LOCAL Marketing OR "Selling in Your Own Back Yard" (Where it
really Counts!)
LOCAL Marketing OR "Selling in Your Own Back Yard" (Where it
really Counts!) by Daniel Sage
Here's the breakdown. You have a business. You have a business
location. You have a neighborhood where that business is
located. You provide a service or product that's truly valuable
to the right people. Great, now how do you find them? Or, maybe
the Question should be - Where? How Will the Customers you Need
EVER find You? Welcome to Business Marketing 101...
FACT "But Most Consumer Purchases are Made Within 12 City
Blocks."
Think about it! Most Chains and Franchises (Burger King,
Starbucks, Target, Wal-mart etc...there are now thousands!) can
be found wherever there is enough Market Saturation. Most
National Chains, Franchises, Grocery Outlets and Even Local
Banks have figured this Equation out and are using it to reap
HUGE sales by Region Count. (Census Tracts) They know the
12-Block Rule and apply it vigorously in all of their Sales and
Marketing Strategies!
They also know that Market Share is the most Important Term in
the Advertising Game.
Let's review a few things about the world of Business
Advertising. There are more than 2 Million new businesses
started every year. (Most are these are home based; this doesn't
include MLM's or Affiliate programs) Over 500,000 of these will
fail within 2 years. The average Successful ad campaign costs
about $250,000 dollars. The average TV commercial is $10,000 for
60 seconds. The average radio commercial is $100.00 for 60
seconds. ($5000 to Produce!) To rent a Cab top billboard is
about $300 a week. The average Freeway Billboard is between
$2500-$5000 a month.
All of these fall under the category of Blanket Advertising.
(Expensive and mostly ineffective in the short run, especially
for small businesses. It works for Chains and Franchises simply
because of the number and convenience of locations.)
Can you even hope to compete with their Advertising Budgets or
Reach?
So, now that you know how local buying habits directly affect
you - how many of these people does your advertising strategy
currently reach? Do you even know how many residents there are
in the 12 blocks surrounding you? Let's expand our marketing
radius to 2 or 3 miles or a single zip code. Do you know
anything about those residents? More importantly, do THEY know
about YOU? These are questions you will need to answer if you
are making your business succeed locally or at all.
The 12 Block Rule is the Secret Ingredient to Franchise and
Chain Store Success.
As a small enterpriser will never beat them at this game unless
you engage the customer on a more personal level. They are the
big corporations but you have one Serious Ad- vantage. You don't
need 300 customers a day to meet your bottom line. This gives
you the upper hand in targeting your market. You might only need
20 a day or 20 a month to meet yours and this means you can be a
little more accurate in pinpointing your potential market.
Smaller overhead means less mass-marketing is needed. Better to
build than slowly and gradually and treat each customer as the
precious commodity he or she is. You can spend less on "blanket
type" advertising and be more direct in your marketing.
This also requires some degree of "intelligence" on your part to
determine who the best prospects are for your business. Start by
determining who is a perfect candidate for what you sell. Is it
something everybody can use - or is it something that everybody
needs? There is a very Big difference when it comes to
marketing. Direct marketing is not just removing the middle-man
from the buyer-seller equation. It's also a more hands on
approach to reaching the consumer on his home turf. This means
you'll need a deeper understanding of your customers and why
they buy from you. Examine your business sales to date- who's
been buying from you and why? Determine as much as you can about
your current client or customer and you will have the basic
profile of who your next one will be. Where in your own
neighborhood do they live? Is there an overall demographic
similarity between most of them and can you reach more of the
same kind of individuals somehow? This is called Clustering and
this kind of Market Research information you'll need to create a
plan for of your own business marketing.
Local Marketing makes sense only because CONVENIENCE has changed
ALL of our Buying Habits forever. You Must now play the game by
the new rules or lose by the new Rules!
Daniel Sage is a Marketing Consultant and Entrepreneur living in
Las Vegas. More info on Local/Neighborhood Marketing can be
found on his site at http://www.customores.com Or send an e-mail
to sage@customores.com