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5 Localized Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2021

 

Maintaining a dominant localized marketing strategy is no easy task. With 100s or even 1000s of business locations, there are a lot of moving parts. When sitting down to plan your next localized marketing strategy, make sure you optimize your efforts by including top trends to get the most out of your actions. Throughout this blog, we’ll break down the top localized marketing trends you can’t ignore and explain in detail how you can incorporate them into your marketing efforts. It’s time to start dominating your industry, and staying on top of the latest trends can help.

 

1. Conversational Marketing 

 

Conversational marketing started to gain traction in 2020 and will only continue to increase in importance in 2021. Conversational marketing is a method of engaging with website or social media visitors and converting them into leads through dialogue-driven activities. What exactly does this mean? With conversational marketing, you leverage your local social media and local website pages to interact with potential consumers. Throughout the pandemic, consumers have craved a local connection, a notion that’s here to stay.

 

If your multi-location business doesn’t already leverage local social platforms and local website pages, you could miss out on leads. If you already do, good for you! With 78 percent of purchase decisions, there’s always room for improvement. Your multi-location business should be posting personalized and localized content across your local social media channels to better connect with your consumers and answer questions they may have about your products or services. If you engage with potential consumers on local social, they will be more likely to convert into a lead.

 

For instance, if a consumer asks how much a certain product costs or what the quality is like, and your business responds directly to them, they will notice the extra effort and be more likely to buy from you when the time comes. Similarly, if your multi-location business is proactive and shares that information ahead of time, it will have the same effect. The same goes for local pages. If your local pages have all the information that a consumer would want about your local business available, it will save the consumer both time and effort.

 

2. Convenience Marketing 

 

Like conversational marketing, convenience marketing grew in importance in 2020 and remains prevalent in 2021. Convenience marketing is any marketing tactic that again saves the consumer both time and effort. Your multi-location business can often accomplish effective convenience marketing through local search efforts like updated local listings and an efficient review response strategy. Top page search results receive 93 percent of organic traffic, and non-branded search is now growing 5x faster than branded search.

 

The data speaks for itself. Consumers don’t want to waste extra time searching for products and services. If your multi-location business ensures its local listings are updated and accurate, consumers can find any information they need about your business in one spot. It will also help you rank higher on Google. The same goes for ratings and reviews. If you’re responding to reviews your business receives at the local level, it will boost your visibility on Google. Consumers will also notice that your business is taking the time to respond to reviews about products and services, which will again keep you top of mind when the time comes for a consumer to purchase.

 

Together, convenience and conversational marketing make up a new type of commerce, c-commerce. C-commerce is the future of marketing, and to dominate the market, incorporating c-commerce into your localized marketing efforts is necessary.

 

3. Shoppable Social 

 

Shoppable social is another localized marketing trend that multi-location marketers can’t ignore in 2021. Many consumers enjoy shopping from the comfort of their home, and shoppable social allows them to do so. With shoppable social, your multi-location business can market and sell your products and services directly from local social platforms. Twenty-five percent of consumers now say they’ve discovered new brands and products through recommendations or posts on social media, making shoppable social more crucial than ever before.

 

When it comes to shoppable social, where should you focus your efforts? Currently, Facebook is the #1 site where users most regularly use the “shop now” feature, followed by Instagram. If you’re not leveraging shoppable social on these two platforms, you’re missing out on sales. Shoppable social allows your multi-location business to increase your ROI with less work. If you’re already promoting your products on social, shoppable social makes it easy to add a “buy now” feature and convert your marketing efforts into sales. For more information on leveraging shoppable social to its fullest potential, check out our blog on the topic.

 

4. Personalization 

 

If you want to stand out in 2021, personalization is essential. As we’ve mentioned throughout this blog, consumers appreciate it when your multi-location business goes above and beyond. The same goes for personalization. If your multi-location business takes time to respond to reviews in a personalized manner or answer a consumer’s question or concern, it won’t go unnoticed.

 

On the other hand, consumers will notice when you don’t personalize your responses to reviews or questions you may receive through Messenger or on Google Q&A. It will negatively impact your localized marketing efforts if your replies don’t address a question or concern or you don’t respond at all. As a multi-location marketer, you should make personalization a priority.

 

Personalization doesn’t just have to be in the form of responding to reviews or messages. You can also personalize other marketing technology your multi-location business is utilizing. For instance, Starbucks or Chick-Fil-A are great examples of companies that personalize their apps. Similarly, you can personalize your email content to engage your leads better and convert them to wins. Later in this blog, we’ll share tools that can help your business streamline personalization.

 

5. Social Messaging and AI Communication 

 

Social messaging apps have continued to increase in popularity in the marketing world and will continue to do so. Currently, there are 1.3 billion monthly active users on Facebook Messenger. There are also 10 billion messages sent on Facebook Messenger each month. It’s clear that people like using Facebook Messenger to chat with each other, so why wouldn’t they want to use it to speak to your business? Facebook Messenger is an easy way for your multi-location business to communicate with potential customers and make their experience personalized.

 

The same goes for other types of AI communication like chatbots on your website. Chatbots allow your multi-location business to answer customer questions promptly. Chatbots and Facebook Messenger can also be used to gain the inquirer’s contact information and move it into the sales funnel. In today’s digital world, consumers expect businesses to have a presence on messaging apps and chatbots. If your business doesn’t, you might be falling behind.

 

While it may seem daunting to monitor messages from messaging apps and chatbots across all of your business locations, SOCi SmartBot can help! SOCi SmartBot is the first of its kind. This Messenger and Google Business Messages chatbot delivers localized, proactive responses to commonly asked questions and can drive call-to-actions, including calls, website clicks, appointment setting, purchases, and more! Case and Associates said it best, “SOCi SmartBot provides elevated customer care. It sends a localized response when someone engages, allowing us to capture leads at a critical point in the renter’s journey. It’s incredibly valuable!”

 

 

While SOCi SmartBot can help you solve social messaging, SOCi offers other tools to master the other trends mentioned in this blog. For instance, SOCi’s Content Management can assist you with your conversational marketing and shoppable social. SOCi’s Content Management enables multi-location businesses to manage and deploy localized content at scale while maintaining brand consistency at both the enterprise and local levels.

 

 

If that isn’t enough, SOCi also has a solution for managing both personalization and convenience marketing. SOCi’s streamlined reputation management software can be integrated across all major reputation and review networks. The tool monitors every activity on social media. Now, your local, regional, and corporate teams will always know which reviews and social engagements you’ve addressed and which ones still require attention to ensure the prompt and personalized responses consumers expect. As you can see, SOCi is here to help you crush all of your marketing goals, starting with these trends that you can’t ignore. For more information on how SOCi can help your business dominate the competition, request a demo today!