An advanced localized marketing strategy can help brands achieve nearly three times more business growth than its peers.
The latest collaborative research by Localogy and SOCi, Inc. has published its Localized Marketing Benchmark Report (LMBR) 2020 report. It is the second consecutive year; LMBR found that brands in localized marketing can 3X their growth rate based on a 5-year trend!
AI and Predictive Modeling Enhance Performance, Confirms 98% of Marketers
In this project, over 250 brands with multi-location were evaluated on presence, community engagement, ratings, and reviews across the significant localized marketing forums – Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp. The focus was to establish standards for brand presence and promotion to influence modern buyers’ decisions. The report states that “Each of these platforms is highly used by consumers for local business information. Each platform also maintains separate databases of information, which in turn are then fed to other highly used consumer apps and sites in their ecosystem.”
With the local search becoming more intelligent and personalized, the report shows that a localized marketing strategy is becoming increasingly beneficial – enhancing both consumer interactions and reach. About 80% of businesses who are searching and engaging said being influenced on the content they find on the local pages. And if executed effectively, localized marketing can help enterprises to create an engaged base of loyal customers – to propel their presence at the top of organic search results, drive improved foot traffic and revenue.
Prior to engaging with any brand, almost all, 97% of buyers go through a local online search, with 78% of the purchase decisions swayed by social content. Besides, 85% of the engagement is on local pages – underscoring how vital it is for businesses to optimize their online presence at a local level.
Monica Ho, CMO at SOCi, has been reported saying, “The way that consumers are discovering new businesses or searching for information about businesses is changing, happening more on social media and search platforms, and with local intent…The data shows that multi-location brands are, in fact, adapting to these changing customer behaviors and, as a result, improved their average benchmark score of 20% from 2019 to 2020. However, with an average benchmark score of 54 out of 100, multi-location marketers have a significant opportunity to further improve. It’s important that marketers identify these key areas for improvement while taking a strategic approach that’s tailored to their industry. We’re excited to help more marketers refine their approach and ultimately boost their benchmark score for 2021.”
Marketers Need to Modify Content Marketing Strategies to be BERT Friendly
The LMBR research shows different multi-location brands have set the scale in 2020’s report by standing out in localized marketing – with an average score of 82 out of 100 points. Furthermore, these organizations have yielded more than the revenue growth rate (average) – with over 300% of all the brands evaluated.
According to Bill Dinan, CEO of Localogy – “Brands must establish a sense of trust and authority through their digital presence to foster relationships with and create loyal customers…From our 2020 Localized Marketing Benchmark Report, we know that response time is paramount, and the definition of a reasonable timeframe continues to inch toward ‘immediate’.”
