What is geotargeting? It’s nothing new, but with better technology, it’s more focused than ever before. Before the internet, where you chose to open your brick-and-mortar business was all about three things: location, location, location. While the internet has made it easier for you to sell to people anywhere, location is still a big deal.
That’s because 90% of all global sales still take place in a physical store. But thanks to technology, 97% of us use our smartphones to search for that physical store.
That’s where geotargeting comes in. But what is geotargeting and how do you use it to increase your sales? That’s what we’re going to answer.
Keep reading to learn how using target location can increase the value of each visitor you bring into your store.
What is Geotargeting?
The definition of geotargeting is a method of using technology to detect a website visitor’s physical location to provide them with location-based advertising and content.
It works because every computer has an IP address which shows its specific location. The digits are similar to a phone number, with the first three digits corresponding with the country code.
The other digits point to specific areas within the domain. Geotargeting is used to improve the cost-effectiveness of your marketing efforts and provide users with value-based content.
Geotargeting lets you market people who are visiting your store, are near your store, or who have been near or at your store in the past.
How to Use Geo Targeting for Your Business
Using geotargeting helps deliver your businesses message to the right customer at exactly the right time. Except people travel a lot more than they used to.
And they bring their smartphones as they travel. Since 97% of us are using our smartphones to research local businesses and many of us actually follow up by visiting that same business within one day, geotargeting is a great tool to help target the right customer base for your business.
If you own a pizza restaurant, it’s easy to use target location to send a local ad to anyone near or at your pizza shop. But you can use geotargeting on a larger scale as well.
You can create and customize marketing specifically for the type of person you’re looking to target. And it doesn’t matter if their permanent residence is near you or not.
Using the information from an IP address, you can create geotargeting ads based on specific locations or businesses people have visited. This information is actually a great predictor to help you determine someone’s interests and intent.
With this information, you can now deliver a relevant message that the targeted consumer can’t help but take notice of.
Using Geotargeting on Social Media
Social media is a great place to use geotargeting, especially Facebook. For as little as $1 per day, you can create your own ads that use a specific target location to help you find the right audience for your business.
Facebook location targets people by using specific information that Facebook has already culled from their accounts. You can find your niche audience by targeting customer’s ages, income levels, and even their interests.
You can also determine the radius of how far you want to cast your geotargeting net. A five-mile radius in New York City gives you half of the island of Manhattan, as well as other other boroughs and in some cases, New Jersey or Connecticut.
Depending on the physical location of your store, you can literally target thousands of people without having to do a lot of work. Instead, you just choose your own parameters and budget.
Geotargeting Tips
Say you own a hair salon in Seattle. With only one location, it makes no sense for you to geotarget any other area other than Seattle and its surrounding towns. Most people aren’t willing to travel far for that type of business.
If you own an e-commerce site in Washington, DC, you would need to expand your target location to include Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. However, it would be wasteful to spend your geotargeting dollars on advertising to people in California since customers that far away aren’t as likely to convert.
Don’t Forget to Exclude Areas
While it’s important for you to know exactly which areas you do want to serve, you should also know which areas you definitely can’t or don’t want to serve. Maybe you’re an e-commerce business looking to expand to all of North America but you aren’t there yet.
In this case, you would purposely exclude Mexico and Canada until you’ve built the infrastructure to cast a wider customer net.
Use Google Trends
Google Trends is a helpful tool to help you determine which regions can offer you the most potential conversions. Google Trends helps you break down the volume of searches for a given keyword by country, region, subregion, and even city.
If you sell ski equipment, you’d expect to see higher search volumes near mountains. Meanwhile, selling surfboards would lead you to see higher search volumes near the coasts.
Which Businesses Benefit from Geotargeting
While foot traffic for retail businesses has dropped a whopping 57% in the past five years, there’s no need to panic. The value of each visit has actually tripled.
Which is why geotargeting is so useful. And it’s working for all types of businesses.
Restaurants and other brick-and-mortar businesses can use geotargeting to drive in extra foot traffic. But larger businesses like sports teams can use geotargeting to fill up their seats during games.
All they need to do is set up their geotargeting campaign to locate fans who are at or have visited a particular stadium or even an event to help them drive up ticket sales and even app downloads.
Get Started With Geotargeting
What is geotargeting? It’s a great and inexpensive way to market your business to your ideal customers.
But you need to learn how to use it properly so you don’t waste valuable time and money. We can help. Our blog articles are designed to help you market your business smarter.
Keep reading our articles to learn how to succeed in business online.
