The importance of staying local for a business

Keeping business local has numerous benefits which businesses of all sizes should not overlook. Not only does it help the local economy, but it also helps drive a sense of community and resonates with consumers on a personal level.

Communities throughout the world have sought to build a stronger community by buying locally. One example of this is the Bristol Pound, a currency created by the city of Bristol, used by its people to help keep money within their community. 

One look at the below statistics and it is clear that major businesses understand the impact of local advertising. 

For smaller businesses, advertising locally comes naturally since they rarely step out of their area to sell. However, for larger companies which want to advertise locally, and there are a lot as you can see from the above, conveying a local message does not come as easily. 

Fortunately, there are startups out there that can help. Post Office Social is a startup at the forefront of local marketing, helping multi-location companies (including Toyota, Matas and Salling Group) scale down marketing by giving their current employees the simple tools to tailor content to improve engagement at each branch, without the need for more marketing personnel or expensive to execute campaigns.

From their experience, they’ve noticed that successful campaigns create a chain reaction. This helps multi-store retailers create a wide variety of social content, perceived as more authentic. Incredibly this has resulted in an increased reach of 200% and boosted traffic in nearby stores by 300% which also helped to identify location-specific consumer patterns.

In a previous interview with The Sociable, Post Office Social co-founder, Peter Bundgaard, states that “We help a lot of big companies in Denmark. Toyota and Carlsberg are good examples of brands which are also known in the rest of the world. For Toyota, they use Post Office to activate their local car dealers. Almost every dealer in Denmark uses Post Office which has increased their total reach and engagement rates significantly, as well as their time to market. And after all, Toyota has seen an increase in sales.”

Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company