Stories of Adaptation

By John Tan

You don’t have to be a household name to create marketing campaigns that target local audiences effectively. There are businesses of all sizes that depend on localized research and data to engage with local markets. 

In fact, we recently helped a client that needed a localized solution to address the unique situation of the pandemic.

 

Drive local in-store traffic

With over 170 strategically placed locations in communities across the country, our client needed to find new ways to drive in-store traffic to sell their products, which require tailoring for a precise fit.

Previously, they advertised digitally to drive foot traffic into their stores, but foot traffic stopped after the retail shutdown.

Even as stores began to reopen, shoppers were not coming in to their stores as they had before. They needed to give their local shoppers a safe way to shop with them again.

It was clear that to drive in-store traffic for their tailored products, their stores needed to offer appointment-based shopping. This would allow customers to show up for an appointment safely and shop with peace of mind.

Find your target audience

The question became how to target customers near their stores who are the most likely to convert?

Their customers are professionals of a specific income range, who for the most part are working from home and are spending a lot of time online. We modeled data for their customer type and demographics. This allowed us to target only those people likely to be interested in their products.

Through our Omni Mail Campaign services, we reached their customers at home. We served digital ads to targeted households with discount offers tied to booking an appointment at a local store.

We reinforced the online offer with a direct mail piece delivered in the middle of the digital campaign. The direct mail piece directed shoppers to their local store to claim the offer.

We were able to show that an Omni Mail Campaign could reach customers at home and incentivize them to make in-store appointments.

 

Adapt to change

Because of the pandemic, you might be paying for a billboard that only a fraction of your local audience will see.

Businesses using billboards and other types of broadcast based advertising may find that they need to find other ways to reach localized audiences at home.

The beauty of targeting local audiences at home is that each campaign can further refine data lists for audiences at other locations 

Data modeling allows you to target audiences based on customers’ personas. Campaigns that use target audiences allow you to continually test and iterate your audience lists.

The old campaign model was “spray and pray”, and hope that you get a response. However, now that we can “analyze and target” audiences, campaigns can be more accurate, cost effective and yield increased conversion rates.

Model the data

Retail is evolving and retailers need ways to evolve in response. Retailers need new ways to offer customized, localized, shopping experiences to encourage shoppers to shop in stores again.

Localized marketing and advertising can work for many types of retail businesses and locations. You simply need to know your audience and be open to creative solutions to deliver your message to the right people at the right time.