Branding Local: 2017 Trends

Entrepreneurs who want to create local brands shouldn’t use the same methods and channels as their big corporate counterparts. Local branding requires a completely different approach to market research and audience targeting. It sounds logic that location-based businesses should target local people, but there’s much more than that. They should also use different marketing and communication channels for maintaining the relationship with their local customer base.

These channels should vary from the most basic analog forms of communication through a point of sales, neon signs and billboards to advanced geolocation tech solutions. In this article we’ll try to determine how the latest marketing trends have influenced the branding process of local-based businesses:

Brands will focus more on connections than on sales

Location-based businesses revolve around personal connections for decades. Now, when social media taught us that the future of branding lies in two-way communication, we can finally admit that the local shoemaker, who shares his life stories and anecdotes with customers was two steps ahead of marketing departments of big businesses that push the self-service concept and uniformity in their store.

Local businesses are more humane and authentic than their corporate counterparts and fast tech development will enable them to share their story to a much wider audience.

Employees can act as brand ambassadors

A satisfied employee is one of the best brand ambassadors. Many local business employers know that, but they still don’t treat their employees as their best branding assets. Employees should be prepared for the role of brand ambassadors from the moment they’re hired. Business owners need to tailor a training program that will turn them into a front-facing line of their brand. They should be in charge of circulating the good news, improving customer relationships and drumming up their loyalty.

Video is the new black

We all heard that video will be in rage in 2017, but how can local companies use it to promote their business? Since most local businesses have very a limited marketing budget, they should abstain from filming expensive commercials. On the other hand, a simple video that describes production process filmed with a decent DSLR camera and edited in Sony Vegas or some other similar app can drastically improve company’s brand awareness.

Since more than 85% of videos on Facebook and other social networks are watched without sound, entrepreneurs should also add subtitles to their short blockbusters and use down-to-earth tone that doesn’t put a promotional message into the forefront.

Use Geolocation technology

We already mentioned this form of advertising in the article’s intro and that’s because it is one of the most effective methods for attracting local customers. Customers with smartphones in their pockets and bags are always on. Since even the big corporate entities have their ‘mobile-first’ strategies, smaller companies shouldn’t lack behind, especially when geolocation software allows them to announce their sales to people who are passing through their area. Since consumers spend a lot of time on their phone, they’ll definitely be intrigued by push-notifications that share limited-time offers from local businesses.

Personalized customer experience

In a highly competitive market companies need to adapt to consumers’ daily habits. Many local companies have built their brands by offering highly customizable and personalized the customer experience. While most car mechanics oblige customers to spend their time and gasoline and come to their shops, auto parts store and workshop-on-wheels from Sydney offers repairs on customer’s address. There are many ways how you can customize your business and make it more convenient for the consumers. Since customers often contact local stores online, these brands can use the scooped data to provide them with more personalized offers.

Generation Z voice

Many local businesses are shifting their focus from Millennials to Generation Z, which is the latest demographic cohort, and the next big market disruptor. Generation Z doesn’t remember the time before social media and that’s why even the laziest local entrepreneurs start registering social media accounts and targeting the new generation consumers. Many experts call Z-ers, the ‘Millennials on steroids’ when it comes to smartphone and internet use, so future local businesses will need to find sophisticated ways for approaching this crowd.

Many people thought that fast development of digital technologies will completely destroy local businesses. For example, e-commerce concept completely changed the retail industry, but it didn’t close the local stores. It has made them even more competitive because now they can target customers outside their area. Local businesses that have adopted internet technologies and new branding trends are now growing at a fast pace and they’ll soon turn into a highly competitive corporate players.

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Nate Vickery

Editor-in-Chief at bizzmarkblog.com

Nate M. Vickery is a business consultant from Sydney, Australia. He has a degree in marketing and almost a decade of experience in company management through latest technology trends. Nate is the Editor-in-Chief at bizzmarkblog.com