Increasing Your Sales With Location Marketing

Recently, I was called upon to review a client's Location Marketing Strategy for his weight loss centers.

Location marketing has come a long way since brochure/application "Take One" boxes were seen littered on store checkout counters. The location wall ads have turned into touch screen kiosks and WIFI Hotspot location home page banners. The old "Guess how many marbles in the jar" to win a health club membership were early location marketing campaigns.

Location marketing can be highly successful if you are located near or service the area of the location you are targeting. Locations that offer advertising opportunities usually attract a lot of people. Remember the bowling alley ads? Since people support businesses near their home, the chance to reach these people is greater at these popular locations. If you are a rental car company, it just makes sense to advertise at the airport.

The opportunity recently presented to my client was to have a 30 second commercial played on the overhead loudspeaker of selected Kroger Grocery and Walgreen's Drug Stores in Georgia. A professional 30 second audio commercial which will play once an hour for an entire year. They can choose zip codes or counties. Both Kroger and Walgreens are respected, popular and successful brands in their markets. Kroger is a billion dollar company and Walgreens is the largest drug chain in the US. hmmm

Currently my client is running print ads in neighborhood newspapers and zip code coupon mailers with moderate success. His question to me was whether there was value in trying to reach people in grocery and drug stores compared to what he was already doing. He explained that he was looking to open up more locations locally and nationally. Seems, there were other top market grocery and drug store locations available nationwide also. He explained that there were only 3 local companies that were going to be allowed in any 1 store at any 1 time, so he wanted to make a decision soon on some stores while they were still available. What were my thoughts? I told him that I would have to get back with him.

I jumped on Google with my new research mission; In Store Marketing, grocery and drug store statistics. I needed fast facts so that I could at least sound intelligent and justify my worth.

I was up for the challenge because I had recently read somewhere that In Store Marketing has been growing faster than Internet/online advertising. Most retail stores have some kind of in store music and branded store special ads running. In store marketing/advertising is shown to increase sales anywhere from 9% to 26% on packaged goods sold in store. K-mart had huge success with the Blue Light Special.

I discovered a study by the A.C. Nielson Company reporting that Americans are 7 times more likely to visit a supermarket than a convenience store and 3 times more likely to visit a supermarket than anywhere else in their community. How interesting, seems food doesn't discriminate.

Did you know that the average grocery store has between 15,000 to 30,000 customers per week? 90% of the weight loss center's customers live within 6 miles of the local supermarket. If you are a location driven with your business, chances are that this stat is true for you too. The average person/family visits the grocery store 2 times per week with each visit averaging between 45-60 minutes.

Not only do black consumers make more trips to the grocery store than the average shopper (2.2 trips per week vs. 1.9 trips), they spend more per week as well ($94 vs. $85), this according to a study by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) entitled "The African American Grocery Shopper 2000."

It was interesting to find that grocery stores spend approximately $20,000 a week for their own marketing. Grocery stores also employ more than 3.5 million workers across the country. These workers, their friends and family are potential customers too.

Who Shops in Grocery Stores? Not surprising that Female Head of Household - 69% Male Head of Household - 19% - Both - 11%. This is exactly who my client targets!

When I looked at drug stores, consumers are not only visiting drug stores more often, they are spending more when they are there. In spite of gas prices, drug stores have been able to increase weekly trips. Leading drug store retailers have also invested in marketing, merchandising and private label development to establish stores as beauty care destinations.

So, after all of my research, what were my thoughts? Well, let's look at some principles of advertising.

Advertising is supposed to have people think of you and your service more often than your competition! How do you stand out in your community? How do you become a "Top Of The Mind" brand? How do you turn your brand into a working verb like Xerox and Google?

Repetition, Repetition, and more Repetition! Too many companies run 1 ad and expect immediate miracles.

Branding is not going to happen with just one form of advertising. Coke, Pepsi, IBM, Xerox didn't get to be household and top of the mind brands by advertising just one way!

When considering any advertising, you should consider the following:

1) Targeting - By concentrating on those closest to you geographically or those demographically relevant, you target those most likely to buy or use your services.

2) Exposure - People have to see and or hear your ad frequently in order for it to be successful! It takes people on average 8 times to see or hear your ad before they remember that they saw or heard your ad in the first place.

I reminded my client that people could look away from his ad, but while in the grocery or drug store, they can't listen away from the sound of his ad. We have been conditioned to listen to sound from above, i.e. airport, hospital, grade school, car dealers, retail, UFO's etc.

3) Repetition - Customers must see/hear your ad frequently for 2 specific reasons

A) People have short term memory.

B) You will never know exactly when they will need your services or
know someone who does.

This form of Location Marketing definitely offered all of the above for my client.

Based upon the locations chosen, pricing for these commercials will cost my client less than 30 cents per spot. They will receive about 6000 grocery and 12,000 drug store ads per store per year. This campaign will place their ad in front of millions of people. This will run them about $200 per month per store chosen.

I contacted my client's in store sales rep and requested some references of companies currently advertising in stores. He supplied testimonial letters from car dealers, hospitals, real estate and jewelry companies. These companies were renewing their 2nd and 3rd time with them, which made sense for these kinds of businesses. Car dealers really benefit from repetition advertising. This is why you see them in print, radio and TV.

One thing's for sure, in order for advertising to work, you have to advertise!

After reviewing my client's advertising budget, goals and timing for new locations. After considering people's lack of nutrition knowledge, reaching people in the grocery and drug stores made sense for this client too.

I recommended that they offer a FREE nutrition assessment to gain shopper's attention. People like Free Things! I recommended that their ad sound more like a public service announcement (PSA), showing people that they care concentrating on branding their nearby locations and website. The message truly is the message!

Will Location Marketing work for your business? If you service an area close to one of the grocery or drug stores in the network, great chance that it will. Want to know more and get a list of top market stores in the network? Send me an email and I will put you in direct touch.

Happy Viral Business Marketing,

Follow me on Twitter,
www.twitter.com/chuckwoo

Chuck Woo
www.chuckwoo.com
www.woomediaworks.com

www.onlinemarketingtools.net
www.googlebusinesscards.com


www.musicbiztoolbox.com
www.myspacehelperpro.com
www.musicbizinfo.com