The Holistic Local Marketing Approach: Combining Offline & Online Tactics

Businesses that rely on defined local service areas benefit from a holistic approach to marketing that combines both traditional and digital media. By encompassing the best of both marketing worlds – the digital and the traditional – local, service-based businesses can reap the benefits of a healthy sales pipeline and, thus, a healthier bottom line.

At Mediagistic, we’ve seen this approach yield demonstrable results for plumbing contractors, electricians, HVAC companies, and other local, service-based businesses. Here’s how holistic local marketing works and why it’s so effective.

Incorporating Online and Offline Local Marketing Efforts for an Integrated Approach

Creating an integrated plan for your online and offline marketing efforts is instrumental in increasing Web traffic and filling your sales funnel. From a marketing and ROI perspective, there are no drawbacks to this approach. According to Search Engine Journal’s Rick Egan, “In this multi-channel consumer world, the modern marketer needs to have one foot online and one offline to better connect with potential customers and their lives, which exist both on and offline. There is no advantage to limiting your tactics.”

Offline media, for example, is excellent for building brand recognition and creating top-of-mind brand awareness in the minds of consumers. Radio, direct mail, and television advertising campaigns will achieve higher frequency for your message and increase consumer awareness of your selling proposition.

These offline advertisements and messaging can then be leveraged along with an exclusive deal, rebate, or other incentive to drive traffic to your social media accounts or specialized landing page on your website. Once they visit your site or your social media accounts, the messaging and conversion elements should be optimized in a way that will drive purchasing behavior and close the deal.

If there is a high amount of continuity between channels, then this marketing approach will holistically align with every step of the buyer’s journey. When done correctly, you’ll avoid suffering from so-called “leaky bucket syndrome,” and you’ll see a significantly higher return from your marketing efforts.

Use Online Tactics to Promote Offline Events and Activities

Attending a local trade show or conference? Or are you sponsoring a community event in your local service area?

Such events represent another opportunity to cohesively tie your online and offline marketing efforts together. Social media, email marketing, and even your website are the perfect platforms on which to announce your upcoming events and, again, offer incentives for consumers attending these events to visit your booth (discounts, referral bonuses, and other incentives work well here).

Online marketing also works particularly well for local, service-based businesses, thanks to the advent of geo-targeted advertising. In the modern online marketing environment, the key to targeting consumers in local service area lies in determining highly targeted demographic and geographic constraints for your online advertising campaigns. There are many cost-effective marketing strategies, both online and offline, that will combine effectively to help local businesses reach more target consumers within their service areas.

Likewise, with more consumers using smartphones and tablets to conduct in-the-moment searches for local businesses in their time of need, features like click-to-call functionality make paid Internet advertising a viable tactic for local, service-based businesses. Geo-targeting and call extension options in online ads are just a few of the many ways to create a holistic local marketing campaign, increasing Web traffic, improving SEO, and ultimately generating more business for your company.

Reach Your Ideal Customers Where – and How – They’re Most Reachable

One of the key benefits to a holistic local marketing campaign is the ability to make use of a variety of marketing media to reach your target consumers most effectively and efficiently. Focus your media buying in targeted Designated Market Areas (DMAs), which correlates into spikes in Web traffic. If your website is properly optimized to convert, this traffic will translate into increased revenue and growth for your business.

Whether your target consumer is listening to the radio at an office during the day, riding public transportation to and from work, or watching television programming in the evenings and on the weekends, traditional advertising allows for reaching specific consumer groups both efficiently and cost-effectively. Combining these efforts with geo-targeted paid Internet advertising campaigns and other cost-effective marketing strategies allows local businesses to achieve maximum visibility and market penetration with the right marketing mix and at the right cost.

Achieving a Robust Marketing Mix that Gets Results

Without a doubt then, a holistic local marketing approach is the winning ticket for local, service-based businesses who want to reap the benefits of both traditional and digital marketing and advertising strategies for maximum results.

However, we realize that most local businesses lack the resources, time, and expertise to execute integrated, holistic marketing campaigns on their own. More often than not, business owners are too busy managing the day-to-day profitability of their businesses to devote the necessary time and effort to implementing these strategies and making them succeed.

If this is the case with your business, then you need a trustworthy, knowledgeable partner to get the results that your local business so desperately needs.

Mediagistic specializes in helping local business achieve the right marketing mix, allowing you to reach your target audience, fill your sales pipeline, and transform leads into paying customers. With our best-in-class customer service, we put a team of marketing experts at your disposal to achieve a robust marketing mix that gets real, monetizable results for your business. Give us a call today to learn more about how our holistic marketing tactics can grow your business.