How Important is Local Advertising?

local advertising
Try to remember the last advertisement you saw. If you’re reading this on a computer, you might see one in your browser at this very moment. Online advertising is incredibly pervasive. Google is an advertising company masquerading as a search engine company. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, collects 80 percent of its revenue from advertising. Google ads generated $147 billion in revenue last year. But! Traditional advertising is still incredibly important. Digital advertising in the US only became more prominent, in terms of spend, than traditional advertising in 2019. There’s still over $100 billion being spent on traditional channels each year. Traditional advertising includes billboard advertising, brochures, TV commercials, grocery store advertising, radio, and many more media. It’s a diverse group. You also have to think about the focus of these ads, whether traditional or digital. There are national ads, there are local ads, and there are hyper-local ads. For example, restaurants often purchase advertisements locally on Yelp, targeting users within a particular group of zip codes near that restaurant. On a platform like LinkedIn, businesses might purchase advertisements nationally but focus on certain user professions. Then there are physical advertisements. A company might run a billboard campaign across the entire country without changing the content for specific localities. A local business might rent one or two billboards in their area. Which one of these campaigns will be more effective? Well, it depends on what metrics you’re using to measure success. It’s entirely possible that a small, focused, local advertising campaign could be more effective in terms of dollars spent versus customers acquired than a national campaign.

The Benefits of Local Marketing

To make one thing clear: you do not need a massive budget to advertise your business. That, more than any other reason, is why local advertising shines. So whether you’re purchasing a couple of local radio commercials, a Cartvertising run, or a local newspaper advertisement, the price should be within your advertising budget. If you’re on the fence about whether you want to even spend any money on marketing at all, here are some statistics that should make you more comfortable:
  •  Almost 90% of customers who make local searches from a mobile device take action within a day, including calling the business or buying something.
  •  Nearly 60% of senior marketing specialists believe local marketing is key to an enterprise’s profitability and growth
These statistics reference local digital marketing. Even digital has to have a local focus! Let’s get deeper into the benefits of local advertising.

1. You can advertise locally with a budget of $0

Let’s say you just opened your business and honestly cannot afford to spend a dime on marketing yet. Print out some flyers, go around to other local businesses and ask if you can put up a flyer. One, you’ll get some free advertising. Two, you’ll get a chance to network with other local business owners. It’s essential to build a community.

2.You can be sure people will see your advertisements every day

Let’s say you’ve decided to try grocery store advertising, and you’ve worked with Cartvertising to start running some grocery cart ads. We’ve previously gone into detail on this blog about who shops at grocery stores and how frequently. Basically, you can be sure that people who go to the store where your ads are running will have to think about your business at least once a week.

3. Local, physical ads have more staying power than digital ads

One crucial difference between physical and digital ads is how many people see them each day. If you’re on a computer all day, browsing the internet, you’re going to be seeing countless ads. Though there are no official statistics, it’s estimated that the average person sees between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every day. Most of those have to be digital by the sheer volume of numbers. As a result, it’s much harder to stick out in the digital landscape than the physical.

4. It’s easier to speak to a smaller audience than a larger audience

It isn’t easy to appeal to everyone. When you advertise locally and cater your advertisement messaging to a specific group, your advertisements are much more likely to be effective, as a matter of common sense. Going back to grocery store advertising, it’s relatively easy to figure out who shops there if you pick a particular grocery store. Head to the grocery store and walk around for 15 minutes. Observe who is there. Design ads that you think might speak to those people. Regardless of what channel you’re advertising, make sure to keep your messaging focused. Start small, and don’t blow your entire budget all at once. Instead, iterate on your ad messaging frequently to try and make it more effective. Be smart — think local!

IM In The Know

At IndoorMedia, we believe our blog can help business owners make profitable advertising decisions. Subscribe to our blog to stay in the know!