Store Locator: A Platform to increase your brand visibility
Why is a store locator must for your business?
A few years back, Google came up with the concept of micro-moments. They defined them as the moments where we intuitively turn to our smart-devices to obtain some kind of relevant information that drives our decision for some kind of action. They called these moments the ones that mattered the most for businesses in this information-driven world.
You can think of these micro-moments as critical touch points in the decision-making journey of a consumer. Since consumers can take action to satisfy their needs or curiosities at any given time from any place in the world, it becomes highly imperative for any business to be there in that micro-moment, because this is what will essentially determine if that consumer’s journey ends on your landing page with your product or service.
You might be thinking that this is all well and good but how is this value adding for my business? How can I ensure that my business is there for the consumer in this critical micro-moment?
Well, keep reading to find out.
It all starts with a simple Google search. The consumer asks some query and he expects to find an answer. This means that the first essential step for your business is providing visibility to your customer. So, if you are a bank and the customer is looking for some banking information, you would want him to see the branch or ATM which is nearest to him. If you are a restaurant in customer’s vicinity and he is looking for food, you would want him to find the directions to your restaurant. The point of significance here is that your business needs to be “Top of the Mind” as they say and one of the best ways to achieve this is with the help of a store locator.
A store locator is nothing but a simple functionality which helps your customers in finding the physical locations of your business with ease and convenience. On a macro level, the store locators help in increasing the visibility of your business, improve your search rankings and help in providing local information which is relevant to the consumer in that micro-moment. But on a more micro level, this directly results in increased website traffic and new leads, increased store footfall and increased saving of resources. Both macro and micro benefits eventually help in business optimization.
Consider another use related case where your business is spread across multiple locations. In this case, a store locator can help you optimize operations for your local business branches by providing local search results for a consumer’s query. This kind of location intelligence adds more value to the customer by providing them relevant and useful information that they need while at the same time they help multi-location businesses in customer acquisition/retention as well as business expansion.
In a world where information access has become so easy, it has become challenging for businesses to maintain their superiority because of the ever-increasing competition. The use of the Internet and Google has leveled the playing field and allowed various other competitors to target that same micro-moment of the consumer. This is where location intelligence can prove to be a unique differentiator which can provide your business with the much-needed competitive edge catapulting it to the skies and beyond. Smart Location Intelligence-based solutions can provide important demographic and region based geographical information. Analysis of this kind of data can help the business in figuring out consumer demand, demographic profiling, etc. which eventually helps in making key decisions regarding business expansion. For example, a bank can analyze the demographic information about a particular region before deciding to open a new branch.
How Can Lepton help your organization?
With 20 years of leadership in Location Intelligence and Analytics solutions, Lepton software has been helping businesses grow in various industries with informed planning, business expansion, performance, and operation optimization decisions. We are a premium Google Maps partner in India and Lepton has provided solutions to 8 different industries including BFSI, FMCG, and Retail to name a few.
SmartLocator is an out of box innovative solution provided by Lepton software [M1] that is built on Google Maps APIs which allows a business to optimize its physical store and branch location experience for its customers. With SmartLocator, a business can ensure that It provides locally relevant and useful information to a potential customer. More importantly, it also provides driving directions and clear and convenient routes which can help customers to make a quick decision.
In this information age, one cannot stress enough the importance of being there for your customers at the right moment. Studies have shown that 90% of the smartphone users are not absolutely certain of the brand they wish to try when they start searching. So, if you are there for your current customers, this will only help deepen their loyalty and if you are there for people who are not your customers, it’s a good chance that they might just become your customers. It’s a win-win situation.