A data security incident at any business – large or small – can cause serious damage. The average cost of a data breach rose to new highs in 2021, to the tune of more than $4 million.
Most marketers want an accurate understanding of their digital advertising results, but effectively harnessing and analyzing the data can be tedious and difficult. Anymore, it’s common to simultaneously manage multiple campaigns in multiple locations across multiple platforms – which quickly generate an overwhelming amount of information to track and digest.
From TV to digital ads to social media content, Americans are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 marketing messages each day. There have never been more channels available to reach your desired audience. But don’t forget: everyone else wants to reach them, too.
When people have questions, they turn to Google for answers, judging by the 5.6 billion Google searches that are conducted every day. Day or night, online searches put the power of freely accessible information at consumers’ fingertips .
These billions of searches become a form of business intelligence through tools like Google Trends. Like a window into the minds of consumers, Google Trends spotlights what information people are seeking connected to an industry or product and gives marketers an additional source of external data when planning marketing strategy.
Dirty data is a big problem for nearly any company collecting information for strategic business purposes. (Which should be every company that wants to understand its customers, track and respond to trends, and create personalized marketing efforts.)
By now, it’s likely your company data plays an important role in powering performance and
results. Good data shines a light on what drives core areas of business, such as how and where
you acquire customers, what your “ideal” customer looks like, which products and services
propel growth and with who, how customers engage with your brand … and the list goes on.
If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. Weather can change our daily plans in an instant. Think about it … how often do you check the weather app on your device?
Much of what we do can be influenced by the weather:
Attention spans are short, and every day your brand is battling for limited mindshare. Is there a proven way to target the people you *know* will be interested in your product?
The answer may not be quite what you think…
Who are the people practically guaranteed to be receptive to your message? Those who are already using a similar product or service. Or, more specifically – your competitors’ customers.
Just as analyzing your own data yields important customer insights, on the other side of the coin is the often-overlooked competitive analysis. Let’s take a look at the marketing strategy that drives this approach, geomarketing.
Geomarketing Harnesses the Power of Location
Geomarketing uses geographic, or location-based, data to help companies hyper-personalize marketing strategies and campaigns to current and potential customers. Companies that understand where their customers go in the physical world – as well as the online world – can create valuable customer profiles and insights.
Now, take that one step further …
Companies that have the same insights about their competition’s customers can use them to provide compelling offers at just the right moment and better customer experiences. Done right, you just might earn their business for yourself.
Geo-marketing strategies add several different tools to the marketer’s toolbox.
- Geotargeting. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Geotargeting helps to analyze who has visited a specific area or location in the recent past.
- Geofencing. Think of geo-fencing as a creating a “virtual fence” around a designated area. You can capture real-time information about the people within the fence and also elect to send them ads when they are within the specified area.
- Geoconquesting. This tactic can be a game changer for those who want to specifically attract customers away from the competition and toward their brand. Geoconquesting uses location data to precisely target people who are visiting, or have visited, a competing business.