As someone who has made the jump from managing big corporate marketing budgets to eeking out every cent for a plucky start up. I have learned the hard way where you can really get bang for your marketing buck.

Return on investment varies wildly in Ireland depending on both your medium and your message.

Corporate marketing budgets are often sprayed across multiple channels by agencies looking to tick the boxes with clients rather than deliver real payback.

The result is inflated media prices for the latest hot media trend or the medium the CEO is most likely to see (Yes, I’m looking at you corporate sports sponsorship).

That’s why it usually makes sense to zig whilst the others zag to find real value and that’s where local media’s digital channels are a great option.

In recent years both local newspapers and radio stations have leveraged their brands to build out their online offerings.

These local offerings have high volumes of both traffic and a loyal following.

In media circles there has been quite a buzz over the last few years about the prospect of ‘hyper local’ marketing. Using local targeting and data driven messages to open up new advertising revenues for beleaguered media outlets worldwide, making local media more sustainable.

The difficulty has been in creating media outlets that serve small enough communities to match advertisers needs. Companies like Patch in the US and others across the world, have tried and failed to successfully implement the model.

The highly fragmented nature of Ireland’s regional media landscape, with local audiences often already below the 50,000 mark, means that ‘hyper local’ is viable here through regional websites and social media, right out of the box.

Online content, properly tailored to local needs, offers a win win for local media outlets and advertisers.

Using localised data, advertisers can create stories that have genuine interest to the local audience, provide easy copy for stretched local newsrooms and create value all at the same time.

At moneysherpa.ie, we’ve recently ran several of these ‘hyper local’ campaigns that not only worked well for us, but also helped regional media deliver more value to their audience.

For example, using our data we were able to demonstrate how much people specifically in Cavan could save using moneysherpa to switch their mortgage or how much cheaper buying a home was rather than renting in Leitrim, stories which we then shared with local media.

More and more savvy local media teams are now cottoning on to getting advertisers to produce local content for them for free, instead of rolling out their standard advertising rate card.

It’s these innovative outlets, open to work more collaboratively with advertisers, who in my view will not only survive, but thrive in the years to come.

Written by: Mark Coan (CBD, LIB), moneysherpa.ie.

 

Mark Coan (CBD, LIB), Brendan Nordon (FSIA – Contributor) and Martina Baldwin (Lender Sherpa) from moneysherpa.ie