What is geomarketing?

Geomarketing is a technique that uses location data to optimize campaigns, helping you engage with customers at the right place and time. Geomarketing can be used for both online and offline touchpoints, making it a versatile part of your toolkit. It can take several forms: a set of information that helps you with decision-making, an analytical approach to building campaigns, or a strategic channel that helps you gather demographic data. It can even be a combination of these tools.

Why do brands use geomarketing?

Demographic surveys have long been used by brands to learn more about existing and prospective customers, and historically geomarketing has been used to help retailers choose the right region to open a physical store based on that data. Now, geomarketing is continuing to evolve along with demand for services within specific geographic areas. For example, an estimated 97.1% of users in Brazil access the internet via smartphones—and with so many customers always on the move, the need for geographically relevant messages and services has increased. There are three main advantages of geomarketing:

Audience segmentation. Geomarketing is a great way to segment your audience. This way, your campaigns can extract greater results from specific locations. Use this data to drive better placement in local searches, like “pharmacies in Rio de Janeiro.”

Increased ROI. Without a geomarketing strategy, it’s possible that your campaigns will reach people located far away—who might have no use for your services. For example, that pharmacy in Rio de Janeiro won’t want to advertise to people several cities away. By employing geomarketing, brands have the power to choose exactly where their campaigns run, meaning they’ll spend less for more effective results.

More qualified leads and higher conversion. The previous point shows how targeting more specific, engaged audiences is more cost-efficient. But it can also earn you more leads, because you’ll be reaching an audience likely to have a greater interest in your product or service—especially when taking other data, like purchasing behavior or interactions on social media, into account.

If you own an ice cream parlor in Brasília, for example, and you're on a tight marketing budget, geomarketing will help you to get leads who are in Brasília, close to the neighborhood and interested in ice cream. This way, you'll get more conversions at a much lower cost than advertising to the whole city, or to all of Brasília, the state.

Here’s how to use geolocation marketing in your business.

Once you understand the concept of geolocation marketing and how important it is, you can use one of many pieces of software available to manage data and optimize your geomarketing efforts, like Google Analytics or Meta Ads. Here are three tactics to get the most out of geomarketing.

Geotargeting. Geotargeting is a way of showing users content based on their location. With a database that maps IP addresses onto specific locations, you can target by country, state or even ZIP code depending on your platform of choice.

Geofencing. Geofencing is the use of technologies such as the Global Positioning System or radio frequency identification to create a virtual geofence. In other words, it involves collecting location data from electronic devices in order to take action based on it. You can use geofencing to deliver real-time content to your customers based on their GPS data. Note that geofencing requires the use of a branded application that your audience has already downloaded and authorized to track location data.

Another way to serve content to customers is by leveraging third-party platforms like Waze, a collaborative traffic and navigation app. By using Waze Ads, your content can be shown to drivers within a certain vicinity.

Geotagging and check-in. Another interesting geomarketing tactic is the strategic use of the check-in feature. For example, if you create a Facebook and Instagram page that includes your business address, both apps will allow customers to check in. Marking the location helps others easily find the profile of the business, along with other useful info.

Geotagging is similar, in which users tag the business location to a photo or other piece of content when sharing it to social media. Again, this helps people discover the business and generates publicity for the brand. Because people tend to be influenced by their peers, this can be a great factor in analyzing consumer behavior.

You can leverage geomarketing alongside other marketing strategies, too.

Geomarketing becomes even more useful when tied to other marketing strategies. Having access to customers' location is a great way to build efficiency across your brand’s actions. You can analyze market competition in your region of choice as well as the behavior of your target audience.

Geomarketing involves large volumes of information, and you can use that additional info to optimize your processes and improve business strategies overall—like directing investments to regions with the greatest potential for conversion, or identifying areas with high demand for your products or services.  

Geomarketing truly shines when you look for quality information that can provide insights into consumption patterns or other data obtained through studies, thus improving your geomarketing performance. For example, you can look into public databases of sociodemographic data. My team in Brazil uses IBGE, PNAD and Ipea.

With that, you should be ready to begin supporting geomarketing. For my team, geographical diversity is a big part of what we do, and leveraging insight into the interest and behaviors across different regions, cities and places is a fascinating way to deliver content to build your business. By using the strategies above, you’re well on your way to meeting the diverse needs of your own customers.

For the new generation of consumers, a brand that keeps its distance on social media is not a memorable one. Quite the opposite. Audiences today have come to expect a degree of relatability—and above all, a real understanding of their interests and necessities. It’s not about keeping up with the top 10 TikTok trends; rather, about thinking and creating like consumers. 

Marketers who have a solid grasp of this are expanding their businesses and promoting their brand just as with word of mouth. But they are not doing it alone. Community managers are one of the main players in the game of hooking consumers—even if their role is often simplified and associated with junior professionals who are just starting their careers. As consumer behavior continues to evolve, we need a new approach to community management that understands its importance and allows us to harness its true power. Here’s what that looks like.

AI and automation meet an increased focus on being human.

As previously mentioned, consumers are more likely to engage with brands that demonstrate some sense of humanity. And if they are not afraid to show an actual human behind the screen, all the merrier. Community managers today are spending less time solving problems and more time sharing their own opinions, experiences and emotions—acting more as entertainers and relatable friends than customer service agents.

If we think about the spaces where consumers connect with brands, these are mostly global digital platforms with a demand for always-on interaction. One of the ways that world-class brands deal with this expectation is by hiring community managers in a bunch of different time zones so that they are manually working round the clock to serve them. However, by incorporating automation tools—such as social bots or other applications of AI—you can also offer on-demand attention and instant solutions so that the users feel supported 24/7 while CMs focus on being creative.

In other words, these tools manage all the liking, retweeting and answering of repetitive queries so that community managers can better direct their energy toward inspiring real connections with people.

On top of that, you can have fun with it. Working with the television series Atlanta, for example, we created their own custom AI bot to take over the show’s official Twitter account for a week. In a joint effort between Jam3, Cashmere and Media.Monks’ teams, we trained it on every tweet from the Atlanta handle. Then, we used Twitter’s new edit function to tease out a takeover that had communities on Reddit and Discord following along.

Web3 fosters a spirit of participation.

Many factors have pushed community managers to expand their roles, and as long as new platforms keep emerging, they’ll continue to adapt and evolve. With its values of collaboration, decentralization and power-to-the-user, Web3 is already changing the way we engage with communities, switching the focus from “talking to” to “participating with.” In that landscape, community managers will need to be quick on their feet and feel prepared to appropriately engage with consumers—whether that means communicating through a virtual avatar or even hosting an auction of NFT artwork. 

What’s more, commerce is going live—prompting brands to blend communities and real-time connection to offer entertaining interactive experiences. While influencers or digital creators are typically the stars of these events, community managers play a fundamental role in moderating and executing these activities. 

Community managers are becoming more involved in creative processes.

As virtual worlds evolve and virtualization emphasizes the spirit of collaboration, brands have an opportunity to give more thought to the role that community managers play within their team. Instead of simply asking ourselves what new platforms to join, we need to follow it up with, “What should be the purpose of the CM in each one?”

Not all brands need to have the same approach, but one thing is certain: when community managers are invited to creative rounds, campaign briefs and content calendar meetings, they are better equipped to create the kind of brand experience that social media managers and creatives are working so hard on. What’s more, they can provide unique insights they’ve gathered from interacting directly with consumers.

In a world where brands need to be active listeners and co-create culture alongside their audience, community managers are key liaisons between the two. As their role evolves, we need to get rid of the simplistic view of posting, responding and reacting—understanding that they have the power to create brand love and a direct impact on the brand experience. Let’s move away from the concept of community managers as an exclusively intern-level position and recognize the importance of elevating the role of those communicating directly with consumers.

From expecting a higher degree of honesty and authenticity to how more people are choosing to live alone, this report covers the main mindset shifts we’ve observed in APAC and offers practical advice for brands looking to build or maintain their cultural relevance. With insights from our regional team of experts, you’ll learn how to embrace these changes and celebrate with customers in ways that are actually meaningful to them. 

Access your copy by filling out the form below.

One of the most important lessons for any brand looking to engage with consumers in the APAC market is that the region is not a monolith. It’s a collection of cultures, histories, languages and, most importantly, moments of celebration. Lunar New Year, which is one of the biggest celebrations in the calendar, has just passed—but the opportunity for marketers to truly understand what consumers want from them during these festivities is still there.

The APAC calendar is incredibly rich and diverse in regard to festive moments. There may be a few specific dates that take the vast majority of our focus. Still, with brands having to build more and more local relevance, there’s value in considering a wider pool of these crucial moments to connect with customers. 

In Singapore, you may start with Lunar New Year, which is followed by Easter, Ramadan, Vesak Day, Diwali and even National Day, to name a few. In Thailand, the first thought might be Songkran, but what about Māgha Pūjā and Loy Krathong? Over in India, brands often congregate around a wide selection of days, including Holi, Diwali, Gandhi Jayanti, Independence Day or Republic Day, cementing a new normal for hyper-local strategies. 

As you try to win the hearts of consumers in APAC around these dates, it’s important to understand how each market connects with brands and what they expect from them today. For example, we’ve found that many consumers are moving from wanting instant gratification to taking their time and pausing for consideration. We’ve also surfaced a mindset shift in people using digital media for honesty and transparency, rather than validating through positivity. 

To understand more about these mindset shifts, we’ve created a report with practical advice for marketers that will help them navigate both the diversity of APAC’s festive calendar and the common mindset shifts that are uniting a need for a new approach.

Shanghai.Monks have developed an easy-to-use guide to identify key insights that can serve as a bedrock for more thoughtful, intentional CNY briefs. Inside, you’ll find the most salient consumer mindset shifts that will shape CNY sentiments in 2023.

In this guide you will learn:

• How to create an inspiring Chinese New Year brief
• How to translate holiday traditions into new contexts
• Why leading with empathy is key

• Customers are beginning to associate your competitors with your distinctive brand position.
• Customer sentiment has shifted and customers are now finding other qualities or features more important. This would signal a drop in your brand’s relevancy

• Low results for brand awareness, familiarity, and consideration could be an opportunity to invest more in top-of-funnel channels to boost awareness
• High levels of brand awareness but low levels of purchase intent and preference may have you shifting resources to focus more on conversion and lower-funnel marketing

• Country-level or market-level results from your brand tracker will provide an opportunity to assess where and how you’re marketing

• Invest in reports about consumer behavior and trends specific to your industry and market
• Conduct focus groups or interviews to better understand brand perception and decision-making factors
• Field a survey to get clarity on your target audience