Local opportunities

It was fantastic to see community-led marketing being given the space it deserves with your cover story feature (Local Strategies for Local People, MW 15 April). It’s about time marketers woke up to its potential. Location-based media was valued at $34m (£22m) last year, but is expected to reach $4bn (£2.6bn) by 2015, so clearly this is a quiet revolution that is set to explode.

However, one major point missing in the article is that the definition of “local” has changed.

As a result of the impact of mobile marketing, local no longer has to mean your street or your home town. As people carry their mobiles with them wherever they go, local marketing now means communicating with people on a local basis at all the places they spend any time – on holiday, at work, out shopping, commuting – as long as you have asked for permission to do so.

This slant on localisation is opening up amazing opportunities for marketers. If you’re thinking of doing local marketing – and you should be – then don’t limit your horizons to your customers’ front doorstep.

Andy Wheatley Marketing director Tangent One