5 Tactics to Drive Hyperlocal Marketing Success for Global Brands

The emergence of hyperlocal technology is set to change the marketing landscape, and the marketing tactics powered by these technologies continue to gain steam. Enterprise brand marketers also finally realize hyperlocal is as much about local relevance, as it is location precision. 

Modern consumers respond best to locally and personally relevant, authentic messaging and the technologies now exist to execute and achieve this at scale. In fact, brands already spend big on local: “Overall U.S. businesses will invest about two-thirds of their total marketing budgets (promotions plus advertising spending) in advertising on local media ad channels,” according to BIA. But now, they’re looking to do so in a more impactful and efficient way.

Brands are returning to the community to build loyalty from the ground up. Community data. Community messaging. Community analytics.

At the same time, the thirst for transparency and control has CMOs considering bringing technology and talent in-house. They’re rethinking their relationships with agencies and tech partners, especially for things like media buying duties.

Consider also that crafting a tailored local strategy is hard across all marketing channels, and especially hard for each individual community served. Local audiences are fragmented (Google DV360, Google Youtube, Google Ads, Facebook, Amazon, The Trade Desk!?). Reporting is fragmented. Logins and end-user experience are disjointed. And what happens if you have franchisees or local branch owners – each claiming a stronger knowledge-base around what their local market wants and responds to – who all want to contribute to overall marketing strategy? It becomes a lot more complicated.

The marketplace and enterprise brand marketers are figuring out how to move forward with executing their local marketing efforts and how best to work together with agency and technology partnerships. A range of viable options exist for brands to navigate the complex waters of hyperlocal digital marketing.

They can take it in-house.

Brands can hire and train internal platform specialists to work with advertising terminals directly, running their campaigns and programs on systems in silos and building custom dashboards to report on success. For most, it is not ideal or realistic when you look at the skill sets essential to succeed in this in-house model – ad operations, analytics, project management, creative development and more. Change management is a huge issue too, as bringing managers and employees onboard and getting them ramped up quickly (and well enough to be able to execute) is a daunting – and expensive – task.

They can work with an agency. 

Brands can turn to major agencies to create strategies and manage execution for local marketing efforts. Agencies can leverage data, DSPs and local media channels at scale (So. Much. Cost.) because the brunt of expenses are shared by a wide range of clients or absorbed by the agency. But as we’ve seen this year with McDonalds releasing OMD of their local advertising duties, large agencies are not always structured to handle the hyperlocal marketing models, nor are they built to allow the pricing model to work for those individual locations with much smaller advertising budgets (remember those costs?). Brands may also decide to work with many separate localized agencies within each region – but again, audience and platform fragmentation can come into play. And smaller, localized agencies may not be as willing (or able) to build flexible pricing models.

Or they can do this a better way.

There are hybrid options beyond in-house or agency that have emerged based on these gaps in hyperlocal marketing solutions. At Hyperlocology, we’ve developed a single solution that allows brands the ability to create their overarching local marketing strategy (aligned with brand guidelines, brand safety and more) across all major channels and then automate, execute and analyze thousands of local community campaigns. Brands have the option to establish the brand’s guiding parameters and campaign structure, but then hand over the executional reins to the team or individual that understands the specific creative, audience or channel-needs of each local community (whether that’s one person at corporate or a franchise owner who wants to play an integral role in advertising decision-making).

Brand marketers can maintain directional control over strategy, creative and overall program governance but when it comes to executing hyperlocal programs, community customization and relevance is key. Custom audience targeting, relevant dynamic messaging, actionable local offers and localized budgets reflecting individual market needs are all critical to success and to truly unlock the potential within each community. Plus, local individuals or teams with smaller budgets can now have marketing freedom while leveraging the buying power of the brand across multiple channels and premium publishers.

Finding a marketing partner or solution that meets these needs used to be impossible. You would have to sacrifice one or the other – big brand quality or local execution and messaging tactics. You no longer have to sacrifice.

When choosing the best way to execute hyperlocal, consider these 5 critical elements of a successful hyperlocal digital marketing campaign:

1.       Leverage 1st party data or secure 3rd party audiences; ensure your website is tagged in a way that enables re-marketing tactics

2.       Take advantage of machine learning, attribution models and automated fraud detection – know your strongest skill sets and let technology play a role to supplement those

3.       Reach local consumers on all top buying terminals from a single platform vs. relying on multiple sources of ad inventory

4.       Develop a single, consistent source of analytics across ad types, channels, geo locations, publisher partners and more

5.       Distribute access to local marketing teams, franchisees, owners, agents or brokers for basic budgeting and messaging decisions 

One and two have become fairly standard for marketing leaders. However, three, four and five have been key missing pieces in the hyperlocal marketing ecosystem. Our Hyperlocology platform fills this gap for brand marketers and enables centralized management of effective and efficient digital advertising campaigns.

Consolidate your buying on the major terminals (and others as needed) with a single login. It’s cross-channel and platform agnostic – find your local audience where they exist without reporting silos between channels or platforms. One reporting source. Consistent and accurate reporting. Ensure data is standardized across local campaigns, taking localized KPIs into account but housing data in a centralized manner that aligns with the need to oversee, extrapolate various data cuts and leverage local insights to drive and adapt broader marketing strategy.

Finally, feel confident allowing franchise owners or local teams to bring their ideas to their local marketing plans. Heck, it’s their community! Every community and brand location has its own preferences, competition, geography, local influencers and other variables which must be addressed uniquely. Allow data to inform your local operations, while empowering localized messaging and targeting freedom within pre-approved parameters, including brand safety and continuity controls. This level of freedom and access for local teams has not been easily managed or efficiently executed – when it has occurred, it’s often resulted in local advertising going rogue and off-brand.

There’s a better way to execute hyperlocal marketing.

It’s not easy. But the technology and hybrid model now exists for advertisers to do it right and be hands on from a branding and strategy perspective, and hands off when it comes to the day to day execution tactics at the hyperlocal level – with a single login and the control and transparency they need. Advertisers are no longer dependent on third parties (or overly broad algorithms) who can’t comprehend their brand’s unique needs and variables at the hyperlocal level across markets.