Your business may start off as a small, locally-based company serving the immediate populace. Or it could be something you aim at a global market from day one. Your initial marketing needs to reflect your position, to ensure you are targeting the most relevant customer base. You also need to adapt and update your promotional activities and materials if you move from one market to another, or you won’t be reaching the audience you need to. If you aren’t directing your marketing efforts towards the right people, you will be wasting money and energy on activities that won’t bear fruit.
Local
If you run a business that serves the local community such as gardening or dog-walking, you don’t need to spend vast amounts on an AdWords campaign to enable customers to find you. Using local newspapers, websites, community publications and notice boards will be far more effective in reaching your target audience. A leaflet drop in the local area can provide a decent blanket approach to contacting everyone in the vicinity, of which a proportion will be looking for your services. Having an online presence is helpful, because if people search for a specific service in their town you want to be on the results list; but any online advertising you do should be aimed at the local population, not those too far away to be interested.
National
If you run a business that serves a wider audience, then restricting your advertising to the local population will limit your exposure. The local market may be important, for example, if you have a store in town, but if you also sell online nationwide, then you need to be advertising across the country too. Use a company that specializes in national SEO to ensure your website is optimized for those searching for services like yours within your country, so that you are maximizing exposure to the national audience and not wasting resources being shown to overseas buyers with whom you don’t trade.
International
If you ship your products or sell online services across the world, you need to be reaching a far greater number of people. Whereas a local marketing campaign might concentrate on the whole population of the area because all residents are potential customers for a local service, international campaigns need to be far more tightly focused on targeting the niche audience or specific target market for your product or service. This involves defining exactly who is most likely to want to buy your products and directing your advertising efforts to websites and publications they are likely to be interested in. This kind of targeted marketing is far more effective when seeking to reach a specific audience than trying to communicate with everyone, a large proportion of whom won’t be in the least bit interested.
Of course, as your business grows you may find you move up into the next level, and therefore you need to relook at your marketing and how it is targeted to get the best return on your investment.
