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Why Is National Advertising Not Effective for Local Retailers?

National brands and local retailers can be a powerful duo for driving sales. The trouble is that many brands struggle with creating top-down connection and alignment. One of the main obstacles here is the ineffectiveness of national advertising for local retailers.

Major manufacturing brands spend millions of dollars each year creating digital content and placing ads to create awareness and drive sales. Unfortunately, most of these campaigns aren’t communicated well to retailers for local implementation, leaving them to fend for themselves to market a brand’s product.

Why National Advertising Efforts Are Not Effective for Local Retailers

Many brands rely on broken processes like digital asset management solutions (DAMs) and co-op advertising to implement campaigns on a local level with their retailers.

DAMs are notoriously cumbersome and difficult to use. Co-op advertising is time-consuming and focused on outdated advertising channels. On top of that, it’s rare that retailers will receive any support or instruction on how to handle these messy systems, leaving them to implement complex, targeted campaigns on their own.

The main issue with these programs, though, is that they are one-way communication channels that only serve to create a disconnect. Both of these approaches typically result only in disjointed marketing efforts that neither drive in-store foot traffic nor increase brand value.

As things stand, retailers are left with no pathway for them to get involved in brand marketing efforts in a timely and streamlined manner.

Related content: 5 Obstacles to Local Marketing Alignment Between Brands and Retailers >

The Reality of Not Innovating Your Local Marketing Strategy

What happens when a brand fails to innovate in order to effectively implement national campaigns on a local level? Here’s the reality:

  • Low retailer adoption and engagement rates in brand marketing initiatives
  • Doesn’t achieve goal of driving up local sales
  • Can result in wasted marketing and advertising dollars

Shaw Floors’ National-to-Local Success Story

Shaw Floors is a great example of a brand that continues to creatively support their local retailers with digital marketing. For their Holiday Savings Event campaign, Shaw Floors wanted to bolster consumer attention and drive sales through their local retail network. They did just that and more when they invited a targeted group of retailers to promote campaign content to their local audiences through Promoboxx.

national advertising through local retailers

Example Local Ad on Facebook

Implementing the Promoboxx Local Ads offering, Shaw Floors and their retailers ran targeted Facebook and mobile display advertising campaigns to reach local consumers.

Together, Shaw Floors and their local retailers created where-to-buy mindshare, amplified brand awareness, and drove foot traffic in-store.

Campaign Results:

  • 100% retailer engagement (targeted group)
  • 9.6 million ad impressions on mobile devices
  • 8x higher CTR than campaigns without Local Ads funding

“By connecting our local retailers to untapped audiences on the mobile and digital channels where they naturally spend time, we can further promote our local retailers alongside the Shaw Floors brand.” — Todd Callaway, Director of Digital Content, Shaw Floors

“Being able to target on a local level allows us to reach the type of person we want. Local Ads drove more traffic to our website and our showrooms.” — McSwain Carpets & Floors

Related content: Why Is Digital Co-Op Advertising So Hard? >

Empower Retailers with Local Ad Campaign Support

Using Promoboxx, leading brands like Shaw Floors invite their local retailers to easily participate in campaigns using brand-approved content. Retailers can then customize the content for their local market and automatically promote it to their earned and paid audiences—all with just a few clicks.

While the ineffectiveness of national advertising for local retailers has become a major obstacle to marketing connection and alignment, it’s not the only one…

Check out our recent in-depth piece detailing the five main contributions to top-down marketing misalignment and how brands like New Balance, GE Appliances, and Nissan bridge this gap with Promoboxx, winning retailer mindshare and the battle for revenue.

marketing connection and alignment


Related Content:

5 Obstacles to Local Marketing Alignment Between Brands and Retailers >

3 Reasons Digital Asset Management Platforms Are Failing >

Why Is Digital Co-Op Advertising So Hard? >