August 22, 2022

A Distributor Brand’s Guide to Localized Marketing

A Distributor Brand's Guide to Localized Marketing

As a marketer, you may find engaging local customers at scale challenging. How do you attract potential customers to your brand and drive them to your independent retailers and dealers? That’s where localized marketing comes in. Localized marketing is the process of creating and implementing a marketing strategy that’s distributed at the local level. Rather than creating a generic marketing strategy used nationwide, localized marketing tailors marketing efforts to local areas and markets. Optimizing local engagement through localized marketing drives more customers to your dealers to buy your products. While your company may not already have a localized marketing strategy in place, it’s not too late. If you’re leveraging localized marketing and want to see how your current efforts are faring, request a free audit today!

Within this blog, we’ll break down the different components of localized marketing while sharing tips your brand can use to execute the strategy effectively. It’s time to stand out from competitors; localized marketing can help!

Refine Your Local Social Efforts

Today, 82 percent of Americans use social media, and 68 percent of consumers agree that social media enables them to interact with brands and companies. You may not think social media is worth the investment as a distributor brand, but these statistics prove otherwise. Companies must engage relevant customers in local markets, rather than only launching generic and impersonal national campaigns. So which channels should your company leverage when it comes to local social? With a whopping 2.93 billion people logging onto Facebook every month, there’s little question that members of your target audience are among the social network’s many users. Although Facebook is non-negotiable, there are additional social channels that you should leverage if time and resources allow. For instance, market research firm GWI found that Facebook and Instagram remained the top social platforms in 2021. LinkedIn and Twitter are also among the top-used platforms. Your brand should put time and effort into understanding where your target audience spends their time on social media and work with local dealers to publish content around your products. Once your company decides which platforms to invest in, the next step is to help your dealers develop local content. Data has found that localized content performs 12x better than non-localized content. As a distributor brand, giving your local dealers local content that resonates with your target audiences is essential. So, what type of content can your company include in its local social strategy? Content can include, but is not limited to:

Updates to products and services
Details about the local dealers your products are sold in
Photos and videos when possible — get creative!
Upcoming events or partnerships with local dealers your brand is involved in
Customer testimonials and user-generated content (UGC)

Once you have your localized social content strategy in place, you can look for a solution to schedule your content across social platforms and locations. We’ll get into a solution for scheduling social content later in this blog. Download The Localized Social Content Guide for Distributor Brands for more local social tips and tactics to support your local dealers.

Master Social Listening

Social listening is another critical component of a comprehensive localized marketing strategy. For those unfamiliar, social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels and other online platforms for mentions of your company, products, and competitors. Social listening allows you to understand the local and national conversations around your company and industry, helping you gain insight into what consumers need and expect. Brand marketers can leverage the information collected from social listening to optimize marketing efforts, products, and the overall customer experience. For instance, if a competitor releases a new product that receives rave reviews, you can look into how that product differs from your product and adjust accordingly. This doesn’t mean that you should copy your competitors’ products, but it’s good to have the information available and further improve your product in your own way. Similarly, suppose you see local consumers speaking highly of one of your products. In that case, you can reach out to customers and see if they’ll allow you to get a testimonial from them or leverage their user-generated content (UGC) on social media. Consider all the conversations your company could miss out on without social listening.

Leverage Chatbots

Now that you understand the importance of local social and social listening, let’s talk about social messaging. Social messaging apps have continued to increase in popularity in the marketing world and will continue to do so. Currently, there are 20 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 company? Chatbots and Facebook Messenger are easy ways for your brand to communicate with potential customers and personalize their experience. For instance, chatbots on your website or social platforms allow your company to answer customers’ questions promptly or provide them with more information about your products. Your brand can also leverage chatbots and Facebook Messenger to gain an inquirer’s contact information and move them into the sales funnel. In today’s digital world, consumers expect companies to have a presence on messaging apps and chatbots. Without them, you might be falling behind competitors and missing new leads. Our Localized Chatbot Guide provides an in-depth look at how your company can seamlessly implement chatbots into your localized marketing strategy.

Develop Dealer Locators and Local Pages

Consumers should easily find online where to purchase your products. A dealer locator can help. A dealer locator is a web page on your website that links to dealers that sell your products. They often contain an interactive map and basic business information for each dealer and directions to them. Here’s an example dealer locator:

Example of Echo’s dealer locator that shows multiple dealer locations on a map in Cleveland, OH, along with a list of dealers and retailers and their business information

Dealer locators often link out to your dealer’s local pages. Local pages, also known as local landing pages, are search-optimized brand pages at the local level, making it easier for consumers to find dealers that sell your products. They also improve your local search visibility. Below is an example of one of Kitchen Cabinet Store’s local pages:

Example of Kitchen Cabinets local landing page showing a map of a dealer in Santa Monica, CA and business information

Most distributor brands don’t control their local pages unless they own physical stores. Instead, your dealers have local pages that should feature your products. However, if time and resources allow, you can improve dealer adoption by helping dealers optimize their local pages. Local pages are also one SEO ranking factor Google considers when determining where your business should appear in search results. While increased visibility on Google is excellent, the benefits of local pages don’t stop there. Store locators and local pages provide potential consumers the convenience they’re looking for, keeping them happy and bringing business straight to your dealers and, thus, your products. Many brands find that optimized dealer locators and local pages increase revenue, which every company strives to achieve.

Stand Out From Competitors With A Winning Local Social Strategy

Whether your company is just starting with its marketing strategy or you already have a plan, there’s always room to improve. Finding a solution that can help you manage your localized marketing efforts in one place at scale is non-negotiable. That’s where SOCi comes in. SOCi or distributor brands provides a centralized platform that allows marketers to find all the data and actionable insights from every localized marketing effort in one place versus going to every individual point solution’s platform to pull data. From local social to local listings to chatbots, and local pages, SOCi is the marketing platform for distributor brands.

image of multiple devices showing the SOCi platform

Request a demo today to get a more in-depth look at SOCi’s products and gain insight into how they can help you stand out from competitors without the extra work!