Local advertising - how does it work, what are its forms and for which companies will it work?

Local advertising is a type of promotion that is carried out in a specific area. In such a campaign, the company does not focus on extensive communication to consumers dispersed across the country or abroad. Instead, the focus is on marketing to the local community of a selected region, city or even neighbourhood. Is this form of promotion effective? How can it be carried out to achieve the desired results? How to attract customers to a stationary shop? We suggest!

Local advertising - how does it work?

Advertising Local is a specific type of marketing activity that targets a geographically limited audience. The scope of local promotion varies. Such advertising may target a specific province, a selected town or an even narrower audience - the inhabitants of particular districts of a city.

The primary task of any local advertising is to reach potential customers who live in a specific region. However, it is worth remembering that the objectives of individual campaigns can vary. Marketers' intentions are usually sales or image-based.

In the first situation, the aim is primarily to increase sales of products or services in a particular area. A sales campaign sometimes also aims to present a new product that is just entering the market. In the case of image activities, on the other hand, the essence of advertising may be, for example:

• raising awareness of the company in question and its activities;
• building relationships with clients;
• gaining trust among the local community.

Local promotion is particularly important for companies in the SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) sector, as they derive their income primarily from consumers living in the vicinity of a particular shop, catering establishment or other place of service.

It is worth remembering that local marketing is also important for entities that operate exclusively offline. Absence in the e-commerce area makes it necessary for owners of such businesses to reach representatives of the local target group. It is their consumer activity that influences the respective financial situation of a given business.

How do you advertise your business locally?

Local advertising takes many forms. Current technological developments mean that entrepreneurs can promote themselves in both traditional media (such as television, radio or newspapers) and all kinds of modern media (primarily online).

In addition to this, offline advertising also comes into play. We are mainly talking about outdoor activities, which use solutions such as billboards, advertising on bus stops or handing out flyers.

Online local advertising

An online local campaign can be based on several pillars. Among the basic solutions is a search engine presence. In order to effectively position a company online, the first thing to do is to complete its profile data on Google and Google Maps.

Such a profile is a free solution that allows you to easily present the physical location of your business and the area it serves. With this information, customers will be able to easily find your shop, restaurant, hair salon or any other service point on the internet.

A business bookmark on Google can be personalised by adding images (e.g. of the products being sold), a description of the company or contact details. This creates a comprehensive business card for the company.

In order to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by Google, it is also worth positioning your company's website using key phrases of a local nature. For example, weaving the phrase "beauty services Wrocław" into entries on the website of a beauty salon from this city can improve the visibility of the business.

Creating an electronic business card or optimising content for search engines (SEO) are activities that can be carried out at no cost. However, if you have a budget for marketing activities, then you can invest in paid Google Ads.

This is a noteworthy solution because it allows the promotional message to reach a specific audience. With Google Ads, the personas of a company's potential customers can be precisely defined. This includes not only their age or gender, but also their area of residence. Therefore, targeted advertising for a local company can be organised efficiently.

Similar opportunities are offered by promotional campaign tools on popular social media. Facebook Ads or advertising on Instagram can also be targeted to very precisely defined audiences. In this way, resources allocated to promotions are not wasted on reaching users outside the target group.

Offline local advertising

Advertising your business online is just one way to reach customers. It is worth remembering that offline promotion can also be an interesting solution for increasing reach and attracting new audiences.

Improving the visibility of a business and awareness of its activities can be achieved, among other things, through traditional promotional posters. The distribution of such materials in the chosen area ensures the presence of the desired audience.

Another idea for offline promotion is to buy space in a local newspaper. You can place an advertisement there in the form of an article or graphic. It is also a good idea to create a PR text and send it out to local journalists. If the topic is interesting enough, there is a chance that the content will appear in the magazine at no charge.

What can be done to make local advertising effective?

There are indeed quite a few ways to advertise a business locally. However, not all of them will be equally effective for all local businesses. To be most effective, promotion must be tailored to the target group of a particular business.

If the business is geared towards selling to young people, advertising on the internet and social media will be perfectly legitimate. However, when targeting older customers, the use of Facebook, Instagram or other portals may miss the point. For such audiences, offline advertising usually works better.

Therefore, it should be emphasised that the most important thing in the creation of promotional campaigns is to identify the target group accurately, and to study its habits and preferences. In this way, it is possible to realise advertising that is maximally tailored to the profile of the potential customer.

Local advertising - examples

A variety of businesses can be promoted by means of local advertising, so examples of this type of communication are really quite numerous. Large businesses, sole traders, service companies or retailers can promote themselves locally. Below are two examples.

Advertising for a furniture shop

Local advertising can work well for a furniture shop, for example. The company is worth promoting offline in the vicinity of growing housing estates. Placing advertisements in such places is able to bring new customers to the company in the form of people who will be moving into the blocks of flats or houses that have been built.

Advertising for a gardening company

Choosing to advertise locally is also a good option for someone who runs a gardening business. The service-oriented nature of this business makes it not worthwhile to promote on a very wide scale. After all, hedge trimming or garden design will mainly be used by consumers from the same town or region in which the business operates.

Moreover, gardeners are primarily employed by people living in houses. As a result, it is known that the area of advertising activities can be narrowed down to housing estates where there are no blocks of flats.

Local advertising with InPost - do you already know these ways?

An interesting way of local marketing activities is advertising with InPost. As part of such cooperation, it is possible, among other things, to veneer a selected Paczkomaty® using promotional graphics. There is also an option of displaying advertising on the screen of the device used for sending and receiving parcels.

These solutions are very original and therefore also eye-catching. This makes it easy to attract the attention of people who use the InPost vending machines located in a selected city or specific district. Thus, local promotion becomes more effective. Sound interesting? You will find the offer together with the price list at inpost.pl/advertising.