McGuinness Media & Marketing is an award-winning, full service marketing agency in Rhode Island. We are proudly woman-owned and operated. Our team is solution-oriented, resilient, and caffeinated!
We are a unique team of experts who have worked across different forms of media including broadcast TV, radio, and digital —because of this, McGuinness is proud to serve as an exemplary teaching agency. We know the intricate questions to ask and the unique ways to maximize value, insights others without this institutional knowledge simply don’t have. We handle branding and strategy, media buying and planning, graphic design, social media management, event marketing, and more.
Local advertising holds specific challenges and opportunities that set it apart from broader campaigns. Over the years, McGuinness has helped businesses across industries manage millions in local ad spend. What have we learned? Let us show you!
Local advertising for small businesses and beyond
Local advertising isn’t just applying global marketing tactics on a smaller scale. It involves nuanced strategies designed to target specific geographic audiences while addressing their own needs and preferences. Local campaigns enable you to connect with audiences on a more personal level by speaking their language and referencing their environment. For businesses like restaurants, salons, or retail stores, effective local ads directly drive foot traffic, not just web visits.
With great marketing potential comes interesting challenges. Audience targeting, budget allocation, and content relevance play an even more critical role in local advertising.
Think community first
Local advertising is more than traditional ads like radio, TV or billboards. It can be grass-roots, community based, etc. Having a deep understanding of the local community and speaking with them can go a long way. It creates a two-way conversation and builds relationships with smaller, more engaged groups of people who share a common interest or values. See insights from the McGuinness team on how we lean in to engage with our Rhode Island clients and beyond:
- Lean into Beloved local icons: Referencing local landmarks, events, or themes builds immediate trust with your audience. For instance, this summer, the McGuinness team organized and launched the Block Island Ferryoke contest. We invited the community to submit their versions of the beloved jingle. We caught the attention of local singing groups as well as news channels! The winners were Rachel O’Connell & Mitchell McDoobie:
- Promote Community Engagement: Local communities value businesses that invest in them. Businesses can support programming and events like food truck nights, festivals, little leagues, live music, etc. by sponsoring or making donations. Whether you attend the event or not, your contribution can make a difference.
- Language and Cultural Adaptation: If your business operates in a diverse area, tailoring ads to reflect the dominant languages or cultures of smaller neighborhoods can make a big impact. One campaign we ran included both English- and Spanish-language ad sets for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.
Budget allocation lessons for local campaigns
Another critical takeaway is how to allocate budgets effectively. While local campaigns require smaller budgets than national ones, they demand just as much strategy.
- The Power of Hyperlocal Targeting: One of the first key lessons we learned is the importance of hyperlocal targeting. General campaigns often cast too wide a net, wasting ad spend. When managing local campaigns, it’s all about precision.
- Seasonal Budget Adjustments: Certain business types thrive at different times of the year. For example, an outdoor equipment retailer we partnered with saw great results during spring and summer but struggled during winter months. By reallocating their budget to focus on seasonal trends, we helped them achieve steady revenue growth year-round.
Enhanced targeting opportunities to consider
- Geofencing Changes the Game: Geofencing allows businesses to create virtual boundaries around a specific location. Ads are then triggered when people enter these boundaries, making it an incredibly effective tool for businesses with physical locations, such as expanding casinos looking to tell their current customers about new amenities as well as people visiting their competitors.
- Invest Heavily in Mobile Ads: The vast majority of local searches happen on mobile devices. Reports suggest that 78% of mobile local searches result in an in-store purchase. Ensuring your budget prioritizes mobile-optimized ads is non-negotiable.
Your words matter
- Crafting Messaging That Matters Locally: Crafting the right message for local audiences is both an art and a science. Your creatives and copy should align with the audience’s environment and values to truly resonate.
- Simplify Calls to Action: Don’t complicate it! Local audiences prefer straightforward and actionable CTAs. This could be “Visit us on Main Street” or “Call now to book in your neighborhood.” Complicated digital CTAs often create friction, leading to fewer conversions.
Metrics we rely on for local ad success
When managing local ad spend, traditional digital marketing metrics aren’t always enough. We’ve learned to expand our tracking and pay close attention to KPIs designed for local campaigns, such as:
- Store Visit Conversions: Tracking how online ads translate into physical store visits.
- Call Tracking: Measuring the volume of calls generated by click-to-call buttons on mobile ads.
- Location-Based Impressions: Monitoring ad impressions by geographic area to ensure resources are used efficiently.
By honing in on these metrics, you can tangibly measure success and replicate best practices in future campaigns.
The value of building a loyal fanbase
Lastly, don’t overlook the value of long term clients or customers. Find them, nurture them, retain them. While immediate conversions are rewarding, fostering a loyal customer base within your geographic area has compounding effects.
Spreading Local Marketing Success
Managing millions in local ad spend has taught the McGuinness team that the key to success lies in precision, relevance, and community focus. Local advertising is less about shouting from the rooftops and more about having meaningful, targeted conversations with your audience and the media partners helping to tell each brand’s story to its audiences.
At the heart of it all is a drive to help businesses connect with the people they’re built to serve. Whether you’re looking to improve targeting, craft better messaging, or allocate budgets more effectively, we hope these insights will guide your efforts in creating impactful local ad campaigns.