THE 20 PRINCIPLES OF LOCAL BRANDING  

1. Location, Location, Location isn’t branding 

You’re location is your biggest asset.  You’re location contributes to your success.  Success determines the strength of your brand – not the other way around. 

2. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday 

It’s about attracting the consumer on the local level. And, by definition, attracting the consumer is about maximizing the sales every day of the week – especially Saturday.  Because there’s not a consumer business out there that says, “Alright, Wednesday is going to be it for us!” 

3. Leverage the media, and how? 

Media is more easily leveraged through relationships.  Yeah, right!  Media is leveraged through money.  Lots of money.  The advertiser who least needs the lowest price gets the lowest price because they have the most money.  And while this is true in every market in America, there are ways around the 6000 pound gorilla which chooses to sit where ever it pleases. 

4. Let them eat cake, and hot dogs, and popcorn and… 

Marie Antoinette was misunderstood.  People took her as aloof and both unfeeling and uncaring about the needs of the proletariat.  She was the bourgeoisie, after all.  Wrong.  Marie was a marketer.  She knew the way to people’s wills was many times through their stomachs.   

5. Can you spell P.R.? 

Hire a big P.R. firm and what do you get?  Big stories? Yes.  Big ideas? Yes.  Big exposure?  Yes again.  Big bills?  What do you think?  Al Ries noted as one of his irrefutable laws of branding that brands are built on P.R.  This is partially true on the local level.  And fortunately, P.R. on the local level does not require big stories, big exposure, big ideas or even big bills.  It does however require a plan.  Critical to the plan, as in media leverage, is relationship building. 

6. What did I win? 

Local Branding works first through traffic.  Traffic shows up for a show.  It shows up for food.  It shows up to see something unique.  And it really shows up when there’s a chance to win something, especially something big.  They don’t need to win it.  They just need to have a chance. 

7. Personality counts! 

Michael Jordan came back to basketball the first time and the sheer magnitude of that announcement of his intention to play basketball after his 2 year baseball hiatus sent the aggregate market value of the companies he endorsed soaring by more than $3 billion – overnight.   Overnight… Before he ever even dribbled a basketball.   Testimonials make a message remembered 86% more often.  Think about that.  It has the effect of nearly doubling the media dollars.  And it works locally. 

8. Sing, Sing, Sing 

If you can sing it, they can remember it.  However – be cautioned – it needs to have the money to make it heard or the cleverness to make it remembered. 

9. Be consistent over and over again 

Find something you can make resonate.  Then figure out low-cost ways to make it resonate.  This is what you stand for. 

10. Who’s your friend? 

Build the customer referral base.  Mine the customers and friends who know you and use you.  Motivate them to help and constantly remind them of how nice you are. 

11. You talking’ to me? 

When DeNiro looked in the mirror in the movie Taxi Driver and uttered that famous question, he was talking to every single advertiser on the earth.  Direct works.  Find unique ways to speak directly to the target without having to spend through the mass media. 

12. To Parity or Not to Parity, that is the Question 

Are you in a parity business?  Parity may not be the same products but it may simply be the same marketing process.  Take for example, homebuilders.  They all use the local newspaper, the large outdoor signage and the roadside “bandit” signs to drive traffic from the easy chair to the highway to the subdivision.  But, critical mass works against the smaller advertiser.  If you’re the big builder, you win.  You have more bigger ads more of the time.  To stand out, you must recognize whether you’re advertising is differentiating your business.  If not, start. 

13. Make your own Parade 

If you’re getting lost in the parade, create a new parade of one and get out in front.  Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth and the underdog.  Become the leader of the underdog parade and tell the truth.  Watch how it resonates!!! 

14. Using OPM 

You can’t do this without doing many of the prior 13 points.  If you start doing those things, you must then inventory your assets – seen and unseen.  What can you do to create an opportunity that another business would want to be a part of?  What can you do to create an opportunity that another business can make money from that you can utilize their advertising dollars or their customer base or their inventory of seen and unseen assets? 

15. Spiral Marketing 

Spiral Marketing is one of the growing forces in a PMA strategy.  It recognizes that a business’s customers are almost always located in a radial spread from the center point which represents the location of the business.  Spiral Marketing techniques utilize grassroots measures to make the business known – ultimately through word of mouth – by gradually expanding the impact of the business over a pre-determined amount of time in concentric circles leading gradually further away from the business center point. 

16. Profit Locally.  Very Locally. 

Local Branding is about stimulating word of mouth.  This does not preclude the use of mass media.  On the contrary, the mass media is unavoidable.  However, many companies overlook the importance of energizing the best word-of-mouth advertising they have – their own employees!  Primary in the utilization of this oft-overlooked asset is culture. 

17. Focus on the facts 

Traditional focus group testing has its advantages.  However, as Mark Twain said, “There’s lies, damn lies and then there’s statistics.”  Focus Group testing gives the less artsy, less feeling, less intuitive more confidence in the decisions of the more artsy, more feeling, more intuitive.  There’s really nothing wrong with that process except that many focus group projects are fatally flawed by predispositions of those conducting the test are by those that are the subjects of the test.  Our licensed, proprietary testing sets the sound foundation that helps bridge the communication gap between the – oh, let’s be honest – the anal retentives and the artsy fartsies. 

18.  Merchandise Mart 

Most companies don’t think about the value of a single bumper sticker.  On a cost per thousand basis, it can be one of the most cost effective forms of advertising.  Advertising many times is won in the battle of awareness.  Too many times, local advertisers rush to show every single pot and pan and every corresponding price point in every single ad.  The result is a massive slaughter of the message.  In Local Branding, no sales equals no brand and the more sales that are made, the stronger the brand becomes.  Traditional branding theory has it backwards.  Traditional marketing states you build the brand and the sales follow.  Local Branding says you, the business owner, must find non—traditional ways of creating awareness because you generally cannot compete with the big advertisers in your local category and the large national advertisers in the same product category.  Merchandise such as t-shirts and bumper stickers are great, but here again, you must find non-traditional ways to have the merchandise attract attention, preferably by stimulating word of mouth. 

19. Launch Your Own Endorsement Brand 

Huh?  This is a basic Al Quaeda move.  It’s a down and dirty way of making an end run.  You know how important it is to have endorsements for your product or service.  It’s the same as positive referrals on the word of mouth level, except it’s leveraging the celebrity of the endorser.  The problem with this philosophy is that most endorsement celebrities, from the local radio jock to Michael Jordan are either too expensive or they’re endorsing so many products that it negates the power of their endorsement of your company or product.  So, why not do it yourself.  That’s right.  Endorse yourself.  Most radio D.J.’s use aliases.  Follow suit and create your own alias.  Use media leverage to gain an hour show on the least expensive radio station.  Then place one of your own employees or your wife or that cousin with the gift of gab as the show host and become the sponsor of the show.  Once you have become the sponsor of your own show, the celebrity endorsement is relatively certain, don’t you think?  There’s more! 

20. Become the authority. Own the Media! 

Can you write?  Can you talk?  Can you read?  Start doing all three or find someone in the company or family that can.  There is an audience for every presentation and if you can begin to see where your industry is headed, there’s an even larger audience.