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The Importance of “Localizing” Your Brand’s Identity

Growing your brand’s identity may have you focusing on going big. Focusing on global marketing is something many brands think will give them the boost in sales and their online presence. While global marketing is key to growing your brand, you have to think small as you go big. Putting your marketing efforts into localizing your brand and business storytelling will allow you to successfully build a stronger connection with that local market and will allow them to relate and easily see themselves more clearly making use of your products or services.

Localizing your branding efforts doesn’t just have a positive effect on your business directly but, also has a positive impact on your local community. This, in turn, will benefit not just your local business but other local businesses as well in the long term.

Why You Should Localize Your Brand

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1. Local support

Local support doesn’t just stop when you buy from a local business. Most local business will reinvest their profits back into other local businesses. Local restaurants buy from local farmers, produce markets, and hire local professional for marketing. You help support the community by keeping money circulating in the community, creating jobs and boosting the local economy.

Customers and clients are more likely to invest in a local business, as well as, become more engaged with local business on social media platforms. Targeted content for local communities tends to have a higher performance with more shares, engagement and a great return on investment over generalized global marketing content.

2. Building a deeper connection with your local market/community

When your business takes the effort to understand the local market you show that you are more invested in the people and the local economy over just making a profit. By localizing your branding, you better relate directly to your local market which helps build trust. Along with building trust, you better understand what exactly that local market is looking for and expecting from the businesses they choose to invest in. The more your market trusts and believes in what your brand stands for the more likely they will become loyal customers.

3. Reaching out to local talent

Creating the right content that attracts and relates to the local community you want to get your brand to stand out in, will need the insight and perspective of the locals. By reaching out to local professionals, such as photographers, designers, and writers, you will be able to successfully create content that caters to the local community.

Hiring local talent can save you and your brand embarrassment and the potential to offend the locals you are trying to attract to your company. A local photographer will have the knowledge of the local community and what the locals take pride in as far as what makes their community so unique. They will also have a better understanding of the imagery, cultural appeal, trends, and more that will capture the attention of the locals without wasting time or money.

4. Improve customer service

Localizing your brand can greatly improve your customer service ratings. It is not uncommon for most larger, chain or franchise businesses to outsource most if not all of their customer service calls. This often leaves the customer feeling as though they are not appreciated or understood. With truly local businesses the owners are rarely far away. This gives clients and customers the reassurance that their concerns are addressed immediately and not halfway handled by someone who has to follow company guidelines and is not willing to understand that not all circumstances can fit easily into one complaint category. You give your customers a more personal approach to handle their concerns because you can relate to them more easily.

5. Local vs. Franchised business

Local businesses are more invested in providing the best quality of their products or services as well as customer services to their clients. Take for instance a local restaurant, like Impact Kitchen Toronto. They provide healthy meal choices to their local community. They buy fresh and local produce which allows them to change their menu seasonally to support the local community throughout the year. Compare their business model to that of Freshii, a franchise that serves a similar menu to Impact Kitchen. Freshii, since they are not as invested in the growth of the local community just of their business, can outsource a majority of their jobs from the management they bring onto the designers they use for their menus and social content to where they buy their supplies from. This franchise business may be run by a local resident but it most likely is not keeping a significant amount of the profits in the community, but instead is spending their profits elsewhere.

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Localizing your marketing efforts allows you to let your target market really get to know your brand and not just what you supply. You put a face to the logo, products, and services they use which humanizes your business. Unlike, larger chains, your brand is something that has emotions, personality, and morals that are specific to that location. Utilizes local talent, like photographers, allows you to create content that caters to the local community as well as generate more exposure for your business in that community which results in more growth and success.

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