{"id":109646,"date":"2018-10-17T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T18:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/why-brands-need-to-win-the-battle-for-local-consumers\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T09:57:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:57:23","slug":"why-brands-need-to-win-the-battle-for-local-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/local-search\/why-brands-need-to-win-the-battle-for-local-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Brands Need to Win the Battle for Local Consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marketing has always been about connecting brands to consumers. With the growth of digital, the channel mix (search, social, display) grew and brands began to talk about “omni-channel” and delivering “cross-channel experiences”.<\/p>\n

But some brands neglected to include their stores as part of this omni-channel experience and some have paid the ultimate price.\u00a0 You only have to look at today\u2019s high street, littered with brands who have gone or are teetering on the brink. What\u2019s the common theme? They haven\u2019t been able to offer their consumers a seamless online-to-offline (local) experience.<\/p>\n

Local isn\u2019t new; it\u2019s always been a part of the marketing mix. What has<\/em> changed is the technology and platforms which we can leverage to deliver that seamless online and offline (local) experience.<\/p>\n

What is local?<\/h2>\n

In today\u2019s mobile-first world, where you are matters just as much as who you are. With around 70% of internet traffic now coming from a mobile device and Google rolling out a “mobile-first indexing” update to its algorithm earlier this year, brands now need to consider the location of their target audience just as much as they have to consider who that audience is.<\/p>\n

Take the below example. I searched for “coffee” on the Facebook app from our office on George Street, Edinburgh. I am served with results based on my location. Try it for yourself.<\/p>\n

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Why a local approach matters<\/h2>\n

Amazon has moved into physical bricks-and-mortar stores in a drive to integrate with their digital customer journey. It’s an indication of the type of role the “new” high street has to play. Consumers don\u2019t think in an online and offline way \u2013 they expect interchangeable experiences with brands, and for their experiences to be personalised.<\/p>\n

So, how do you begin to leverage local?<\/h2>\n

To get local means to get personal. Brands we work with often face the same issue: they have customer personas based on what they think<\/em> they know about their customers rather than what they can prove using data.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, when you think of market research, you might think about focus groups, interviews and third-party data \u2013 all of which have a role to play at some stage. Technology allows us to fast-forward this process using the data already collected in web analytics, CRM, and review platforms (in a GDPR-compliant way, of course) to build rich pictures of core customer segments.<\/p>\n

Customer intent and the local landscape<\/h2>\n

Once you understand who your core customers are, the next challenge is to deliver consistent brand messaging and experiences that are relevant to these customers. To do this, it\u2019s crucial to understand that consumers will look to different content, channels, and devices at each stage of their decision making journey.<\/p>\n

At DAC, we create a framework to visualise the consumer journey. We then create local strategies that leverage data, content marketing, and channels grounded in this framework to deliver branded content and experiences designed to move consumers through to the next step of their journey.<\/p>\n

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