Determining where to direct marketing dollars to increase product sales and brand awareness is all too common for marketers. It is also often a result of the type and quality of data a marketing team uses. In a recent Forrester survey, 37% of surveyed marketers indicated that poor marketing data quality resulted in wasted marketing spend, and 35% indicated it led to inaccurate targeting.
To prevent wasted budget and mis-targeting, marketers should leverage high-quality location data that reveals true customer interests based on past behavior to inform the people and areas they should target. Geographic data is especially reliable because it provides marketers insight into who their target buyers are, what messaging best resonates with them, and the best time to reach them.
What Does Geographic Data Tell Businesses?
Sometimes referred to as geospatial data or location data, geographic data provides insight into where consumer populations travel in the real world, such as from their home to the nearest shopping mall. This data provides businesses with a roadmap of what stores consumers frequently shop at and where they are likely to make purchases.
This geographic information also sheds light on people’s purchasing preferences and what brands they are likely to engage with. By analyzing this data, businesses can examine the preferences and demographic makeup of communities to determine where they should focus their ads campaigns and outreach.
How to Use Geographic Data to Strengthen Marketing Campaigns
Geographic data helps marketers make sure they aren’t wasting budget on advertising to the wrong audiences. Here are three steps businesses can take to best use location intelligence to bolster their marketing efforts and reduce wasted ad revenue:
1. Identify Target Audiences
Geographic data can help marketers determine which people are most likely to engage with their brand, respond to an ad, or make a purchase. These consumers can be segmented into groups separated by their affinity for certain types of products, which marketers can use to develop personalized outreach. For example, a retailer can analyze geographic data to identify which customers recently visited their store or a related competitor store. This information reveals who prefers to shop at the same types of business, which likely implies they are more inclined to shop again and respond to relevant ads.
2. Inform Where To Run Campaigns
Having insight into where a target audience lives and travels allows marketers to determine where their ads should be shown. This information is important because it allows marketers to avoid locations where their target audience won’t be and helps them narrow down the optimal area for ad reach. The data also provides insight into the popular times that people visit particular stores, which can guide when ads targeting those populations should be shown. Marketers informed on which communities have populations that match their ideal buyers will likely see a better ROI when developing their marketing campaigns, which can result in more in-store visits and increased revenue.
3. Enable Smart Geotargeting
Once marketers understand who is most likely to respond to their ads and where to show their ads, they can go one step further and use geographic data to develop effective geotargeting strategies. By knowing what populations travel nearby through location-based insights, businesses can design geofencing campaigns that target consumers as they travel within a certain radius around the storefront.
For example, a retailer can examine the geographic data of the surrounding community and determine that a large percentage of that population shops at handbag stores. Using this information, the marketing team can develop ads to specifically highlight their new purse products to encourage those shoppers to stop at the store and make a purchase.
Use Geographic Data in Your Next Campaign
Geographic data can help marketers prevent wasted ad spend and allow them to increase brand awareness to people who would most likely purchase their company’s products.
