London is one of the most lucrative cities to operate a business in. Consequently, London is bombarded with advertisers looking to capture the attention of Londoners, which makes it a highly-competitive arena to establish brand awareness and ultimately form a relationship with customers. In this article, we’ll take a look a number of factors and ideas that play into how your business is advertising in the London metropolitan area.
The demographics of London
To advertise effectively, you must understand who you are advertising to (your target market, in other words). To do so, you need to know who lives in London, the largest city in the United Kingdom. Let’s take a look at some key stats as of 2018:
Greater London population: 8,787,892
Population diversity: 37% were born outside of the United Kingdom, with over 260,000 coming from India.
Religion: 48.4% are Christian, 20.73% no religion, 12.39% Muslim, 5% Hindu, 1.82% Jewish, 1.5% Sikh, 1% Buddhist, and 0.6% identify as other.
Age:
- 0 to 4: 7%
- 5 to 9: 6%
- 10 to 14: 5%
- 15 to 19: 5%
- 20 to 24: 7%
- 25 to 29: 12%
- 30 to 34: 12%
- 35 to 39: 9%
- 40 to 44: 7%
- 45 to 49: 6%
- 50 to 54: 6%
- 55 to 59: 5%
- 60 to 65: 4%
- 65 to 69: 3%
- 70 to 74: 2%
- 75 to 79: 2%
- 80 to 84: 1%
- 85 plus: 1%
[Visit this website for a complete rundown on the demographics of London]
SEO in London
If you want to reach an audience in London, you should know that search engine optimization (known as SEO) is a key method for your company’s website to rank highly on search engine queries. Essentially, all of your web content should adhere to the best practices outlined by prominent search engines, such as:
- Using keywords related to your content
- Linking to high-quality websites and internally-related webpages
- 100% original content (plagiarism can lead to penalties)
- Fast load-times for your web content
- Long-tail keywords tailored to common voice searches should be included
It’s common knowledge that only the first couple of results on a search engine’s results leads to actual clicks. Therefore, SEO must be high on your list of advertising priorities when it comes to capturing a London audience.
Billboards in London
If you’re walking around London’s many unique neighborhoods, chances are, you’ve gazed at London’s many billboards. Considering that London is a pedestrian-friendly city, and a large majority of Londoners use The Tube (the subway across Greater London), billboards play a huge role in your brand awareness. By listing relevant information, like a virtual phone number (see below), you can not only put your brand in front of as many eyes as possible, but these efforts can lead to sales conversions.
UK virtual phone numbers
As mentioned, virtual phone numbers allow customers to reach your business. And, to reach Londoners, your business should consider subscribing with a trusted service provider, like Global Call Forwarding to give your business the best service and number of options when you choose virtual phone numbers in the UK.
First, virtual phone numbers allow your business the ability to reach customers in London (and the rest of the United Kingdom) without barriers set by the service providers of London-based customers. Second, if your business model lends itself well to digital-only e-commerce, you can use virtual phone numbers as providing the “human element” of transactions. After all, most people prefer to handle business over the phone when it comes to important decisions. Third, virtual phone numbers are available in a variety of types and usages. For instance, using UK toll free numbers gives your business a toll free way to engage customers; by not using them, potential Londoners will be charged for the call as if it were a normal long-distance phone call. Lastly, virtual phone numbers are available through recent advancements in cloud computing, which means that they function like “normal” phone numbers in both look (they show up as local numbers on a recipient’s caller ID) and function (calls are clear and instantaneous).
Crucial for your business’ localization efforts in London, your business can use virtual phone numbers to advertise effectively and expand your business’ presence.