Going hyperlocal: How to crush advertising locally in 2024

In today’s digital world, advertising locally requires much more than just billboards, TV commercials, and print ads. With increasing mobile usage and online shopping habits, businesses must tap into digital strategies to effectively advertise locally in 2024. This allows brands to connect with customers in their area when and where they are searching online. 

However, many multi-location businesses struggle with digital advertising and find it expensive and complicated to manage campaigns across locations. Platforms like Evocalize provide solutions to easily scale localized advertising. In this article, we will explore some key ways brands can successfully advertise locally (mostly through the lens of digital channels).

Leverage Google My Business

Having a complete and optimized Google My Business listing is a critical starting point for advertising locally. This free business profile appears prominently in Google search results and Maps for queries related to your products, services, and location. 

Keeping your GMB listing fully fleshed out with photos, accurate business information, posts and responses to reviews enhances your local SEO. It also gives customers the ability to easily discover and engage with your brand when searching near your physical address. 

Some key tips for optimizing your GMB listing include:

• Fill out as much information as possible like open hours, contact details, website, menus/price lists, etc.
• Add high-quality photos of storefront, products, services, staff, etc. to bring the listing to life.
• Post regularly to share news, events, offers, and other updates to followers.
• Respond promptly and politely to customer reviews to showcase your brand personality.
• Ensure the correct category is selected so you appear for relevant searches.
• Verify the listing for increased visibility and click-through rate.

Driving reviews and interactions on your GMB listing establishes authority and social proof for your business. This level of engagement also signals relevancy to Google to improve local rankings. For a holistic digital advertising locally approach, brands should ensure their GMB profile is complete, current, and actively managed.

Focus on community outreach

Getting involved with and giving back to the local community are impactful ways to organically advertise locally. This allows brands to increase awareness and engagement in a meaningful way. Some ideas include:

• Sponsor local events and teams to get brand visibility. Having a presence at community events like festivals, trade shows, and sporting events gets your logo and messaging in front of local audiences.
• Partner with local influencers and micro-influencers on social media campaigns. Identify personalities with an engaged following in your area to collaborate on content.
• Interact in neighborhood Facebook Groups and Nextdoor. Share news and offers, respond to discussions and position your brand as a positive community member.
• Support local charities through donations or volunteering. This develops goodwill and connections.
• Host free workshops or classes that give back to the community. Position your brand as an expert.

The key is finding opportunities to provide value, build relationships and get your brand involved locally. This grassroots level of engagement can be extremely effective for advertising locally.

We recommend checking out these additional ideas from industry experts about getting involved with your local community:

• Betsy Hamm, CEO of Duck Donuts – Using local partnerships to fuel restaurant growth
• Wade Allen, EVP of Strategic Growth at Costa Vida – 5 impactful community engagement tips

Update website for localization

To fully connect digital marketing efforts to local storefronts, brands should optimize their website for a localized experience. This signals relevancy in local SEO and provides better utility for customers. 

Tactics include:

• Building city-specific pages with locally optimized content.
• Highlighting brick-and-mortar locations, hours, and contact info prominently.
• Using local schema markup so search engines better understand your geographic area of service.
• Tailoring CTAs to call, visit a location, or book appointments.
• Populating online directories and review sites with consistent NAP (name, address, phone) information.

Optimizing onsite elements to spotlight local availability and services provides a cohesive customer experience from digital to physical locations.

Check out these other resources for improving your website for advertising locally:

• The essential local SEO checklist for multi-location businesses
• Local SEO for mortgage brokers: Boost online visibility across locations

Run targeted local ads

Geo-targeted digital ads allow you to hone in on local customers by setting a geographic radius around your business location. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram ads offer this ability. 

Some best practices for both local operators and marketing teams include:

• Geo-target your ads down to a 1-20 mile radius or based on specific zip codes. This ensures your ads are only shown to people in your area. Start with a small radius and expand as needed.
• Use hyperlocal ad networks like Yelp to reach nearby searchers looking for businesses like yours. Yelp lets you promote your business to customers searching for related keywords in your town.
• Retarget website visitors from your local area with display ads. This targets potential customers who recently visited your site but didn’t convert.
• Track store visits initiated by your ads using offline conversions in Facebook. This helps measure in-store traffic driven by the ads.
• A/B test different geographic radii and ad copy to optimize reach. Experiment to see what resonates best with your local audience.

For those new to digital ads, platforms like Facebook Ads Manager provide user-friendly DIY tools to create and run a localized campaign in under an hour. Useful settings like geographic radius, impression caps, and daily budgets help control spend.

For marketers managing ads across multiple locations, automation tools like Evocalize can simplify localization and reporting. Features like campaign templates, machine learning optimization, and multi-location dashboards enable efficient targeted ad management.

Advanced targeting combines location, intent, and behavior to laser focus your ads on high-potential nearby prospects. This drives more relevant traffic and conversions both online and in-store.

Automate multi-location management

For brands managing marketing across multiple physical locations, the ability to scale and optimize digital advertising efforts is crucial. Platforms like Evocalize provide solutions to easily launch and manage localized ad campaigns across all locations from one intuitive dashboard.

Key benefits of using Evocalize include:

• Corporate oversight capabilities with individual location control.
• Customizable campaign templates that allow for localization while maintaining branding.
• Automated budget optimization and real-time monitoring.
• Machine learning that continually improves ad performance based on data and results.
• Robust analytics and dashboards to glean campaign insights.

With multi-location brands, advertising locally requires coordination and consistency. Marketing automation platforms enable efficient management and reporting while empowering local owners to customize messaging.

Learn more about automating advertising locally:

• Empower local operators with local digital marketing
• Unlock the potential of local marketing for multi-location businesses
• How Evocalize works
• Make an ad in 30 seconds – no login required

Advertising locally

For today’s hyperlocal consumers, incorporating digital strategies and localization is imperative for successfully advertising locally. With tactics like optimizing Google My Business, social media community engagement, targeted digital ads, website localization, and multi-location automation, brands can effectively connect with customers in their geographic area. 

Solutions like Evocalize provide the technology and expertise to simplify local digital marketing execution. With the rise of mobile usage and online buying behavior, having a reliable digital presence and advertising strategy tailored to each unique neighborhood and community is more valuable than ever.