Reaching site selectors and business executives has always been a challenge, but today's technology has made it easier to ensure our message is being seen by the right people and that our marketing efforts are effective.
"Geotargeting is the practice of delivering content to a user based on his or her geographic location. This can be done on the city or zip code level via IP address or device ID, or on a more granular level through GPS signals, geo-fencing, and more." GeoMarketing 101
Geotargeting is one way we can pinpoint our stakeholders down to their location, and in certain cases, narrow it down to characteristics like job title, company and even age range. This method is different depending on what digital platform you are using. When it comes to Google Ads, we can target down to just a few mile radius around a company and when they search certain keywords on Google such as "Idaho," "site selection," or "industrial sites," our website (southernidaho.org) will pop up at the top of the page.
For a broader campaign such as our ads targeting dairy processors in California, we have pinpointed zip codes across the state to target multiple companies at once - and we've seen real results from these types of campaigns. Southern Idaho Economic Development and the Idaho Dairymen's Association will actually be using the data from this campaign to set up visits with these dairy processors and help recruit businesses here.
When it comes to social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn, we can present ads to our audience and target them at a certain location, AND by company, job title, age range, gender, interests and hobbies, education, etc.
These geotargeting methods are very effective because the parameters around who sees our ads and website are very precise. It also means that when someone clicks on our ads, we can see where they visited our site from, how they got to our site, other pages they went to on our site, how long they spent on our site, etc. All of these metrics can show us how effective our campaigns are and help narrow down prospects for business recruitment.
It's a more cost-effective and trackable marketing strategy, and it also allows us to be more flexible and efficient. For example, when we hear a company has interest in one of our communities, or a neighboring region or state, we can immediately put out ads to help keep us top of mind. Having these tools in our business recruitment strategy has really allowed us to transform our organization and continue to be a competitive region for site selection.
