The Power of Local: Why Agencies Must Invest in Localized Marketing

As an agency, managing your client’s marketing efforts and driving real results can be challenging — especially when you have clients with numerous business locations. While you’re likely already managing your clients and their needs effectively, what if we told you there was a marketing tactic that could drive better results? 

That’s where the power of local comes in. Marketing to potential customers at the local level provides a more streamlined user experience and can help differentiate your clients from the competition. Within this blog, we’ll dive into localized marketing, why it’s necessary for multi-location businesses, and how your agency can use it effectively to win more clients. 

Let’s get started! 

A Look Into Localized Marketing 

If you’re not familiar, localized marketing is the process of creating and implementing a marketing strategy distributed at the local level. Agencies must work with multi-location clients to create a cohesive localized marketing strategy and deploy localized marketing tactics across all individual locations. 

Now, let’s get into the three main areas of localized marketing: local search, local social, and online reputation management. In the following  sections, we’ll explain why a localized strategy is a must and share tactics needed to execute each strategy successfully.  

Why A Local Strategy Is Non-Negotiable 

1. Local Search 

Forty-six percent of all Google searches are linked to something local. Similarly, 97 percent of people learn more about a local business online than anywhere else. 

The data speaks for itself. Consumers are searching for business locally. Ensuring your clients have a solid online presence is a must. Two critical components of a robust local search strategy are local listings and local pages. 

Local listings are online portfolios containing information about your client’s business location, such as the name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and other important information.

Local pages are individual pages on your client’s website. Each business should have a  local page, sometimes called a local landing page. They often contain the same information in local listings, such as location, directions, business hours, etc. They can also include current or upcoming events, promotions, or sales.

Ensuring your clients have updated and accurate local listings and landing pages for each business location is critical. As an agency, it’s your job to help manage them at scale. 

While local listings and local pages contribute to your client’s local SEO efforts, you can take additional measures to optimize SEO locally. Download our Top 10 Things You Should Be Doing in Local SEO Now guide to learn more! 

2. Local Social

A local presence on social media is also essential. SOCi data found that localized content receives 12x the engagement as content not considered localized. As an agency, ensuring your clients have a local social page across relevant social platforms for each location is essential. 

While the platforms may vary based on your client’s target audience, Facebook is almost always needed, with 2.96 billion monthly active users. Once you’ve ensured that each of your client’s locations has its own local social presence, you can begin to develop local content ideas. 

Ensuring the content is customized to speak to each business location is critical. To learn more about developing a strong local social strategy for your clients, download our Localized Social Content Guide.

3. Local Reputation Management 

Last but not least, implementing a local online reputation management strategy for your clients is key. Ninety-eight percent of consumers feel that reviews are essential when making purchase decisions. Each of your client’s business locations needs a reputable online reputation, which requires reputation management at the local level. 

A local online reputation management strategy requires your agency to monitor the reviews each business location receives, ensure reviews are being responded to in a timely and personalized manner, and encourage new customers to leave reviews. 

These efforts matter and can help your accounts win more customers. For instance, SOCi data found that for every ten new reviews earned, the conversion of Google profiles improves by 2.8 percent. Additionally, for every 25 percent of reviews responded to, the conversion of Google profiles improved by 4.1 percent. 

For additional tips on managing your clients’ online reputation at scale, download our Multi-Location Marketer’s Guide to Online Reputation Management. 

Get Started Dominating Your Clients’ Marketing Efforts 

As you can see, executing a localized marketing strategy for your multi-location clients is a must. Clients expect you to save them time and reduce inefficiencies, all while producing quality content. Thus, it’s imperative to have an efficient workflow and a high return on investment. 

Most agencies use multiple tools to manage clients’ marketing efforts, which can seem daunting. That’s where SOCi comes in! 

SOCi is the only all-inclusive platform built for agencies to scale their efforts across multiple clients and locations for better results and greater margins. Your agency can leverage SOCi’s social, local listings, local pages, and reputation management solutions to manage your clients’ localized marketing strategies at scale. 

Happy clients reduces client churn and helps you obtain new clients — which is every agency’s goal! For more insight into how SOCi can help your agency dominate localized marketing for your multi-location clients, request a demo today!