Crafting the right marketing strategy for your brand requires an innate knowledge of the customers you serve. But what if those customers stretch across multiple locations?

Multi-location marketing campaigns meet your customers exactly where they are, with unique customizations specific to their area. Knowing how to build a marketing strategy of this complexity, however, takes expertise and discernment.

Keep reading to learn how to build a multi-location billboard marketing strategy that connects your brand to consumers near and far.

What Is a Multi-Location Billboard Marketing Strategy?

A multi-location billboard marketing strategy promotes an advertising campaign via out-of-home (OOH) advertising across multiple locations. This can span anywhere from several cities to multiple states to a host of different countries worldwide.

The reason these campaigns are so valuable is that they allow advertisers to connect with diverse audiences, broadening their reach. When you tailor an ad to highlight cultural details and customer preferences for different areas, it makes potential customers feel seen. 

With a bit of tweaking, an ad for the same product or service can feel relevant to customers in fast-paced New York and slow, sleepy South Carolina, spicy Miami or laid-back Maine.

What Makes a Multi-Location Billboard Marketing Strategy Work?

The key to a great multi-location advertising strategy is to develop a campaign that combines strong, cohesive brand messaging with intentional localized execution. When you’re clear on what you offer and who you are as a brand and yet take the time to incorporate details that feel personal for a specific area, you find yourself with a campaign that hits in all the right places.

Remember: What works in one location doesn’t always work in another. Different people with different lifestyles want different things—but that doesn’t make what you’re advertising irrelevant. It just means you have to integrate meaningful moments into your marketing strategy.

How Do I Choose the Best Locations for My Multi-Location OOH Strategy?

As with any marketing strategy, the first thing you need to do is to identify your target audience through market research. Identify key demographic features such as age, gender, location, income level, education, and occupation. From there, you also want to explore psychological factors such as interests, values, lifestyles, and purchasing behaviors.

Once you have an understanding of your ideal customer avatar, it’s time to ask yourself: where does this type of person live or spend most of their time?

Additionally, there are a few more factors to dig into:

New vs. Existing Markets

You likely already have an idea of locations where your ads have done well in the past. However, one of the biggest parts of growth is expanding into new markets, so consider your ratio of new and existing markets when building your campaign.

Ideally, you’ll prioritize both to continue building customer trust in areas where you already do well in addition to building brand awareness in new markets.

Local Competitors

Before advertising in a given market, you need to fully understand the competitive landscape. Who is already succeeding in your industry? What are they doing to achieve this success? And most importantly, what gaps can you uncover in their strategy that provide your brand an opportunity to overcome? 

Before you’re able to craft a message that sticks in the local community, you need to know what you’re up against and how you can prove that you are the superior choice.

Adapting Your Creative for Different Markets

Finding the right balance between consistent branding and locationally-tailored creative can be tricky. Here are our top tips.

Create Flexible Frameworks

Design a streamlined approach for each ad so you know from the very beginning what should be swapped out locally and what should be kept as-is. For example, maybe all of your ads have the same headline, but the photos are swapped out to feature local landmarks. Knowing what should change and what should stay the same saves time and cuts down on decisions later.

Speak the Locals’ Language

One of the easiest things you can tweak to personalize each ad to an individual location is the copy. Think local slang or catchphrases—using “y’all” in ads located in the south, for example. These details don’t have to change the meaning of your ad, but can really enrich your place-based marketing.

Localize Visuals and Creative

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, so trust us—your visuals matter. People are naturally drawn toward the familiar, so when you incorporate creative details reminiscent of locals’ lives, you’ll gain instant brand trust.

Keep Branding Consistent

Despite changing details of your ads to more readily connect with different markets, make sure that your own branding stays consistent throughout the advertising process. If your brand isn’t easily recognizable, you lose the value of your ad altogether. 

Whether someone sees your advertisement in Chicago, New Orleans, or Portland, they should know that it’s yours. Keep specific details like colors and fonts as a steady point across your ads to make your brand recognizable to the local community and beyond.

Craft a Multi-Location Billboard Marketing Strategy That Converts With Alluvit Media

At Alluvit Media, we understand the competitive landscape for OOH advertisers across the country. We’ve helped develop strategies in every corner of the U.S., and our expert media coordinators are here to support your team in customizing campaigns for each individual market you plan to reach. We’re proud to have access to inventory nationwide, and can scale proposals to provide options in all of your target markets.

Ready to start building your next multi-location billboard marketing strategy? Reach out to our team today for your free proposal.

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