With the reduction in overseas visitors and a bigger appetite for staycations here at home, there is no better time to refocus your marketing efforts towards your local market.
We’re sharing 7 great ways to target your local and national customers.
1. Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads is probably the one of the most powerful ways of targeting your local customers.
Start by defining who your ideal customers are and then using FaceBook Ads you can advertise to them based on their location, age, gender and interests.
You can set budgets, track the performance of your ads and stop or start at any time. Making it a fully transparent advertising platform.
2. Google Ads
Google Ads allows you to appear on Google results for searches relating to your spa like “day spas” or “spas with saunas”. So it’s easy to localise it by targeting searches like “spas in Limerick” etc.
You can localise your targeting even further by restricting your ads to appear to customers only in certain areas ( like Dublin, Meath or All Ireland ).
Other big advantages to using this service are that you only ever pay for when a customer clicks on your advert and lands on your site. You also decide how much you’re willing to pay for the clicks to your site, allowing you to run a cost effective campaign.
3. Loyalty Programmes
Reports on how successful loyalty and rewards programmes are vary wildly. Some even report sales increases up to 95%*. Whatever the more accurate figure is, ALL reports point to increases in customer retention and profits.
By using a rewards programme you can reward your local loyal customers with exclusive deals, discounts or added benefits. A simple activity might be to offer a free treatment after their 5th visit to the spa.
When offering discounts to existing customers, it’s good to weigh the discount up against the cost of acquiring new customers.
4. Discounted Deals
Running a discounted deal on a channel like Groupon, PigsBack or Spas.ie will ensure that you are targeting a local or national customer, as these sites target users based in Ireland.
It is important to make sure you are effectively discounting your deals as it can be costly if it is not done correctly. Check out our top tips on how to run your spa deals.
5. Radio
Choosing to advertise on a local or national radio station means that your ad will be heard by local and national customers depending on the radio station you pick.
While Spotify and Podcasts may be growing in popularity, 82% off the population are still tuning into Radio everyday**. The downsides are it can be costly and it’s hard to measure the results.
6. Google My Business
Having a Google My Business account means that if someone searches for your spa specifically or spas in your area, then information about your spa will appear at the top of Google search results. And, it’s totally free!
While this exercise is unlikely to increase profits 10 fold, it’s a quick and easy way to get a bit more exposure for people looking for spas in your area.
7. Optimise your Website
Help get your spa’s website get up higher in Google search results when customers search for spas in your area.
You can do this by including your town and/or county name in your meta tags, meta descriptions and throughout your text where practical. A good example of such key phrases might be “day spa in Dublin” or “sauna in Tralee”.
* Harvard Business Study 2020
** According to a study by JNLR in 2019
