specific zip area/code which it services.
Determining A Keyword List And A Search Structure
You need to apply this across all of your markets to improve efficiency. A proven profiling system, such as Kenshoo, for instance, is needed, along with a way of grouping multiple campaigns into location-based groups, this for localized optimization, which can then allow for customized bidding strategies based on that particular market.
Customizing Your Messaging Based On Market
For organizations who may have multiple offline locations, the promotions usually tends to be customized because of the competition which is within that particular market.
So coordinate your search messaging efforts with all of your other local marketing methods, such as print, TV, or radio, which then allows you to capitalize on the “buzz” which is generated by these more traditional marketing solutions.
Precisely Define Your Goals For All The Individual Markets
Whenever possible, determine how you can effectively measure the reporting and if there’s a way of attributing this offline research back to the search campaigns, where the budget is spent locally. Use data visualization tools as an effective way of taking geographic data, and then visualize it in a user friendly way for making the proper decisions.
Spending PPC For Targeting Local Searchers
What we now live in is a constantly evolving digital mobile landscape, so connecting with these mobile savvy users on a localized level is becoming extremely important.
What performing the precise digital tracking along with analytics allows is for paid search to be an extremely powerful tool which can improve your “brick and mortar” websites bottom line.
What online search represents is it’s the new yellow pages for this generation of consumers who are packing mobile devices and searching for you. The brands and businesses who are able capitalize on this by providing the exact information at the right time of they searching, are the ones who’ll best connect with them.