Local area marketing (LAM) is used by retailers and local businesses to reach new and existing customers within a specific catchment area, often by postcode or even by suburb or region.
It is most often offer-driven and its success relies on the appeal of the offer and a good understanding of the customers being reached ie. What will appeal to them and get them to spend?
Typically LAM uses channels such as strategically placed Out of Home/Outdoor signage, digital advertising capped to local reach, blanket postcode direct mail, and - decreasingly - local (suburban) newspapers. It is now possible to reduce the cost and increase the success of LAM campaigns by precisely defining local area catchments by ‘customer type’. Within most suburbs, there are often considerable demographic variations and variables such as household income and family type and size. As major metropolitan cities grow, this is becoming more important - postcodes are anything but homogeneous clusters.
The traditional methods behind LAM strategy are being replaced with hyper-local targeting tools that allow an advertiser to direct their communication only to the most likely prospects within a particular suburb or postcode. Offers and marketing messages can be targeted, for example, to families with school-age children, or to young couples without children.
Refining the LAM prospect list can be done using a variety of exciting data tools, for example Roy Morgan Helix Personas, which combines location, demographics, lifestyle, attitudes and behaviors to profile a most likely consumer type. Another research tool, DataBoss, uses Local Zone Mapping to profile each suburb in detail and provide precise insights about the demographics of each household and generate address lists of the most appropriate prospects. These address lists can be used in direct mail and also in other LAM such as Out of Home and digital placements. Experian Mosaic is another way of delving deeper at a household by household level, uncovering detailed insights including demographics, consumer behaviour and also predicting future consumer needs!
Whilst each of these research products do require investment, understanding your target market at a hyper-local level can deliver significant savings to your LAM budget.
If you’d like to discuss your LAM strategy let us know, we are happy to audit the strategy and provide initial advice free of charge.
Written by: Natalie Potter (brand strategist / director)
Email Natalie at