Retail chains rely on the visibility of their network of local outlets to generate revenue. A digital marketing platform optimises your online presence and ensures it is always relevant.
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Why is a digital marketing platform important in a local context?
The general marketing of your retail network relies largely on the end-to-end visibility of its individual outlets. An effective national marketing campaign increases both reach and engagement.
The local digital marketing platform allows each outlet to develop its own digital strategy. Store managers are not usually marketing experts, so this tool offers access to innovative and useful digital marketing levers.
In short, it is a marketing tool designed for the local branches and franchisees of a retail network It enables the company’s headquarters to plan and coordinate its marketing from a central point.
The rise of local digital marketing and phygital consumer behaviour
The consumer pathway has become largely digital.
For example, 86% of consumers search online for local businesses on the web and on social networks.
It is easy to see why growing online visibility is so important for businesses. An active presence helps to raise the appeal of local points of sale and increases the opportunities to generate footfall in stores.
Some popular channels for doing this include:
- Google Business Profile, business listings, search directory referencing and posting individual responses to online customer reviews.
- Paid digital campaigns, sponsored advertising on social media platforms, Waze Ads…
- Using local social network pages, eg Facebook and Instagram, with regular posts, a variety of content, and introducing and humanising your local teams.
- Email/text message campaigns (soon), sending push notifications to build loyalty or attract customers to the store.
4 reasons to add a digital marketing platform to your network
Localised marketing of your points of sale
Point of sale marketing allows you to adapt your marketing to make it relevant to your target catchment area.
Retail branches must be able to adapt and personalise their marketing media. This improves results and reduces the cost of campaigns.
Plus, a digital marketing platform is conducive to local advertising, which boosts overall brand awareness.
Drive-to-store opportunities
Capturing in-store traffic is essential to a retailer’s revenue. In fact, even today, a lot of commerce still takes place within the physical branch, so it’s important to make them visible to Internet users.
Plus, it’s worth mentioning that local searches – queries with geo-targeted intentions – are qualified and occur toward the end of the purchasing decision.
A digital marketing platform brings together the relevant levers and does not require any skills to launch marketing at the local level.
Standardised marketing
To communicate effectively, a company must convey a consistent brand image across all its branches.
A digital marketing platform provides the foundation for bringing together the brand’s marketing resources.
The platform acts as a “supplier” of marketing media, ensuring consistency and avoiding deviations from the standard corporate identity.
A 360 perspective for the company HQ
The return on investment is an undeniable part of local marketing.
- How can you evaluate the impact of your local online presence?
- How can you assess the impressions generated by local pages or the results of paid campaigns?
The advantage of a local marketing platform is that it provides concrete data with which to measure the actions taken.
The figures include both results and take-up (user login, session duration, etc.)
Galvanise the way your network is managed with a local digital marketing platform
As we have seen in this article, local points of sale are at the heart of a retailer’s commercial results. They are closely linked to the drive-to-store strategy and help build customer loyalty.
Local digital marketing is now essential for companies wanting to convey a modern and successful image. Because competition is so tough, a company’s lack of visibility on search engines greatly benefits other competing brands.
Galvanising the way your network is managed requires resources, processes, leaders… This is why retail networks are gearing up.
In fact, 35% of advertisers had a local communication platform in 2022, up from 9% in 2021. (Source: poll by MMA, September 2022).
An interesting but unsurprising trend given the demand for marketing services within the retail sector!