How to target customers with location-based marketing

A comprehensive marketing plan is a key component to building and sustaining a profitable business. No matter what industry your business is in, whether it delivers a product, a service, or both, your marketing plan must competitively attract customers. 

One strategy to reach new customers is to develop a mobile and location-based marketing plan for your business. In fact, according to ReviewTrackers, about 57% of local search queries come from mobile devices. It’s key for your company to take advantage of this.

In this tutorial, we’ll go through how to create an effective location-based marketing plan for your business. Discover the components you need to get started—step by step.

What is location-based marketing?

As the name implies, location-based marketing uses geographical data so that marketers can target customers based on their physical location, according to Marketing Evolution.

To understand the flexibility of location-based marketing, first learn what components go into targeting local customers based on passive (organic search-engine results) and active forms of marketing (reaching out to existing customers and potential customers within your town, city, or similar geographic location). 

Step 1: Planning and establishing a baseline 

Now that you have a better understanding of what location-based marketing is, there are some considerations and research you’ll need to perform.

The following questions should be asked for each component of a location-based marketing campaign. It’s a good starting point.     

Mobile-optimized website

Does your organization have a mobile-compatible website? 

Determining this is the first step to building a successful location-based marketing campaign because if they can’t read it in a mobile-friendly format (smartphone, tablet, etc.), they’ll move on to another business that has already created a mobile-friendly website.

Keyword selection strategies

What keyword research tools are you already using, or not using? 

Take a survey of your existing marketing research capabilities, including free and premium tools. Also look at teh keyword optimization of your existing content. Are the keywords currently geared more towards your product, service, or location?

This will make a big difference in your location-based marketing campaign and whether it will garner more organic growth in search-engine results.

Creating content 

What type of content exists on your website and social media?

Does your content speak only to your product and potential customers? Does it include information about your local community, city, or town? 

Asking these questions helps determine what keywords, if any, are related to your business’s location. Figuring out the amount of interest in your location will help you determine how much you might need to emphasize your business’s location versus its product or service content.

Technology to sense and reach customers

How important is a location-based marketing campaign to your business?

Do you have a storefront in a busy shopping spot? If you have a physical location and you have little foot-traffic despite traditional methods of advertising (print ads, radio and television), then a location-based marketing campaign may be necessary. Similarly, a business in a heavily trafficked city or shopping center with a lot of competition may benefit from it.

Location marketing can be customized geographically with geofencing. When a business’ mobile app uses this technology, through a company such as Mapsted, business owners can target passer-by customers. It can sense when a customer enters the area where the business is located.     

Now that you know what the main components of a location-based marketing campaign are, implementing them is the next step. 

Step 2: Implementing the campaign

Mobile-optimized website

Depending on the size of your business and how much time, money and effort you’d like to invest in your mobile site, there are a few ways in which you can have a mobile website live with respective benefits and drawbacks.

• Responsive web design. When building a website, most platforms provide flexible grids, layouts, and CSS media queries so that the site can be automatically adjusted based on the device type and the size of the screen. This responsive approach applies to any kind of website, whether or not they use a CMS.
• CMS-driven mobile site. If your website is built on a content management system like WordPress or Shopify, you can create a mobile-friendly version with responsive themes or plugins. Many modern CMS platforms offer mobile-optimized sites by default, but sometimes you’ll need extra tools.
• Adaptive web design. Unlike responsive design, adaptive web design results in different layouts for a variety of devices by detecting screen sizes and serving pre-built versions. 
• Reverse proxy solution. If you’re looking for a little more control, reverse proxy mobile websites provide more, but not complete control. Automatically “translating” the desktop version into a mobile-friendly format, this option still requires hosting on a third party server.
• Cloud platform mobile site. Hosted on your own domain, a cloud platform mobile site permits developers to customize it with CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5, along with automatic detection of different devices and their data display capabilities.
• Progressive web apps. PWAs offer app-like functionality without the need for users to download an app. They are built with modern web technologies, such as service workers, so they can run even when the internet connection is weak.

Keyword selection strategies

The keyword selection process is not a complex one, but it also cannot be taken lightly. It goes without saying that you want to use keywords relevant to your geographic area.

These words will help Google steer your content towards your respective geo-fenced area. Crafting keywords and ensuring they are relevant takes more strategy.

You need to think how your customers think. Using dedicated keyword tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz can help you target more customers organically. They help you determine which of your keywords are popular, and which are good opportunities for your site.

Once you choose the keywords you want to target, add them to articles, blog posts, copy—any content that will be optimized for your mobile website presence. 

Technology to reach customers

Along with implementing a search engine strategy campaign—based upon a mix of location and industry/product keywords discussed above—location-based marketing is accomplished through mobile apps, some of which enable check-ins and check-outs.  

Mobile apps

A dedicated mobile app is a common alternative to a mobile-optimized website. It’s specifically developed for iOS or Android, or the other (less common) mobile operating systems out there. The biggest benefit is that it’s easier to add offline features.

If you choose to create a custom app for your individual business, there are different approaches for your business to engage customers through geolocation mobile marketing.

The business can build its own geolocation system from scratch by using APIs, such as:

• Google Maps API, for Android and iOS.
• Apple Core Location API, for iOS.
• Geo-fencing API, for Google and Apple.

A simpler alternative to implement a geolocation marketing strategy is using third-party services, including:

• Google Maps API
• Foursquare API
• PlotProjects
• Radar

If your business can’t afford to build a dedicated mobile app, you can also register on existing platforms that help you reach customers with geofencing technology. Some of these platforms include Google Maps, Foursquare, and Yelp. There are many more, and it all depends on the business type and industry.

Step 3: Overcoming location-based marketing challenges

Companies are in different stages of growth, and that includes adapting their marketing plan to the fluid nature of business.

There are two specific factors that owners and marketing professionals implementing location-based marketing plans face. 

Competition from other companies

This first challenge is what every company faces in every industry: competitors. Whether you sell coffee, skincare products, or printed art, competition is not going away. Your marketing plan must adopt something that differentiates your company from all the others. 

While there are only so many ways to market to a potential customer, there are virtually unlimited ways to sell a complete experience, not just a product. Here are some examples:

• Instead of just selling a cup or a pound of coffee for X price, include a small card on it describing its journey from plant to cup.
• If you sell skincare products, give free samples or add a QR that takes the customer to a video with tips and ways to use the product.

Algorithm changes

Google is always improving its algorithms to help consumers find high-quality websites, including those run by small business owners.

How can you reach a high page ranking on search engines? Make sure your site is informative and organized in order to please both your audience and search engines. Speak to your customers, add relevant links, and use keywords they would use to search for your product.

Structure each informative post with eye-catching headlines, meta descriptions, titles, and headers, all with appropriate HTML tags.

Step 4: Integrate geolocation marketing

Around the world, mobile devices are now a more popular way to access the internet than traditional computers.

You can take advantage of geolocation marketing to speak directly to customers in your store or reach them as they pass by your business on foot or while traveling down the road by car. Interacting with customers when it matters most is the strength of location-based marketing. Thanks to the popularity of mobile devices, targeting customers with geolocation marketing​ is crucial if you want to compete with businesses across your city.

Your location-based marketing can benefit passively from your SEO practices. Implement location and demographic-focused keywords for neighborhood-specific pages, such as your city and neighborhood names.

When combined with a mobile-optimized website, app, and geolocation ads, you increase the chances that residents and visitors find your business when they’re looking for products and services like yours.

Step 5: Benefit from location-based marketing

Your business, as in every industry, competes to get ahead of the curve on the latest marketing trends. Putting a location-based marketing plan in place is still relevant in 2025. It will help your business take advantage of the ever-growing technology segment and its benefits. 

Your potential customers are probably looking for your business. They just need to find it, and geolocation ads can help them get to you.

Making location-based marketing work

Don’t forget that any location-based marketing strategy works better in tandem with eye-catching and high-quality graphics. You can download everything you need to enhance your website with an Envato subscription. Find all kinds of creative assets, from web and video templates to icons, fonts, and so much more.

It’s key to understand your business’s needs. See what components you need to create, evaluate, refine, and track. This way, your location-based marketing campaign can be an effective arrow in your marketing quiver.