Conquest Marketing and Digital Display - How Do They Fit Together To Help The Small Business Owner?

Conquest Marketing - chances are, if you’ve heard of this concept you associate it with big brands battling it out online with Google Ads. Who hasn’t searched Google for a leading big box brand and seen a handful of other equally ubiquitous big box brands appear in the ad results? You may even have chosen one of those competing brands as a result! This method of advertising can be highly effective if done correctly (which is why you see these ads all the time), but it will always be far more expensive than most other marketing techniques.

As a result, Conquest Marketing is often perceived as cost prohibitive for most small to medium sized business owners. However, it does not necessarily need to be so. There are many ways to conquest your local competitors; in this post I’d like to explore two different ways you can do so using display advertising.

Now, display advertising is commonly thought of as a branding and awareness effort, and that is true for the most part. However, using the right resource at the right time can turn a display campaign into a powerful conquesting tool. Let’s go over two scenarios to see how something like this could play out for your business.

Scenario 1

You want to reach people while they are inside of your competitor’s location.

You have the opportunity to deliver display ads to devices that are inside of your competitor’s location. This allows you to transmit your message directly to potential customers as they are in the process of purchasing another business’s services or products.

How is this useful to you?

If you offer faster service, wider options, or better prices than your competitor you have the opportunity to convert that prospect into your customer. For example, if your competitor’s customers tend to experience long waits and you can offer quicker service you should let their customers know that you are ready for them now. Auto repair, urgent care, salon services, restaurants - all of these and more could benefit from this tactic.

Scenario 2

You want to reach people who have been inside your competitor’s location (past tense).

The opportunity here is to identify devices (cell phones) that have been inside your competitor’s location in the past and then deliver display ads onto those devices. This allows you to transmit your message directly to prospects you know have most likely consumed your competitor’s service or product, and convert them into your customer.

How is this useful to you?

If the ad you are delivering is reaching someone who you know has consumed products or services that you offer, then you are way ahead of the game. You are not reaching someone who has no clue what you do or who is not interested; this is someone you know has already spent money on it. Restaurants, retail of all kinds, auto, clubs, and more all could see huge benefit from this tactic.

But here’s the real kicker: once you’ve delivered the ads you will also be able to see how many of the targeted devices ended up inside your store.

Yup, you can see how many people entered your location after being exposed to your message! What more valuable metric can you ask for?

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These are a couple of scenarios on how display advertising can work as a cost-effective conquesting play. Get creative and come up with some scenarios you’d like to see; there are so many ways something like this could work, and it’s really up to you as a business owner to identify how and why you want to run a conquesting campaign. Setting those goals for yourself at the outset will give you a clear understanding of what you’re doing and why, and allow your fulfillment team to deliver the campaign you envisioned at the outset.

If you’d like to explore some possibilities, please feel free to reach out to me with questions, comments, or to schedule a FREE consultation. You can also reach me any time at juan.rojas@vdigitalservices.com.