Every industry has a target market: the perfect customer persona. In the construction industry, it may be a middle-aged, middle-class homeowner or a homeowner’s association manager. Knowing your target customer is key to your marketing strategy, but do you ever think about WHERE your target customer is? Their location is a crucial part of their persona, and it affects your paid ads, social media, and SEO strategies to help you reach your goals. Here is some basic information to help your marketing strategy target the right area.
Why Location is Important
In any service industry, twenty miles further out can add to your expenses quickly, from mileage to non-billable time on the road. Locations of residential neighborhoods should be excluded from your marketing efforts if your company’s primary business is commercial property! If your revenue stream is roof replacement, you should avoid areas of predominantly new construction.
What Your Potential Customers See
When your customer searches online for services, their location is “pinged” by the search engine. This will bring them the results Google deems fit for their area. There is more you can do to target specific locations than just relying on Google to use its almighty GPS. First and foremost, you must have your target service locations listed within your website content. If Google doesn’t read it, it doesn’t exist, so the more specific you are, the closer you get to your target location.
Use Specific Terminology
Often, we use vague terminology to describe service areas. For example, your site might say, “Providing HVAC services in Chicago and the surrounding areas.” Although there is nothing wrong with this, you are not targeting your niche market. Chicago has a population of 2.8 million people, and the competition is overwhelming, no matter what industry you are in.
In this case, you would be much more specific with “Providing residential HVAC services in Naperville.” Naperville has a population of 145,000, with older, established neighborhoods.
Target Locations = Flexibility
The best thing about pinpointing target locations is you can continue to add to them. Although you may want to list Chicago throughout your website, being specific about service locations will help increase traffic from the customers you are seeking in those areas. When you know who your potential customers are, you can help them find your business for the services they need through an effective marketing location strategy.
Connect with us to see how our team can help define your target customer’s location and put it to work for your marketing efforts.
