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( votes)Customer relationship management (CRM) software is all about building business relations with your current and potential customers. A CRM tool can help you offer more appropriate help to people based on their stage in the sales journey, needs, budget, and more.
Geography is another customer attribute worth paying attention to while working with your CRM tool. Then, you can make gains with hyperlocal marketing.
What Is Hyperlocal Marketing?
Hyperlocal marketing involves precise location-based targeting for your audience rather than choosing a broad scope. Instead of aiming to reach everyone in a particular state or even a single city, you might focus your efforts on one neighborhood or street. This approach increases your chances of connecting with people who perform “near me” search queries to find out about local businesses.
Research from Google also indicated 500% growth in two years of people who tweaked their “near me” searches to include the words “can I buy” or “to buy.” Instead of typing “coffee shops near me” into a search engine box, a person might input a query such as, “can I buy a flat white near me?”
Now that you know what hyperlocal marketing is, let’s explore how you could benefit from it by using your customer relationship marketing tool.
1. Segment Your Audience by Location
Segmenting your audience means putting them into relevant categories based on defined characteristics. You probably do that to some extent already. Perhaps you send different messages to teens who are heading off to college versus career-focused 30-somethings.
Targeting your audience based on where they live or spend most of their time is another targeting goal that your CRM tool can help achieve. You could even format your messaging so that it brings up local landmarks that nearby residents love.
An email sent out from your CRM might suggest, “Why not stop into our smoothie bar, then drink your blended treat while enjoying the scenery at McArthur Park — located just across the street from our new location?”
2. Use a CRM to Guide Decisions About Local Images
Many CRM tools connect to social media information. Besides seeing where someone lives, you can also learn where they work, which cultural spots they frequent, and where they like to dine out. Some of your hyperlocal marketing decisions might influence hyperlocal campaigns. Consider a scenario where your business operates around the world, but you want to show customers you cherish the differences seen in local markets.
The Johnny Rockets restaurant chain has more than 400 locations in 32 countries. It invested in hyperlocal marketing by asking a global creative team to capture nearly 600 images of outdoor scenes in numerous countries. Having that content helped the brand remain relevant.
You might do something similar, then use your CRM to figure out how to get the most traction with localized content. You could post a nearby landmark and a fact about it on social media, for example.
3. Record Audience Feedback in Your CRM
Most CRM products have features that let team members make notes associated with their customer communications. You can — and should — refer to that information when making hyperlocal business decisions. It could provide valuable insights about what your audience needs, wants, and expects.
Maybe you have a chain of city gyms and a high percentage of people in a certain neighborhood tell you that they would be more likely to sign up for a membership if the location by their homes offered early-morning hours. After reviewing such comments in the CRM, you might decide that the gym closest to the majority of those individuals will be the first to open two hours earlier. If that change goes well, other fitness centers within your brand could follow suit.
4. Refer to Your CRM Tool When Changing Your Strategy
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many business owners discovered that cloud-based tools helped them stay in touch with colleagues and customers. Most of today’s leading CRM tools operate in the cloud, making them useful any time and anywhere.
Consider using yours to gauge the likely effects of a change to your business strategy. You could see the historical or projected sales activity for individual teams at your business and carry that information over to a hyperlocal idea.
Imagine you have a meal plan service where people order food and pick it up on a specified day. Your CRM might tell you that people in neighborhoods at least five miles from the pickup point are far less likely to buy meals than those who live less than three miles from it.
In that case, you could take that information and feel more confident about offering an optional delivery service and targeting the associated promotions about it to people who live the farthest away.
5. Let Your CRM Influence Localized Content Creation Efforts
Representatives at your company may recognize the need to start offering content that is more specific to local markets.
Hannah Dixon is the marketing director for Davines North America, a sustainable haircare brand. She explained how her company moved into the realm of localized content: “Understanding our customers and how they interact with our products as local communities is extremely important to us. Audience targeting alone is not enough.”
She continued, “The ability to identify communities and address them each specifically no matter where they are online with content curated to their geography is the experience we want to create for our customers.”
One approach Dixon took was to work with local influencers and give each one targeted assets to use. You might also use information from your CRM as a jumping-off point for using your blog to cover local trends and events.
6. Make Location-Specific Landing Pages for Building Business Relations
Another smart tip for succeeding with hyperlocal marketing is to create a dedicated landing page for each area served. Even if each location offers identical services, a unique landing page could boost your search engine optimization results.
For example, by naturally discussing the streets, neighborhoods, and cultural offerings on a landing page for a particular location, you increase the chances of coming up in “near me” search results.
It’s also more likely new customers will trust you because they’ll see that you know the area and understand residents’ needs. Spend time working with the data in your CRM to see where most of your current clients or prospects live. Prioritize those places for your local landing pages and measure the effects of the efforts.
For example, you could ask people how they heard of your business and make notes in the CRM about whether customers came through a landing page or otherwise.
Strengthen Your Customer Relations Today
Gaining ground with hyperlocal marketing may seem daunting at first — especially for brands that have not yet pursued it aggressively.
However, as these tips show, your customer relationship management platform can be an excellent resource for shaping your initiatives and making the necessary changes for the best results at the local level.
