The Benefits of Local Social Media Marketing
Using social media at a local level, and especially advertising, has a number of major advantages.
1. Targeting by postcode and GPS
The most obvious and powerful advantage is local targeting. If you set up a national campaign on Facebook, for example, you will often target the whole of the Netherlands. But, especially if you have physical stores, local targeting is much stronger. You prevent a lot of noise in your media expenditure. For example, by only targeting the 2 or 3 postcodes that are closest to your store. Or even by using GPS targeting, so that you target people who are present within a certain radius of your store.
Another advantage is a more personal approach to content marketing . As a national brand, you often create social media content, which is mainly intended for brand communication. By training your store staff well, you can create a mix between brand content and local content. A local event, for example, or specific opening hours of your store. Or a specific product that is sold locally, but not nationally. The bond between an entrepreneur and his neighborhood is often strong, which you can also strengthen on social media.
This principle is put into practice by SPAR (a client of home business opportunity seekers DailyDialogues, ed.). This well-known (global) chain works exclusively with franchisees for its stores. Each local store is therefore staffed by an entrepreneur. In 2017, SPAR started a local social media pilot for its City stores (stores in cities). These have to deal with a lot of competition and are often (still) not as well-known as the local village store. Through local content and advertisements (based on postcode and GPS), they are able to draw the attention of both residents and passers-by to the store. They also play on tourists and AirBnB visitors through English-language content that is targeted with GPS. SPAR's head office provides the stores with brand content, which is then supplemented with local content.
3. Link between online and offline
Using local social media marketing is an ideal way to finally make the connection between online and offline. By promoting local actions or posting content online, at a local level, ou can actually ensure an increase in store traffic. And that is of course what the entrepreneur or franchisee does it all for. A full(er) store.