Advertising on the web has changed how buyers and sellers meet up: advertising has evolved and become more effective, expanding to search engines, online directories, review sites, and social networks. With the help of these platforms, You can now effectively target your ads to people close to your physical location or exclusively to people beyond borders.

What you will learn

• What is Local advertising
• Why local advertising is important
• Where you can advertise online to local customers
• Things you can do to limit your reach to a local audience.

What is Local advertising?

Local advertising is the strategy of targeting audiences close to the location of a business with messages reflecting the local market. A business can use local slang or Local influencers or celebrities to attract customers living nearby to benefit from local marketing.

Local advertising is a great, affordable (sometimes even free) way to connect with customers who are close at hand.

Importance of Local Advertising

1. It limits your ads to people who are local to you and likely to become your customers
2. It minimizes your advertising cost: Local Advertisement will help you cut down the unnecessary cost of advertising to people beyond your locality that has a slim chance of becoming your customer. Local advertising will help you tailor your target down to people that have a higher chance of buying from you hence increasing your ROI.
3. Portrays your Company as a brand that cares for and supports the Local population: Yokohama might produce rugged tires and market them as a perfect fit for Nigerian roads. In fact, I once saw an advert by Toyota advertising a new set of cars, Hilux I think for the Nigerian roads. In nigeria we have mobile electric Fans, small generators, and so many peculiar products made because of the Nigerian market. Your company can also adopt this kind of radical advertising method.

Where to advertise to Local customers 

You can accomplish local advertising online through a lot of different channels, and search engines, local directories, review sites, and social networks are great places to start.

1. Search Engines: On search engines, you can bid to show your ad when people type in certain search terms, and all of the major search engines allow you to limit your ads showing to only people in certain locations and geographies. For example, if you are bidding on a keyword like “Electric fan,” you can set up your campaign to only show if the person that typed it in is within, say, 10 miles of your store.

2. Social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn offer business pages, as well as paid advertising to target local customers. Social networks can figure out where people are, and just like with search engines, you can specify your ads to show only to people who are nearby with a really relevant, local message.

3. Local directory and review websites offer advertising opportunities as well. Over and above your listing, which is usually free, you can often pay a little more to get your ad shown in premium locations like search results or even on your competitors’ listings!

Things you can do to take advantage of a local audience

1. Your message should be tailored to someone that’s physically close to your shop. 
2. List your hours of operation
3. You can also tailor your ads to only show when you’re open. 
4. Include your address or you can Nest GPS to your site to let people get directions right to your storefront on a smartphone or mobile device, 
5. Add an active phone number so people can ring your phone number with a single tap.
6. let them browse all your great reviews.

Conclusion

Local advertising can help you find customers that are close to where you do business, and there are lots of options for running local ads.

Whether you choose to use search engines, social networks, directories, or review sites, limiting your advertising budgets to people near you and taking advantage of the special local advertising features can help boost your business in the neighborhood.