If your company is still undecided about adding a local element to your national or branded marketing campaign, it might be high time to climb down from the fence and reconsider your options.

Local marketing is a powerful tool for generating more buzz about your marketing message at the exact point where it matters the most – in the mind of the local consumer. While your campaign might be promoting your products nationally, the actual sale occurs on a local level, and this is the real estate that you need to dominate in order to ring up more sales – typically at a much lower cost than broader geographic marketing options.

The search engines are all about presenting the most relevant results to users, and this increasingly means results that are prioritized close to the location of the device being used to conduct the search. Ranking for organic search is important, but if your company is not leveraging its local market presence to rank for local search results, you’re missing out on a golden opportunity – especially if your competitors are running localized campaigns.

Localized Marketing Can Boost Your Local Brand Awareness
When you localize your marketing, you are able to reach consumers literally at the point of purchase with a message that can be tailored to individual market tastes. Every city can be defined by the unique behaviors and needs of the consumers that live there. When your marketing message is targeted to match the expectations of these individual local markets, you can reach these diverse audiences much more effectively than would be possible with a broader and more generic approach.

Localized Marketing Can Increase Customer Engagement and Response
Studies of multiple local niches have found that mobile device users are more likely to respond to ads that are relevant to local proximity and search intent. The implications are clear: the more personalized your message is for a local market, the better engagement and response you can expect. If your company is looking to drive highly motivated buyer-intent traffic to a brick and mortar store, local mobile search may be just what you’re looking for. Almost 80 percent of local searches made on a mobile device result in a purchase, with an in-store visit accounting for 90 percent of those purchases.

Localized Marketing Can Help Your Company Generate Word-of-Mouth Referrals
Despite the tremendous growth of digital marketing, word-of-mouth advertising is very much alive and continues to work very well. According to the Nielsen Research organization, an estimated 77 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase a product if they hear about it from a friend or family member. In addition to publishing reviews localized for specific market areas wherever possible, add local pages to your social media accounts and post relevant local content that speaks to the local consumer.

Localized Marketing Can Help Your Business Build Local Community Good Will
The more your company is recognized as a member of the local community, the more local business you’re likely to see. Given a choice, people prefer to shop locally – in some cases even if it means they have to spend a little more. Get involved in local charitable events and encourage your local employees to do their part. Document your participation with posts to the appropriate local pages of your social media accounts.