What are the best ways to use regional marketing to boost business? Our guide outlines how regional marketing works and how it can work for you.
Higher, further – does not automatically mean better. Regional marketing relies on this credo. The form of marketing opens up several advantages in a globalized world: Companies can strengthen their brand, contact local partners directly and use their advertising budget efficiently.
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Every company dreams of spanning the entire globe. A dream that often remains unfulfilled for SMEs. So how about setting your goals a little smaller first? And, for example, not directly striving to be a global player, but first of all to become a “regional” player with an excellent reputation in its local area?
Indeed, the factor of regional reputation should not be underestimated. Although many people think and feel globally, most of them identify to a considerable extent with “their” region. True to the motto: Think globally, act locally. This is where regional marketing comes in.
For SMEs, regional marketing is not only an indispensable tool, to draw more attention to yourself on a regional level with emotional and credible messages. Likewise, it offers the chance to do that. To strengthen the trust of customers and the brand and to effectively support employer branding. If used skillfully, regional marketing creates a great deal of authenticity.
What is regional marketing?
Regional marketing comprises all advertising measures that a company operates in the region of its immediate field of activity. This includes targeting potential customers and business partners in the immediate vicinity. Consequently, the company’s location is the essential characteristic on which all marketing activities are geared.
How big the advertising area is can be determined individually. Regional marketing pursues the goal of increasing local awareness of the company in the immediate vicinity in order, on the one hand, to win local potential interested parties and possible partners.
And on the other hand, to strengthen the regional image in such a way that customers are happy to recommend the company to others. Especially for SMEs who work on site at or for the customer,
How does a regional focus increase trust?
When it comes to enabling people to identify better with a brand, trust plays a crucial role. Naturally, they trust a company that is based in their own region more quickly and more strongly than a company that operates on the other side of the world. In a strongly globalized world characterized by structures that are becoming more and more complex, people long for orientation, security and transparency.
With the right approach and a good dose of authenticity and credibility, regional marketing meets exactly these needs. From a marketer’s point of view, regional marketing is particularly interesting because, for example, regional peculiarities can be used as an emotional advantage for marketing measures.
Every region is different – this is exactly where the strength of regional marketing lies. Knowing the habits, attitudes, typical motifs, such as sights, and the language, i.e. the dialect or dialect of the people from the region, is therefore fundamental for successful regional marketing. Only those who have an understanding of the region can communicate authentically and credibly.
Successful identification means that a company can, at best, be so sharply defined from the competition, creating a uniqueness that can hardly be copied or trumped.
- it strengthens the relevance of the company for its target group (s) ,
- supports branding and creates a positive image,
- increases the visibility of the company in the area
- and gives – especially SMEs – the chance to achieve noticeable success with a lower advertising budget .
What possibilities does analog regional marketing offer?
Regional marketing can be implemented both analogue and digital. If it is to take place offline or on site, the following classic print measures make sense:
- Posters
- Flyer
- brochures
- Newspaper advertisements
It is equally promising to operate regional marketing via local radio and regional television stations as well as sponsoring. It is a fallacy to believe that customer perception is superficially limited to the Internet. Quite the opposite: people are very much shaped by the impressions in their everyday life. For this reason, companies with regional marketing, for example in the local public or regional newspapers and radio stations, often reach a large part of the desired target group.
How does digital regional marketing work?
But there are also numerous possibilities on the World Wide Web with which companies can support their regional marketing and make their own image shine:
- Be visible : Potential customers often look for shops or services online – and not infrequently in their immediate vicinity. If a company can’t be found on the Internet straight away, it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. It is therefore imperative to provide relevant information via various online platforms. A Google My Business entry is now a must. Company entries in business directories, known as local citations, can also increase local visibility. In addition, social networks are a good option for regional marketing, for example companies can join Facebook groups in the area or use regional hashtags in the form of phrases or places on Instagram and Twitter.
- Keeping data consistent : In order for a company to be recognized on different websites, it is not only important to use consistent data in all channels and at all touchpoints, but also to write central information such as name, address and telephone number in a uniform manner.
- Actively maintain profiles : Regardless of whether it is a My Business entry, Local Citation, Instagram or LinkedIn: Creating the profiles is only half the battle. It is much more important to look after them. It is therefore important to regularly check the profiles for their relevance and to keep them up to date.
- Obtaining customer ratings : An essential factor for a good local ranking – and thus for good findability and visibility – are customer ratings. They can be used to proactively influence the local ranking. It can therefore be an idea that companies, for example, ask existing customers for an evaluation or provide a feedback option after contacting a potential customer or interested party .
What role does employer branding play?
One of the main goals of regional marketing is to aid branding. This in turn has a positive effect on employer branding. By positively differentiating itself from other employers in the region, the company appears more attractive to the outside world and ideally – in times of a shortage of skilled workers – attracts new applicants. In order to further develop the employer brand not only externally, but also internally, employee motivation is crucial.
Companies would do well to empower their own employees that they are in the right company. If companies succeed in establishing a strong employer brand – including through regional marketing – good employees can be retained over the long term and qualified specialists can be recruited.
Why are your own employees ideal brand ambassadors?
If employees like to work in a company, they usually show it to the outside world. It can happen that a satisfied employee talks to friends and acquaintances about an advertised position and advertises the said company without consciously intending to do so. A nice circumstance that has great potential. Especially in social networks, especially Instagram, it makes sense to use your own employees as so-called corporate influencersand to advertise the company on a regional level.
In contrast to B2C, where it is common to work with professional influencers, in B2B it is more productive to win your own employees as brand or social media ambassadors. The reasons for this are obvious: Especially in B2B, specialized knowledge is required that professional influencers normally do not have.
Employees, on the other hand, are experts in their field. They have industry knowledge and know products and services like the back of their hand. Developing enthusiastic and motivated employees into brand ambassadors does indeed involve a certain amount of effort, but it looks all the more authentic and credible to the outside world. After all, regional marketing is about being “real”.
