What is localisation?

Localisation is the concept of fine-tuning marketing activity to be sensitive to the local context.  By being locally aware, brands can attain relevance with consumers in an age where it is increasingly difficult to do so.

Broadly speaking, localisation is the process of analysing data, geo-demographics, local media opportunities, and combining these with local insights.  The result is targeted activity that is not only context-aware, but speaks to individuals with an unprecedented level of pertinence and purpose.

The benefits of localisation

Localisation allows brands and organisations to engage with consumers on a deeper and more personal level.   By engaging consumers with what’s happening on their doorstep, the chances of a brand not only holding consumer attention but prompting action are significantly higher.

Typically, a retail network’s national strategy works effectively 80% of the time.  But where there is an underperforming element – that 20% where the national message doesn’t resonate – localisation is the solution.

It’s a strategy that not only identifies the problem but surmounts it, and engages an audience on a street-by-street basis, something national messaging cannot do with the same degree of geo-demographic relevance. This kind of granular approach to targeting will always deliver strong ROI – by its very definition there’s significantly less wastage. 

Localisation takes time but it’s worth it.  It’s about the deep analysis of data.  It’s about line by line media planning.  And it’s about going into communities and asking questions, face-to-face, through on the ground research.

What does a brand mean to an audience in that local space?  What does the local competition look like at specific locations?  What could that brand do differently to engage with the community and therefore potentially improve their sales opportunity?

Direct mail & the evolution of localisation

The nature of direct mail within a localised campaign comes down to a total focus on detail. Whereas a national campaign can target a specific audience, in the local space this translates to defining that specific audience within the confines of a store location, catchment area or territory. 

As a consequence, running a direct mail campaign for a car manufacturer’s UK-wide network of, say, 200 dealerships, equates to 200 individual micro campaigns – the delivery of which would not have been cost effective, or indeed effective, ten years ago. 

Until relatively recently, localisation was seen as time-consuming, complex and as a result, prohibitively expensive - the technology simply wasn’t there to make it worthwhile.

With the introduction of digital print and communications, email marketing and templated website systems, the cost of planning and delivering a localised marketing campaign has been greatly reduced, making it a viable option for far more brands and organisations. 

Technology also comes into its own in aiding brands to purchase media in a more tactical and local fashion.  In the case of online display advertising and email marketing, we can now deliver incredibly tailored messages to more specific target audiences.  Now that marketers can harness output tools and channels, localising their use, there is more incentive to drive deeper and further into the data.

Finding a particular audience within a specific geography can present a challenge, however.  As an example, identifying suitable buyers for a luxury car in the South East is straight forward enough, but the same process becomes trickier when a dealer’s locale is a far flung corner of the country, with low population density. It’s a numbers game, and sometimes those numbers are small.

The broader concept of localisation

The concept of localisation and ‘local’ is really coming of age and largely driven by, as ever, customer requirement.  Consumers today are keener than ever to be empowered, to take control of what happens in their local community and to invest more of their own time and effort in to making that happen. 

It’s aligned to what David Cameron is trying to achieve with Big Society - the empowerment of communities to greater steer what is happening in their local area.

It’s also a reaction to what’s happened in the global economy. Consumers are seeing brands becoming more global, and as a result they feel more distant from decisions that are made that arguably influence them. Being able to take control of how a brand engages with you locally is something that many consumers are really keen to do. 

The ability to act in the real time is another benefit of localised activity, taking advantage of local opportunities as well as national stories.

If you’re a retail network – and a retail network that is empowered to respond to market change and opportunity, you’ve every opportunity to engage consumers in the moment.  This may be by changing your local message in response to external factors, influencers such as weather, cultural events, or other matters of topical import.

The majority of the big brand players support a localised approach, and are constantly developing new ways to increase the relevance of ‘local’ in their products.

Facebook has developed Places and Deals, eBay has acquired a parade of businesses with local capabilities in media and advertising, Google has put major muscle behind Google Places and Maps. The Daily Deals industry continues to grow astronomically, regardless of increasing doubt in the quality of customer delivered.

Check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla are seeing exceptional user adoption and almost daily new start-ups appear in the ‘local’ space – capitalising on the interplay between a person’s location and need for information on the go.

Altogether we’re in exciting times - and for any brand that believes in more relevant, immediate and meaningful communications with consumers - the future’s bright.  The future is localisation.