How to Target your Locals // Hospitality Edition
Have you ever noticed the same people walking past your venue but not coming in?
Here are our top suggestions for harnessing your digital strategy to target your locals.
Segment your communications by location
If you manage a hospitality brand with multiple venues, no doubt you’ve already recognised venues will need to tailor their offering depending on location.
The consumer demographic profile can vary dramatically depending on location – imagine the difference between consumers in proximity to tourist destinations, versus an office block.
Just as you tailor your in-store offering, try tailoring your digital communications too by segmenting your database based on location. A great example is allowing your newsletter subscribers to select their favourite venue – helping you to send them news, menus and special offers enticing them back to their local store.
Keep your SEO location relevant
A potential customer looking for a bite to eat is wandering your neighbourhood, mobile in hand and about to make a Google search. Think what they might try searching for. “Covent Garden Sushi”? Let’s drill down further and make your keywords as precise and relevant as possible – think street names, train stations, landmarks and anything else your foot traffic might use to describe their location. Be imaginative!
“Sushi London West End.” “Japanese Café Theatreland”. “Sushi Restaurant near Opera House”.
Injecting creative, relevant key terms consistently throughout your website’s content will increase the likelihood a search engine will return your business among the top results.
Link yourself up locally
How do search engines differentiate a poor quality website from a relevant, trustworthy site? One method is your backlinks – the incoming links to your website across the internet from other websites. Think of this like a virtual CV for your website – the more popular, trustworthy sites that are willing to endorse your website with a link, the more likely search engines will perceive you as relevant and trustworthy in turn, and will boost you in search results accordingly.
To maximise the ease at which local consumers can locate you in their search results, make sure your site is linked up on local, location relevant webpages that already target your desired market. Online dining directories and review sites (Zomato, Yelp, TripAdvisor), local food bloggers and of course social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are a great starting point.
How do you start getting your site linked? Try a promotion tempting in your local influencers.
Cozy up with your local influencers
For a bricks-and-mortar, independent hospitality concept, there is often no need to cast your net far and wide when it comes to social media marketing.
After all, it’s those who consumers who live and work locally who you will actually translate into potential, return sales (and often with their friends, family and co-workers in toe).
Get in touch – invite some favourite local food bloggers to your next special event, restaurant opening or menu launch. A hashtag promotion or a tag-a-friend campaign on your brand’s Facebook or Instagram is a great way to create buzz around a fun contest, and to get your company showing up on the newsfeed of the right people – the peers of your existing online fans.
Interested in learning more about hospitality?