15 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

5 TRENDS REDEFINING LOCAL MARKETING

INSIDER TIPS TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL 2015

25 Trends Redefining Local Marketing 25 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 3

Bonus Insights ........................................................................................................................................ 9

Brands Must Use Keywords To Attract Local Traffic......................................................................................... 9

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

Mobile & Social Ad Creative Influences Purchase Intent ................................................................................ 9

Greg Sterling, VP Strategy & Insights, Local Search Association

Physical & Digital Worlds Become Fast Friends .................................................................................................. 9

Jeff Fagel, CMO, G/O Digital, A Gannett Company

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 10

About Us ................................................................................................................................................... 11

Contact Us ............................................................................................................................................... 11

Content Tells Local Stories Traditional Media Can’t

CMO Morphs Into Customer Experience Officer

Mobile & Social Trigger Offline Sales

Personalization Maximizes Impact of Digital Video

Local Is More Than Its Location

4 5 6 7 8

TREND 1 TREND 2 TREND 3 TREND 4 TREND 5

35 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

In 2014, G/O Digital set out to change the way retail and consumer packaged goods brands think about and execute local marketing. In the process, we realized that the marketing and advertising community’s understanding of “local” is oftentimes limited in scope or just flat out inaccurate — both in definition and delivery.

The realities of consumers’ daily lives and their interactions with digital content are completely different from what they were just five years ago. Smartphones, for example, have morphed from a luxury into a daily necessity — especially with their integration of cameras, videos, lifestyle apps and even mobile payment capabilities. Digital is no longer just a word — it’s a way of life.

For most people nowadays, just 10 minutes without access to the Internet or a smartphone feels like eternity. Digital devices offer many benefits, but they have also made consumers impatient and intolerant of subpar experiences, no matter where they may be. So marketers have no other choice but to deliver on these promises – to give them what they want, when they want it, where they want it and how they want it.

INTRODUCTION

And as much as they’re dependent on the convenience, control and choices provided by digital tools and technology, physical experiences still hold clout and value in consumers’ lives. There’s something to be said for the tactile experiences and immediate satisfaction people get when they shop in a brick-and-mortar store.

Today’s advertisers face a multifaceted dilemma. How can you create the types of personal, relevant messages, offers, content, ads and experiences that connect to a mother in Atlanta while reaching a millennial in Seattle in a way that feels uniquely tailored and personal to each of them? How do you then increase ROI and revenue for the entire business? What’s more, how do you do this both online and offline?

The good news is there is $4.9 trillion in retail sales up for grabs in 2015. And you don’t have to blow your budget on a flashy Super Bowl ad that’s over in 30 seconds to make a lasting impression and convert viewers into buyers. The key to capturing those dollars will only happen if marketers shed their presumptions of what they believe local marketing is.

In this eBook, industry experts outline 5 key trends that will redefine local marketing in 2015.

45 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

TREND 1

Content is the marketing of attraction. Whether it’s informative, educational, entertaining or practical, content is there for consumers who need it, want it and are seeking it out. Traditional mass marketing media can be interruptive — acting like a push strategy, rather than pulling them in.

Local content is all the more compelling for a target audience because it can deliver context and

relevance based on factors like seasonality, events and even weather — things immediately relevant to a consumer’s personal life.

As more brands evolve into publishers, the content they create can be anything from an email newsletter to a mobile coupon to a podcast or a mobile game. However, most brands rightfully consider their most important content to be their weekly promotional offers – better known as their product information and the brand value they want to communicate to their consumers. These are the things that move consumers closer to a sales transaction.

In 2015, marketers should optimize that content to entice consumers by offering answers to consumers’ immediate needs and wants in personalized ways, regardless of their distribution channel.

Content Tells Local Stories That Traditional Media Can’t Rebecca Lieb, Analyst, Altimeter Group

Missing the opportunity to address a local audience on their terms is the difference between corporate and commodified messaging and authentic communication.

KEY TIPS TO DELIVER LOCAL BRAND STORIES AND PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCES IN 2015:

Programmatically scale and target your existing content to serve local versions of offers that move shoppers from their screens back into storefronts.

Make content viewable across any device so consumers see and engage with your offers in their preferred shopping environments.

55 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

The media landscape has been entirely up-ended in recent years, and the manner in which marketers reach a target audience has been forever changed. Aside from having multiple media channels and device screens to manage, marketers face the challenge of ensuring their brand creates the appropriate creative and content for each.

The disruption in the chain of consumer communications has redefined the meaning of advertising “locally.” Location is no longer about a particular geography, rather the proximity of a digital device to a consumer. Make no mistake – the contemporary consumer may have a shorter attention span, but they are “always on” whether it’s with their smartphone on the way to work, sitting with their desktop at the office or playing Words With Friends on their tablet while watching television.

• Put qualified staff in place both internally and externally to manage the overlap in channel strategy for traditional and digital media.

• Cater messaging to consumers who jump in and out of the marketing funnel with content that informs, engages and drives bottom-line sales.

The CXO must be able to…

Think about consumers first in terms of their behavior.

Understand the inner workings of existing and new technology, and optimize content accordingly.

Manage multiple media budgets and eliminate wasted spend.

Gauge the appropriate success metrics for each tactic and campaign type.

Break down the internal silos so teams can be more creative, collaborative and effective.

CMO Morphs Into Customer Experience Officer John Gregory, Retail Business Development Consultant

KEY TIPS TO PRIORITIZE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IN 2015:

TREND 2

Retail Business Development Consultant

65 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

Using mobile and social advertising to spark in-store sales is a huge advantage that marketers are only just beginning to realize and track. Embracing location-aware advertising is an important step because it helps campaign messages reach those customers most likely to be interested in the ads. That can work both at the broad (regional or city) level and down to “geo-fences” around specific store locations.

Another important step for marketers is finding advertising partners adept at tailoring ad creative to reflect local information in social and mobile channels — making advertising vastly more relevant to viewers and prompting store visits.

Finally, the use of location for campaign effectiveness and attribution is growing rapidly. Retailers deploying in-store beacons and other mobile technologies can start to understand how many people exposed to an ad actually walked into a store. These technologies can also help marketers assess the effectiveness of in-store social media campaigns or calls to action. Tailoring mobile and social ad campaigns to drive local store sales is great, but being able to measure how many visits those campaigns generated — and ultimately how many sales transactions occurred as a result — will really cement the value of local relevancy for marketers.

The Opportunity:

How To Convert Them:

145.9 million U.S. mobile users

173.2 million social media users

Source: eMarketer

• Secure personal information • Keep purchases private

• Offer low prices• Integrate “Buy Now” features

• Offer easier checkout• Serve relevant products & offers

• Provide clear, high-resolution images• Render experiences quickly

Mobile & Social Trigger Offline Sales Joe Laszlo, Senior Director, Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, IAB

Offer immediate value to consumers by localizing content and helping them connect to the wants and needs they have in the now.

Look at how consumers are interacting with existing marketing experiences and solve for their concerns and challenges.

KEY TIPS TO CASH IN ON MOBILE AND SOCIAL ADOPTION IN 2015:

TREND 3

75 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

According to Business Insider, online video ads will drive nearly $5 billion in revenue by 2016, and it’s only getting easier for brands to execute multiple video campaigns simultaneously as well as ongoing video ad programming.

Great, affordable local video is not just for broadcast anymore. Local value in digital video advertising now comes through product movement within individual retailers.

In the coming year, brands should make video work harder for them by delivering customized messages that include up-to-date, targeted offers and tie directly back to offline sales. By doing this, they’ll be able to go into their Board of Directors meetings with the types of actionable results and ROI that grow the bottom line – well beyond brand awareness and recall.

KEY TIPS TO MAXIMIZE THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL VIDEO IN 2015:

Delivery-focused metrics like impressions and completion rates do not illustrate the effectiveness of advertising. Instead, consider simple A/B or match-market testing to track actual lifts in sales and brand metrics.

Now that personalized digital video and programmatic audience buying deliver stronger performance at lower costs, reprogram your brain to use digital video ads to power offline sales.

Personalization Maximizes Impact of Digital Video Brian Pozesky, CMO, Eyeview DigitalTREND 4

85 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

Marketers limit their success when they think that local isn’t a fundamental part of how customers experience brands today. When they do this, they’re actually self-selecting their brands and their products/services right out of consumers’ lives — whether they’re hoping to connect with them online or off.

Some brands have leaned into a new understanding of local a little bit, but most are only halfway. They still think of local as an element that informs targeting or as a way to optimize standard, homogenous messages — a geo-spatial signal for mobile phones or other location-based tactics.

Because reaching someone on their phone is intimate, the stakes of personalization get raised even higher. You can’t just say something you’d say to everyone. A local message doesn’t negate a national value proposition, but instead it considers the consumer’s real-life needs and experiences. If I know what experience I want to deliver and what need to address, then I can think about what channels to reach them through — mobile, social, display, search and beyond. But first I have to understand my brand in that primary local way.

The understanding of a right time and place may be changing, but the advances in targeting and delivery technology are keeping pace with consumer expectations. It’s just up to marketers to grapple with the logistics and decide if they are going to provide them with a generic message or a meaningful one.

Local Is More Than Its Location Mark Marinacci, EVP, Sales, G/O Digital

A mass message is still vanilla — it doesn’t take full advantage of what local can deliver.

KEY TIPS TO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES OF YOUR LOCAL MARKETING IN 2015:

Define “local” as something more than a consideration of media or channel — think of it as being connected to consumers’ real-time wants and needs.

Remember that consumers think of national brands in terms of the stores in their local community, so local offers can’t just be for mom-and-pop shops anymore.

TREND 5

95 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

Because listening and learning are key to success, we asked a few more trusted experts in the media and marketing industry to share

their perspectives. Here’s what they had to say.BONUS INSIGHTS

TRUSTED CONTENT PRO

Ann Handley Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

Brands Must Use Keywords To Attract Local TrafficBrands must use keywords to attract local traffic. At a minimum, your site should have your physical address and phone number. Don’t smirk – you’d be surprised how many marketers overlook this and fail to include geographically-specific keywords in various combinations.

Also, pay special attention to converting visitors into buyers. A “contact us” form is a nice way to give the public a way to reach you online. But how do you juice up your efforts to convert visitors into leads? One way is to offer free, downloadable how-to kits, guides or worksheets with an eye toward becoming a resource — a trusted advisor who can help potential customers as they inch toward a purchase decision.

MEDIA INFLUENCER

Greg Sterling VP Strategy & Insights, Local Search Association

Mobile & Social Ad Creative Influences Purchase IntentThere are numerous variables at play in a consumer purchase decision, including the immediacy of the consumer need, price and degree of consideration typical in the product category. Brands must produce great ad creative, generate a compelling offer, show it to the right audience and let them know where they can buy the product locally.

In mobile and social, you’re talking about two channels that overlap, but are also distinct and used in different contexts. So your ad creative needs to be both imaginative and executed with precision. General principles of reach and frequency apply to both channels, but the ads must be worthy of attention and engagement. Video is a great option too because you can modify TV spots and push them across social and mobile landing pages.

BRAND VETERAN

Jeff Fagel CMO, G/O Digital

Physical & Digital Worlds Become Fast FriendsOne of the biggest challenges within large brand organizations is breaking down silos. Macy’s has the right approach to the omnichannel challenge by building seamless shopping experiences for customers. As marketers, we need to realize that regardless of the product, consumers are now in control and have more choices than ever before.

It’s the norm, not the exception, for huge amounts of promotional content to pour in across all channels. That’s reframed the purchase path from a linear shape to more of a pretzel, where the digital and physical retail worlds intertwine.

Remember, shoppers don’t have a channel strategy; they’re just shopping.

9

105 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

There is a huge opportunity to connect with consumers in 2015 through local marketing. In truth, that’s probably said at the beginning of every year, but the difference about what you have at your disposal as marketers right now is the ability to move away from mass messaging toward more refined, hyper-personal relevant messages — across channels and devices. With the rise of programmatic buying and content, which drive down costs and increase efficiencies, local marketing will become the norm.

That requires thinking first about how consumers interact with your brand locally. Most consumers have a smartphone within arm’s reach at all times and a thousand rival offers are just one click away. This means that from the top down and across your

CONCLUSION

The opportunity for brands at this moment is a chance to beat the competition and drive steady streams of revenue at every touch point.

organization — whether you’re a CMO or a UX designer — you should consider real-life shopping behaviors when deciding how to connect with your audiences in the most meaningful ways.

Think differently about the definition of “local.” It’s more than a component of geography. It’s the seamless execution between multiple environments and then back again. It’s engaging online and then tracking that behavior to the sales transactions at a brick-and-mortar store. These truths will emerge more prominently in the coming months as you continue to make the customer experience the central component of every single marketing decision you make.

115 Trends Redefining Local Marketing

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For Local Businesses, G/O Digital, a Gannett company, is a one-stop shop for local businesses looking to connect with consumers through digital marketing, from search to social and everything in between. For National Brands and Agencies, G/O Digital delivers local digital activation at national scale with push-button simplicity powered by G/O Digital brands Shoplocal, BLiNQ Media and Key Ring.

G/O Digital partners with more than 5,000 of the nation’s top brands and retailers, including P&G, Target, Walmart and Walgreens and leads digital marketing programs with thousands of local businesses across more than 110 local markets.

For more information, visit: www.godigitalmarketing.com

For Corporate Communications & PR: Ragini Bhalla Director of Public Relations & Content G/O Digital, A Gannett Company (GCI) T: (312) 216-1423 | E: ragini.bhalla@gannett.com

THE G/O DIGITAL VISION: To Transform Local Marketing and #WinLocal

CONNECT WITH US:

For Product/Brand Marketing: Donna August Senior Director, Product & Brand Marketing G/O Digital, A Gannett Company (GCI) T: (312) 768-7501 | E: daugust@gannett.com