What is Hyper-Local Marketing?

Hyperlocal marketing is the process of targeting prospective customers in a highly specific, geographically restricted area, sometimes just a few blocks or streets away. Hyperlocal marketing is a buzzword gaining prominence because businesses of all sizes are seeing the benefits of local and time-sensitive marketing. It is also considered as super targeted and niche marketing. 

Hyperlocal marketing empowers small businesses to focus on a smaller number of shoppers within a very specific area. This makes the marketing effort much easier to implement, personalize and measurable. This technology also reduces advertising and promotion cost due to its specific targeting capability. 

Before the Internet, TV, and radio, Hyperlocal marketing was the only advertising method available. Local merchants had to advertise locally to survive. This form of marketing was very popular in 2009. It is a system of marketing focused on a well-defined area within the local community.

Hyperlocal can be targeted in multiple ways. Today we have the internet and everyone is online including local communities. Targeting them through mobile devices and applications powered by the internet is very convenient and cost-effective. The ROI factor is much higher compared to other forms of advertising. GPS, Wi-Fi and IMEI numbers can be used in hyper-local marketing to target mobile devices by specific location. 

The primary purpose of hyperlocal marketing is to drive foot traffic to physical locations and capitalize on near-me searches, which have strong commercial intent. Near-me searches have become immensely popular in recent years. Accordingly, to the latest data released by Google, near-me searches grew in volume by almost 130% year on year.

Many internet users today expect local search results over wider results during their search effort even when they do not explicitly state they are looking for local results. Many users now expect Google to automatically take their location into account when serving results.  It represents a shift in consumer attitudes towards real-time geo-location tracking and how location data can be used to provide more relevant, accurate results for a wide range of search queries.

Today search technology is changing and it’s also affecting the way we search online for our needs. We have reached an era where consumer behavior shaping search technology. We identified “research online, purchase offline” – also known as ROPO – as one of the biggest e-commerce trends to watch this year, and this will likely drive further interest in and demand for locally focused search results over time.

The widespread adoption of smartphone and Google’s heightened emphasis on local search have made hyper-local marketing a very effective way of attracting new customers to physical stores.

With regards to hyper-local marketing, reviews, and customer testimonials are the most effective tool at the disposal of users. Customer reviews are believed to be one of the most important ranking signals in local SEO, which makes them crucially important if anyone is going the hyper-local route. Review signals account for approximately 13% of how Google decides to do display local search in the local pack results, the small list of businesses displayed beneath the maps result in some searches.

The proximity – the distance between the user and a local business is also considered during rankings. However, this is where things get a little complicated. Sometimes, it appears that Google prefers to serve users local results in the cluster if possible even if other more relevant businesses are closer to the user’s physical location at the time of the search. However, it’s true all the time. Occasionally Google will display a shorter local pack of results with only two businesses listed rather than three – if the location of a relevant business is determined to be too far from the user, even if more business is located within the proximity of the searcher.

Hyperlocal marketing and advertising play a critical role in creating targeted campaigns. In addition, customers will respond better when they feel connected to your advertisements. As a result, it drives both growth and an ROI. Once need to think outside the box but the pay-off is worth it – especially if local businesses want to improve their local client base.