A Comprehensive Roadmap To Mastering Local Branding

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Brands are often synonymous with global names like Apple, Google, or Starbucks. 

But that small coffee shop on your street, that burger food truck that you line up for, and yes, even that handmade soap maker that sells on your farmer’s market can all be a brand themselves—specifically, a local brand.  

How can these small businesses transform from a simple shop to a well-known brand? The answer is through local branding. 

In this article, we’ll explore local branding, how to create an effective local branding strategy, and the creative assets you need–all made easy with our logo maker tool and customizable marketing templates. 

What is the difference between branding vs. marketing?

Before we discuss local branding, let’s first answer this common question: What is the difference between branding and marketing?

  • Branding is all about creating a unique identity for your business. Branding aims to tell your customers who you are, what you stand for, what makes you different from your competitors, and what personality they can associate with you. This includes your logo, color palette, brand voice, and brand identity.
  • Marketing deals with strategies and tactics you use to promote your business. This includes advertising through TV or posters, social media marketing, going to trade events and fairs, and other promotional methods. 

What is local branding?

Local branding is the process of tailoring your brand identity and marketing strategies to resonate with a specific geographical location. It focuses on catering to the preferences, needs, and culture of a specific place. This contrasts with traditional branding, where companies aim to appeal to a global audience. 

Local branding is helpful for small businesses and local brands since they usually operate on a smaller scale. For instance, if a restaurant only has a branch in Los Angeles or a candle maker cannot ship internationally, then it doesn’t make sense for them to promote worldwide. 

What are examples of local branding?

A great example is the ice cream store Salt & Straw. It started as a small ice cream cart in Portland and expanded to multiple shops across the United States as its popularity rose.

They are famous for their unique and inventive flavors, particularly their location-exclusive ones, which highlight locally sourced ingredients. For instance, their Honey Lavender flavor is created by using Oregon-grown lavender and honey harvested in urban hives in Portland. 

Source: Salt & Straw

Salt & Straw also works with local farmers, artisans, and chefs for each of their branches. Proceeds of their sales go to non-profits per location, e.g., Portland Mercado and La Cocina in San Francisco. This helps them build a strong community and identity, with each branch having a strong connection with their customers. 

Another example is McDonalds. Each of their global locations has specific offerings that cater to the local taste. This is why they have McPaneer Royale for India, sakura mochi pie for Japan, or Laksa burger for Brunei.

Source: McDonald’s Brunei

This allows their business to thrive in the global marketplace and keeps them at pace with their local competitors. 

How To Craft a Strong Local Branding Strategy 

Now that you understand local branding, it’s time to explore how to implement a strategy.

1. Know your audience

Start by identifying the demographics, psychographics, preferences, and pain points of your local audience. Make sure to also consider culture, local traditions, religion, current trends, popular local activities, or seasonal events that may affect customer behavior. 

You can use surveys, social media polls, focus group discussions, online reviews, or data analytics tools to gather insights. 

2. Define your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

What makes your business different in the local market? What do you offer that other local businesses don’t? 

For example, clothing brand Harvest & Mill only uses 100% American-grown cotton. Byron Bay Cookies uses local ingredients found in the region to create flavors that appeal to their residents. 

Having a strong UVP will help you stand out from the competitors and help you establish your business faster. 

3. Establish a local brand identity

Connect your local culture to your brand identity. 

This can be through incorporating local symbols in your logo, using a color scheme that mimics your flag, adopting region-specific language in your brand voice, or adding other cultural references to your brand assets.  

One example is the now globally known brand Tim Hortons. They use a red and white color scheme as a reference to the Canadian flag. They also have a logo variation where they use a maple leaf as a main visual point, which is a popular icon people associate with Canada.

Another is Coors Brewing Company. Their logo features the Rocky Mountains, which is found in Colorado, where the company is located.  They also use a blue and white color palette in their bottle packaging to reflect the snowy mountains commonly found in the area.

Keep in mind that your branding doesn’t need to be as straightforward as the samples. When incorporating local elements, you can take a more conceptual or creative approach. 

For example, Brooklyn Brewery doesn’t feature any Brooklyn-specific landmarks or icons. Still, their logo feels distinctly urban because of the color palette and font style used. 

4. Be consistent across channels

Just like in general branding, consistency is important if you want to be recognizable and memorable to your audience’s eyes. 

Make sure that your visual branding is cohesive. Your logo, color palette, font, and other design elements should form only one aesthetic. You can create a brand bible to track your visual choices and ensure that they are all aligned. 

Then your marketing strategies, such as your social media, website, print materials, or packaging, should also continue your theme. 

Imagine having a chic black-and-white website, only for your logo to be a colorful kiddy mascot. It’s confusing, right? Your audience might even wonder if they are in the right place. 

Consistency will help people easily recognize you. Your audience should ideally need only one glance at your brand assets or marketing materials to instantly know that it’s from your brand. 

5. Connect with the local community

Using locally sourced ingredients, working with local farmers or merchants, hiring local employees, and partnering with other shops or organizations can help build your local business branding. 

Aside from giving back to your community, you also grow your business since a partner can amplify your reach and network. Local partnerships also tend to reduce production costs since there are fewer steps to go through, which is beneficial for small businesses with a smaller budget.

How To Utilize Marketing to Enhance Local Branding

As mentioned earlier, branding vs marketing is different. Since we have covered how to do local branding, we’ll now proceed to local marketing. 

You can do this by:

Optimizing for local SEO

Search engine optimization tailored to your location, aka local SEO, is important if you want to attract more local customers. 

This can be done via: 

  • Creating a Google My Business profile and updating it with complete information such as your location, opening hours, menu, and contact number. You can also use strategies like SEO for lawyers to reach more local clients.
  • Encouraging customers to leave comments and reviews on your Google My Business profile, as well as on third-party platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Zomato. 
  • Using location-specific keywords in your website and blog, as well as creating more local content. 

Using social media

Use social media to promote your business by creating locally relevant content. For instance, a restaurant can create videos that deep dive into various local ingredients or one where they cook popular local dishes. 

You can also post about local events, updates, or news relevant to your community.

Make sure to also use location-specific hashtags when posting to increase your local visibility. 

If you are running social media ads, you should run geotargeted ads instead of worldwide ones. This ensures that your ads will only show to people in your specific area, instead of wasting money showing ads to people across the globe. 

Considering a loyalty program

Loyalty cards are effective since they encourage people to make regular and repeat purchases. This can be done through a point system, a stamp card, or even a mission-driven program, e.g., getting a 10% discount after giving them back your used bottle packaging for recycling. 

Encouraging User-Generated Content (UGC)

By encouraging UGCs such as photos, videos, or reviews, you let your customers speak to the quality of your business. People can also see how your products or services look in real life, which can encourage them to check you out. 

People also tend to trust reviews and experiences of other people more than they trust marketing that comes directly from a brand. If they see that your business has a lot of 5-star reviews, they will feel more at ease with trying out your business.

Promoting via local events

You can participate in farmer’s markets, fairs, or local festivals. Some businesses also sponsor events or local sports teams to increase brand visibility. While some do workshops, open houses, or other branded events. 

You can also collaborate with schools, non-profits, or charities to promote your business while also supporting a cause you stand for. 

Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Local Branding

One of the common pitfalls is failing to adapt to local culture and preferences. 

A good example is Starbucks. The coffee giant, which managed to be a global phenomenon, has severely flopped in Australia. There are only around 60 remaining stores there, compared to over 16,000 stores in the US.

This is because of two things. Starbucks’s focus on convenience and to-go coffee is a complete mismatch to the coffee culture in Australia, which focuses on drinking coffee as a social activity. Australia also prefers richer and deeper brews, which Starbucks’s typical sweet drinks cannot meet.

Lack of understanding of the local culture and their audience’s behavior led to disastrous results. If Starbucks had at least provided a localized menu catered to Australian tastes, they might not have experienced this big revenue loss.

Another pitfall is inconsistency across platforms and experiences. Local brands thrive when they get their customer’s trust and loyalty, which can easily be lost if the customer experience varies between touchpoints. 

For example, if your branding promises a community-like environment but your in-store sales assistants are impersonal or rude, this can create a disconnect that can frustrate customers. 

Remember that a cohesive and positive presence across online and offline spaces is key to maintaining credibility and loyalty in your local branding.

Conclusion

Mastering local branding isn’t just about increasing sales or attracting more customers—it’s about creating meaningful connections and becoming a part of your local community. 

By understanding your audience, embracing local culture, and delivering unique and positive experiences, you, too, can build a local brand that stands out and competes with big companies and global conglomerates.

Frequently Asked Questions About Local Branding 

Q1: What is local branding, and why is it important?

Local branding is when you tailor your brand identity, messaging, and product offerings to appeal to a specific location or geographic area. 

Local branding is important for small businesses and local brands since it allows them to form strong connections with their audience and makes it easier to establish a firm position in their market since they have a unique yet relatable identity. 

Q2: How is local branding different from general branding?

Local branding focuses on catering to a specific audience’s tastes, preferences, and cultural values, unlike general branding, which aims to appeal to a global market. 

Q3: How can small businesses use BrandCrowd to enhance local branding?

Small businesses can use BrandCrowd’s logo maker tool and other marketing templates, such as Facebook covers, business cards, or posters, to create localized marketing assets that reflect their location’s cultural identity and personality. You can also use our business name generator tool to develop a suitable name that will appeal to your local audience. 

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