In my entire working career, I’ve certainly never had a job that’s had anything to do with cartography. However, almost every company I have worked for has found some way to use maps, and some knowledge and appreciation of geography has come in useful.
This is no different with Engage Web. Since our content marketing service calls upon our network of writers located across the world, we always try to find the writer who is literally the best positioned to write for a particular client. For example, if we’re writing for a company trying to target the London area, it makes sense to give the content to a London-based writer who will be able to apply the local knowledge that might really reach out to customers in that area. Further afield, when we write for American, Canadian and Australian clients (as we do every month), we use a writer from the relevant country, ensuring they have both relevant knowledge and a grasp of the small but important spelling and word use rules in their nation.
To help us do this quickly, we have created a Google Map of where all our writers are based. When we need to write content for a company based in a certain part of the world, we can see a glance which of our writers is likely to have to best regional knowledge, although we do also consider other criteria when selecting a writer, such as any relevant knowledge and experience.
That’s one example of how Google Maps can be used as a quick and easy reference point, but there are industries that can arguably use it even more effectively. In particular, if you are involved in delivery or any form of logistics that requires workers to call in at several points on one day, you can plot these calling points using Google Maps. Google can tell you the quickest and shortest way to reach each location from your starting address. Better still, if there are several points you need to reach in one day, a tool like RouteXL can provide you with the optimum route to take if you want to keep time on the road to a minimum.
You don’t have to be on the move, however, to benefit from a geographical insight into where your work is coming from. If you’re an online retailer, for example, why not create a Google Map to keep an at-a-glance record of the areas where your orders are coming from? If there are some that begin to look quieter than others, is it worth looking into some regional marketing targeting these areas?
Creating a Google Map is pretty easy when you get the hang of it (Google’s Support pages have some thorough advice), but doing so can give your company a real insight into what, and more specifically where, it does best.
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