The Ultimate Playbook for Retail Local Marketing

The Ultimate Playbook
for Retail Local Marketing
A
Playbook

Modern Retail Marketing:
At the intersection of personalization and mobile
Today, your consumers
demand the very best
from your retail story.
In the age of eCommerce, there is a common belief that
online sales are overwhelming brick-and-mortar sales.
It just isn’t true. In fact, today more consumers want to
purchase from a local store more than ever. But, they
want their journey to be personalized and relevant to
them. The retailer that markets to the consumer the
exact way that they want to be marketed to will get that
consumer’s purchase and more than likely their loyalty.
As important as personalizing the journey, consumers
want to be shown the quickest and most effective way to
make their local purchase.
Human Behavior is Driving the Local
Customer Journey
70% of purchases made 5 miles from a
customer’s home (Google Study)
79% of smartphone owners and 81% of
tablet owners use their devices to search
for information on local businesses
Approximately 80% of mobile searches
result in the purchase of a product or
service, and 75% brought the customer
into the physical store
“Near me” searches or mobile searches
performed to locate a purchase within
a close proximity to the shopper have
increased 340% since 2011 and have
doubled last year alone
THE ULTIMATE PLAYBOOK FOR RETAIL LOCAL MARKETING | BALIHOO.COM

The buying decision for the retailer consumer has changed. The point where the shopper begins looking for a solution is what
we call the “last mile of marketing”. It is the point where shoppers make attempts to discover a product or service - often
using a mobile device – and ends with a relationship being built with a local brick-and-mortar location. The Last Mile of
Marketing is also where your company and its products and services are discovered and convince the shopper to buy, giving
them the quickest access to your local point of purchase. It is also the window of time where shoppers can discover your
competitors as well.
Examples of the “last mile of marketing”:
STUDENT AT HOME
Looking to replace his
or her broken laptop
locally before school
starts the next day
For the new sport
he just signed up
and looking to get
gear quickly
SPORTS FAN LOOKING
FOR NEW EQUIPMENT
BUSINESS TRAVELER NEW TO
A CITY LOOKING FOR LUNCH
Trying to find a close
place for lunch to take
a new client while in a
“foreign” city
BUSY MOM IN A
MINI-VAN
Trying to find a
close pet food store
for the dog her
daughter just found
COFFEE FANATIC LOOKING TO
REPLACE HER ESPRESSO MACHINE
Looking for the
closest retail outlet
that carries the latest
espresso machine

Discover shopper
behavior and match
the their shopping
experience to their
needs and wants
When planned and executed correctly,
“the last mile of marketing”
has the promise to:
Drive foot and
phone traffic to
the local store
Engage
customers in
more meaningful
ways at the
physical store
Increase
awareness of
your brand and
store location for
future visits

This retail guide outlines the four key steps
to achieving a successful
local retail marketing strategy
Plan
Listen
Execute
Optimize
1
3
2
4

The first step to local retail marketing is to define your goals.
If your company is focused on building customer loyalty,
leveraging mobile marketing to automatically reward loyal
customers is a good fit for that strategy. If your company’s focus
is on customer service, leveraging mobile and location-based
marketing to automatically notify an associate of a VIP’s arrival
is a good step. If you are wanting to drive new customer sales,
focusing on digital awareness and discovery of local outlets is a
key goal.
At Balihoo, we believe the foundation to successful local
marketing is “discoverability”. That is, making all your local
points of purchase – whether company owned, partner led, or a
mix of both- are easily found by customers with a need or desire
that begin their digital journey. Basically, it is marketing the right
message to the right person AT THE RIGHT TIME.
It’s not surprising that online search is the tool consumers use
most frequently to find your locations—your retail outlets,
franchisees, distributors, agents, channel partners, and
representatives. In fact, 90% of consumers search online and
THEN purchase offline in local markets.1
For a national brand with local storefronts or partners, the key
to discoverability is ensuring that when a consumer searches
for your type of product or service, they are served up locally-
relevant results for your local storefronts ABOVE those of your
competitors. This is the moment when many national brands
lose potential customers to their competitors, without even
knowing it.
Plan
79% of smartphone
owners and 81% of
tablet owners use their
devices to search for
information on LOCAL
businesses
Approximately 75% of
those searches bring the
customer into a physical
store - and 80% result in
a purchase
1

The 3 Elements to
Local Discoverability
Local Websites take your dealer or company locator to another level.
Local websites allow all locations to show up individually in location
searches and maps on top search engines, capturing the immediate
attention of consumers looking for your product or services NOW.
Key elements for success:
• Use an automation platform to create all websites
simultaneously - using your own database of locations
and their offerings.
• Allow local partners to customize and
configure strategic elements.
• Launch corresponding City Websites - which enable all the
brand locations for that city to be easily categorized by
city - for both the search engines and consumers.
• Enable call tracking - which allows you to report on the
resulting phone traffic generated to your partners.
LOCAL WEBSITES | The heart of your local marketing strategy

Twenty percent of local business listings are inaccurate and one out of every four local business
listings is missing key information.2
By centrally managing all of your brand’s business listings
from a single database, you can ensure that they are correct, consistent and visible online.
• Make sure your automation
platform checks your data for
accuracy—locating and resolving
duplicate listings and missing data.
• Publish your data to all the major
U.S. data aggregators.
• Easy reporting on listing status and
performance
LOCAL LISTINGS | An overlooked step in generating demand
The 3 Elements to Local Discoverability

Local Paid Search puts your locations at the top of search engine results,
captures the attention of local customers who are looking for your product
or category, and drives traffic to your local partners and locations.
• A platform that allows for corporate-managed approach,
which cut costs by only spending funds where it makes sense.
• Localized ad copy and keywords list that increases traffic to local
websites and boosts results for your partners and locations.
• Detailed campaign reporting features that let you understand how
you are doing in aggregate, by location, and other key criteria.
• Utilize radius configurations to keep locations from competing
with each other
With Local Websites, Local Listings, and Local Paid Search, your national
brand has an effective set of tools that can extend your national strategy
to a local level, drive more demand and foot traffic, ensure consistent and
accurate information, and increase return on your marketing dollars.
But does it work?
LOCAL PAID SEARCH | Engage customers earlier in the purchase cycle

• A branded URL for local websites that
greater discoverability and consistency
• Built-in best practices for search engine
optimization (SEO) for each local website
• Name, address, and phone number
consistency across all online directories
• Unique local content and locally-relevant
links to tailor content to specific markets
• Google+ Local Registration and
management for local relevance
Control4, a leading provider of automation and
control solutions for the connected home, has a
distributor base of 3,000 independent dealers.
Ensuring a consistent online presence and seamless
customer experience— while driving local online
traffic and leads—was a challenge. By implementing
local websites in partnership with Balihoo, Control4
revolutionized their online presence.
They now have:
An example

The results were stellar.In less than 12 months, Control4 experienced tangible success and exponential growth, including:
“The local websites we launched in conjunction with Balihoo has given us the ability to maintain a local brand presence online
by leveraging our independent dealer’s physical locations and associating them in with our brand. We have seen phenomenal
results with this effort and more importantly, we are getting leads directly to our dealer network faster than we ever have.”
- Tyler Reed, Senior Marketing Manager at Control4

The second step is listening to your local customers and local
stores for input. For campaigns to be effective, we know that
they must be personalized and relevant. Using a data-driven
approach to marketing allows marketers to customize their
campaigns based upon the local needs of your customers.
By listening and incorporating data from your local markets,
you can create campaigns that are meaningful and specific to
the needs of your local market customers.
Using local market intelligence, such as weather, census data,
building permits, and data from the local stores, can help you
create discovery campaigns that are specific to your company
AND local market needs. For example, so your company makes
portable heaters. You know that the northeast markets are
going to receive significant snowfall in December.
Why not create a local paid search campaign to specific markets
where you have stores based upon Weather.com data? Use
platforms like Balihoo’s Local marketing Cloud can allow you to
do this at scale for all your locations across the country.
Another effective method for prioritizing which markets to
focus discovery tactics on is to compare store data. Let’s say
that your brand has 150 locations in 20 states. These locations
are in metro areas with population levels of greater than
500,000 people. The graph below represents data from 10 of
these stores over a 90 day period.
Listen2

Now that you have an understanding of your customers’ traffic and shopping
patterns for each market – and local market data - it is time to execute your
discovery campaigns. We recommend starting with campaigns targeting markets
that are challenged with revenue and foot traffic as a test. Developing local sites,
local paid search, and optimizing local listings for these markets is a great way to
test your campaigns and see the greatest results.
Execute3

After executing on your discoverability campaigns, now is the time to sample
other tactics that may be helpful in increasing local marketing effectiveness.
Other marketing tactics, such as display advertising, re-marketing, local direct
mail, local social media marketing, and local email are effective tactics to boost
retail store traffic, create awareness, and build loyalty. One digital tactic that
we have seen be effective after a discoverability strategy has been executed is
local display advertising.
Location-based ads help brands improve targeting, boost engagement and
generate more effective creative collateral. Did you know this startling statistic:
four out of every five consumers want ads customized to their city, zip, or
immediate surroundings?3
What’s more, personalized display ads have a 10x higher click-through rate
when compared with traditional ads.4
In fact, local relevancy is the top reason
for engagement with mobile ads.2,3
Optimize4

For example, LiftMaster recognized that they needed to invest in a
strong local marketing strategy to show up in local search results.
At the same time, LiftMaster wanted to maintain a seamless brand
presence down to the local level, and compete in local markets,
or risk losing a sale.
Objectives
• Invest in proven digital tactics versus heavy, untrackable
traditional media
• Grow presence in local search, while generating additional
traffic and awareness
• Activate national campaigns at the local level for more dealers
without needing to bring on more staff
• Develop and uphold a seamless and effective customer
experience
A local
marketing
success story

Solution
In the span of a couple of months, Balihoo
and LiftMaster developed a pilot plan to start
generating traffic to local dealers, growing
the LiftMaster brand in target local markets,
and increase online impressions. By launching
both the Local Websites Solution and Local
Display Advertising, LiftMaster has experienced
exponential growth in each area of interest.

LiftMaster Results
Five weeks after launching a pilot program for a group of 105 locations,
LiftMaster has experienced incredible growth and results. In addition to the
data below, Balihoo has provided invaluable insights into how LiftMaster’s
national campaigns and advertising translate to sales at the local level, and
armed them with a solution to track and measure ROI from local campaigns to
help inform their strategy for future efforts.
“By partnering with Balihoo, we found
a Local Marketing platform provider
that understands the ins and outs of
the local marketing space and allows
us to respond to market trends and
customer needs. We are excited to
continue to grow the relationship
with Balihoo and evolve the way the
LiftMaster brand reaches consumers
at the local level.”
- Mike Bevan, Director of Digital
Marketing and Dealer Services
25 million online
impressions
more than double the industry averages
0.34% CLICK-THROUGH-RATE,
More than 100,000
clicks to local
websites
175 clicks on maps
for directions to
local dealers
82 visits to dealer
websites
64 emails to
local dealers
42 lead form
submissions in five
weeks
Low cost-per-click
rates at $0.25
SUBMIT

1) Google Study, 2014
2) 2014 Moz Local Search Ranking Factors Study
3) IPsos MediaCY, 2014
4) “Display Re-targeting”. Get Elastic, 2013
Summary and Conclusions
LOCAL WEBSITES
The heart of your local
marketing strategy
LOCAL LISTINGS
An overlooked step to
generating demand
LOCAL PAID SEARCH
Allows you to compete at the
category, brand, and product levels
At its heart, retail marketing is local marketing. The foundation to a successful
local marketing strategy is to allow your local stores to be discovered by
searching customers, mostly likely on a mobile device. Ensuring your local
storefronts are listed AT THE TOP of a customer’s search for local brand and
product searches is key through deploying 3 key tactics:
But, “The Last Mile of Marketing” can be empowered by demand generation and
relationship-building tactics such as email, direct mail, social media, and digital
display - all with a local lens.

The Ultimate Playbook for Retail Local Marketing

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