How geotargeting can improve your online campaigns

Geo-targeting in email marketing

Geotargeting is basically the delivery of content to a consumer (whether it be via the web or mobile) using the available geographic location information for that specific individual. A customer's location information provides deep, meaningful and identifiable traits that tell you what a person is interested in, what they’re looking for, essentially, their wants and needs.

Using geotargeting, you can easily boost the client engagement and conversion of your email campaigns. We’ll explain how the two can work together to improve your email campaigns and take them to the next level.

Use email testing

A/B testing is a great method to check which online marketing messages work best with your targeted customers. The first step is to decide what to test. Things you might consider testing include:

• Subject line

• Call to action

• Newsletter layout

• Greeting (Mr. Jones versus Bob)

Once you’ve done the testing and implemented the changes, you can immediately begin personalizing your messages to customers and creating campaigns that they’ll be more likely to click and convert on. You’re likely going to want to test multiple things but it’s important to only change one thing at a time so you can track which of those changes leads to better results.

Take advantage of location specific events

You can use upcoming events in particular areas as a way to communicate personalized and localized campaigns. Is a local sports team playing a big game next weekend? For a sports memorabilia retailer, this is the ideal time to sell jerseys of that team. Is a major celebrity playing a big concert at a local arena? Now is the time for restaurants or bars in that area to promote special offers on the night.

Don’t get too specific with geotargeting

The reality is, your customers enjoy receiving personalized messages. But they don’t enjoy messages which are too specific. You likely know exactly where your customers live and work. But don’t reference an area more specific than their neighborhood. Offering deals to a nearby grocery store is helpful. A map showing that the grocery store is nearby is just as useful. Pointing out exactly how many miles that store is from their house is just plain creepy.

Using geotargeting is an effective tool to have in your marketing box of tricks. It’ll help you add context to your campaigns, personalizing them and making them something that customers are compelled to click. By successfully using geotargeting in your emails, you can expect to see improved relationships with online customers, meaning better client engagement, increased clicks to your website and, eventually, more sales.

Learn more about why geotargeting should be in your marketing strategy and where else you can implement geotargeted campaigns for the best possible campaign results and check out these tips for increasing conversions with geotargeting.