Balihoo Releases Top-10 Local Marketing Trends, Forecasts Successful Strategies in 2012

BOISE, Idaho -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Balihoo (www.balihoo.com), the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs, today announced the most significant local marketing trends and related key strategic initiatives for national brands in 2012. The insights are based on developments, research and observations working with national brands, such as Kohler, Pearle Vision, Geico and 1-800DOCTORS.com. Balihoo helps these companies raise visibility and increase sales through local outlets such as dealers, agents, distributors, retailers and franchisees.

"Local marketing is quickly emerging as one of the biggest opportunities in the shifting marketing landscape, delivering impressive results for national brands who rely on reaching consumers at the point of final preference and purchase," said Shane Vaughan, vice president of marketing for Balihoo. "As this shift happens, marketers need to be prepared to execute their local campaigns across a growing, integrated ecosystem of new media and social channels – the Local Web – in order to deliver greater customer relevance, response and return on their marketing investment."

According to the recently released 2011 CMO Council Report, "Localize to Optimize," 30 percent of marketers have embraced local marketing automation software platforms and 27 percent are currently evaluating them. Further, BIA/Kelsey estimates the overall local advertising market growing from $136.3 billion in 2010 to $153.5 billion in 2015, representing a 2.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and coinciding with a 14.4 percent CAGR for online/interactive ad revenue. Based on this data, Balihoo predicts Local Marketing Automation will become a mainstream marketing tool by the end of 2012.

Additional Balihoo predictions and recommendations for 2012 local marketing strategies include:

• Continued Dramatic Increase in Localization of Media Channels. With the decline in effectiveness of analog media, marketers have new and improved options for reaching consumers at the local level on digital media. However, national brands must identify resource-effective processes for researching, buying and tracking localized media, and local affiliates will need education and training on the new channels.
• National Brands Demand Integrated Marketing Analytics. While marketers largely believe that localized efforts are essential to business growth and profitability, only a small portion of them have a formal plan for monitoring their impact. Brands need to share their expectations with their vendors, partners and internal teams, and require integrated marketing metrics across all mediums, segments and geographies in order to enable enhanced decision making and budget justification.
• Content Marketing Moves Downstream to Local Businesses. As social media and content marketing adoption continues to show growth and effectiveness, local businesses will look to their national counterparts for a regular stream of fresh content customizable with geographic details.

For the complete list of Balihoo Local Marketing Predictions for 2012, please visit our series of blog posts, starting here: http://bit.ly/ypJQ3t.

About Balihoo

Balihoo is the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs. By automating local marketing, Balihoo gives national brands unprecedented control over local marketing execution and the ability to control the customer experience closer to the point of purchase. Additional information about Balihoo is available at www.balihoo.com.