Small Town Hero: Lindsey and the role of ecommerce in rural Oklahoma.
The director of a fitness company once told me they targeted only metro areas. That is where their customers lived. He was sure of it. Going broader to include smaller towns or rural areas would be a waste.
Many companies, whether or not it is correct, share his viewpoint. They tend to ignore less populated areas. They want their products circulating around cities with higher visibility. They think word of mouth can only scale in densely packed urban areas. They want to be part of the in crowd.
I get why they think that, but unless the product is specifically suited to urban life, it is just wrong.
Last week, I had Lindsey on the podcast (ep.5). She talked about the role of online shopping in her life and how important it is to her entire community.
She lives in Skiatook, OK (pop. 8,000) where they only have one store - an old-school Walmart - so everyone shops online for mostly everything from clothes to home goods to groceries.
There is never a time when you will be out driving around town that you don’t see the UPS truck, the FedEx truck, and the Amazon truck. Online shopping is big here because we lack the resources to get any of those things locally.
But while they rely on online shopping, they are also not exposed to new brands or products that they would otherwise buy up quickly. Advertisers and marketers don’t focus their attention on these areas. It is up to the customer to actively search out new things themselves.
I can go to Walmart and buy a $4 t-shirt, but that’s not what I want to wear everyday, ya know what I mean… but where do I find clothing alternatives other than going into town and going to the mall. I’m not exposed to those types of things.
This sucks for Lindsey and her friends, but it also sucks for marketing departments that don’t realize the untapped potential they have for growth in these markets.
These consumer are not only hungry for the cool, new products city folk are privy to, but they also have a close-connectedness factor that makes it ripe for spreading through word of mouth and community pages.
Lindsey had ideas on this too…
So by reaching out to your customers that live in smaller communities and asking them to write a review that you could then share or asking them if there is any way that you could reward them in some way to post on the community site or on their blog through a gift card or some type of compensation…
If Maurice’s, which is a clothing company that I order from all the time, if they called me up and they were like “we’ll give you a $10 gift card if you’ll share your experience with our brand on your community website,” I’d be like, Done.
The CEO of that fitness company discounted these communities right off the bat. He missed out on a significant portion of customers. He paid higher CPMs targeting an over-served segment, and probably stunted growth.
If you work in ecommerce, take Lindsey’s advice. Get creative in your outreach to these communities. Don’t leave it up to Walmart and Amazon to take all your potential customers.