Retailers: Identify Your Primary Trade Area And Create Top-Of-Mind Awareness

It’s all about top-of-mind awareness so that people think of you when they’re ready to buy. And the first step is clearly defining your trade area because if you’re a brick and mortar retailer, you’re dependent on the households within a reasonable drive-time of your store. Once you know where your customers are located you can begin the process of making certain they know who you are and what you have to offer.
Today’s mapping software makes it easy to see your trade area, but just seeing a pretty map isn’t enough. You need to apply some logic based on where current customers live, where your competition is located and the travel behaviors of shoppers in the marketplace.
If you don’t have a customer database then you’ll need to test to figure out your optimum trade area: But once you have a clear target, you’ll stop wasting advertising dollars on long-shots. What’s more important, effective trade area targeting means you’ll spend dollars wisely and begin to establish top-of-mind awareness that will give you an edge over the competition.
This strategy is appropriate for:
Brick-and-Mortar Business to Consumer Retailers
· Restaurants
· Dry Cleaners
· Hardware and Home Improvement Retailers
· Rental Services
· Soft Goods
· Food, Drug and Liquor
· Discount Stores
· Specialty Retailers
Objective: Establish top-of-mind awareness in a store’s primary trade area.
Method: Geocode the customer database and map (scatter plot and measure) to define the optimum trade area or execute test mailings and use the results for a second test mailing
Define trade area by:
· Concentrations of customers per carrier route
o Rank carrier routes
o By recency, frequency and monetary value (if available)
o By type of promotion / offer (if available)
· Calculate the average drive-time of a customer
· Plot competitors and identify shared trade areas
· Establish shopping travel-pattern behavior
· Identify prospects and develop a direct mail or general advertising contact strategy targeted geographically to the highest ranking carrier routes