When putting together your advertising campaigns how do you determine the best places to spend your budget? As national advertisers look to local marketing strategies they have similar questions when blasting their message nationally. The options on the local level are nearly endless: out-of-home, digital out-of-home, network television, cable television, mobile, standard display, tablet applications, magazines, newspapers, local websites, and the list goes
on. Without direction from the client if you’re an agency, or an unclear idea of how to execute different campaigns or the advantages of different media, it can be difficult terrain to navigate. Just take a look at the different ways consumers consume media in this infographic from visual.ly.
The key is to recognize that there are “compelling facts around effectively engaging with consumers through relevant, localized and targeted messaging,” which “are hard to ignore considering the impact of these strategies on behavior, outcomes and business,” according to a CMO Council report titled Brand Automation for Local Activation.
Brands are recognizing they need to reach people with experiences, language and activation triggers on a local level that varies from market to market. As the report states, “localization—and specifically, the improved activation of customers through highly relevant content that more effectively translates corporate brand messaging and campaigns into locally tied experiences—will be a core part of marketing strategies.”
What local marketers needs to figure out then are the best vehicles for activating the local audience and getting their messaging in front of the consumers they need to achieve their goals. One way to do that, believe it or not, is to use the local newspaper and newspaper websites. Don’t click that ‘X’ on your browser just yet, give me a chance to explain.
The Newspaper Association of America recently sent their data to be analyzed by Scarborough Research and here’s what they found: “69% of Americans, more than 164 million adults in the United States, access newspaper media content in print or online during a typical week or on mobile devices during a typical month.” That’s nearly seven in 10 and amounts to 14 million adults in the United States. That’s quite an audience. When you look at just tablets and mobile usage in a month, the breakdown tells us nearly 34 million adults accessed newspaper content on those devices, which is an increase of 58% from the same period last year. Let me say that again, a 58% increase in mobile device access from the same period last year. And people say newspapers are dead. Pffft.
Sticking with the digital age a bit, take a look at who makes up that audience: nearly half (47%) of the mobile-exclusive audience is 18 to 34. That’s the age group that includes a lot of the early adopters and the ones who like to spend their discretionary income. It might be a good idea to try to get your product or service in front of that group.
In order to do that, according to the CMO Council report, corporate brands need to figure out, and roll-out, programs their local markets can take advantage of. The current stats say that “only 6 percent of marketers are leveraging automated solutions that can be accessed by all local markets.” Clearly that number needs to get larger for national brands to be effective at the local level. Here’s why: “Of those marketers who already have automated systems and are able to deploy both local and national campaigns simultaneously, 88 percent believe this immediate deployment has provided a competitive difference for their brand, with 38 percent believing that it creates not only differentiation, but also a significant advantage over the competition.”
We’ll continue this little talk next week, but I just wanted to whet your appetite for going local this week. If you think you know the advantages of local marketing and advertising, check out our research report and compare our ideas to yours. And when you’re ready to reach out to that affluent and educated audience, download our white paper on the subject.
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Scott Olson is the director of marketing at Mediaspace Solutions. His career has spanned marketing positions in the non-profit, software and utility sectors providing various marketing experiences. You can connect with Scott on Facebook, Google+, Twitter or LinkedIn.
