In one of my previous posts, I talked about how geotargeting – targeting specific geographic areas – can be a great marketing technique for small business owners. I’ve also talked about the importance of email marketing and building an email list from scratch, which isn’t nearly as intimidating as many people think. Many of you have been wondering if there’s a way to put these two marketing techniques together—can you target a specific location using email marketing?

This is a great question, and the answer is yes. You can – and in some cases should – use geotargeting for your email marketing campaigns. There are many email marketing situations where it’s helpful to target specific locations:

• If your small business is only set up to serve local customers—for example, a dry cleaner or pet grooming business;
• If you sell products that are only useful in certain climates, like winter gear;
• If your product is only available in certain areas, or has varying release dates—for example, a clothing line that will be released locally several weeks before it’s available nationwide;
• If you sell internationally and want to personalize emails with the appropriate language or pricing structure depending on the country.

These are just a few reasons you might want to target a specific geographic location with your email marketing—you can probably think of a number of other ways email geotargeting can work for you.

How to target a specific geographic location with email marketing

To be geographically specific in your email marketing, you will need to collect your visitors’ location when you collect their email address. There are a couple ways you can do this:

• Include a field in your email sign-up form for location. Because having a large number of fields to fill out makes people less likely to sign up, it’s best to keep this short and simple. Asking for a zip code is one of the easiest ways to collect geographic location.
• Target email subscribers based on their IP address. IP addresses can be traced back to a geographic location with a large amount of accuracy, providing you with the country, state, and even city of your subscriber. Email marketers like AWeber, the company I use, make it very easy to segment your email list by location using IP addresses.

But how do you build an email list from scratch? Although you can buy or rent email lists, there are several disadvantages to that method: it can be expensive, you can’t be sure the addresses were obtained legitimately, and you have no assurance that you’re reaching your target audience. Instead, use these simple tips to create a more useful opt-in list, composed of people who have asked to be included:

• Take every opportunity to ask. Promote your email list in correspondence with your current customers, on your printed promotional materials (business cards, brochures, etc.), and in person at networking events. Whenever you exchange business cards with someone, ask if you can put them on your email list. Place a “Join Our Email List” link in your email signature, with a brief description of the benefits of doing so.
  

• Make it easy. Provide a simple, interactive form on your website. Place it in a prominent area on the front page, above the fold, and include a form on every page of your site so visitors will be reminded to sign up as they browse. If you have a physical location, offer a way to sign up at the cash register or front desk.

• Offer incentives. People rarely give away their email address for no clear reason, but provide it willingly as a way to enter a contest, receive discounts, and take advantage of Internet-only specials. Giving away a free e-book, white paper, or other useful information in exchange for an email address is another popular method. This is a great opportunity to share some of your personal expertise with your customers by creating your own guide or brief e-book.

• Respect your clients’ privacy. People are wary of spam email, so make it clear that you will not sell or rent your email list to third parties, and you will only send emails that your clients have opted-in to receive. Although it can be tempting to use your sign-up form as an opportunity for market research, don’t ask for personal information like age or phone number. People are much more likely to sign up if they only need to enter their email address.

• Use a professional. Email marketing services can be surprisingly affordable, and their tools and expertise can be well worth the price. Keep in mind that many professional email marketing services require that address lists you provide be confirmed by the email users before you can begin emailing them. The best way to be sure the email user will confirm is if they provided you with their email address themselves, which is another reason to use the above tips to create your own list instead of buying one. This is the case with AWeber, the email marketer I use and one I highly recommend (they have a great autoresponder feature that I love).

• Make it worth it. Use your email list as an opportunity to provide your clients with high-quality information, great deals, and real expertise. Your subscribers will look forward to your communications and forward them on to their friends, keeping your email list – and customer list – growing.

Related articles by outside sources

• “Email Ethics” Or Why My Autoresponders Will Be Changed To Noreply (howtospoter.com)
• Subscription forms: list growth and sign-up language (email-marketing-reports.com)
• Call That Spam (weatherby.net)