Businesses have pursued digital expansion for years. However, this shift toward a digital-first mindset has overlooked that ‘location’ remains a critical factor in success. Strategic positioning still influences customer engagement, service efficiency, and business performance. Yes, technology has changed how companies connect with their audiences, but the necessity of reaching customers where they are hasn’t disappeared. This leaves the question: If location has always been crucial to business strategy, how can it be prioritized at a time when targeted reach matters more than ever? Fract, a business intelligence platform powered by geospatial AI, delves into this issue.
Many entrepreneurs invest substantial time and effort into their ideas and fail due to “bad location.” Fract believes that having an excellent product or service doesn’t suffice if it’s in a place where target customers aren’t located. This means identifying the ideal location is significant, especially for businesses that depend on the local economy. For instance, a study analyzing 18 companies in the lawn and landscape industry found that 35% of website traffic came from users in the local metro area. This suggests that a huge portion of their business is local.
Given that one of the challenges for businesses is efficiently allocating resources (e.g., time, energy, and budget), the importance of choosing the right location is more evident. After all, the cost of each interaction can be high, especially when businesses are spending time and money engaging with customers outside their ideal target profile.
Customers today are less willing to travel or wait for a service or product unless it’s a premium offering. In the United States, 78% of consumers consider the most convenient store location to be the one closest to their home. Similarly, proximity can be the difference between gaining a customer and losing them to a competitor in service-based industries like plumbing or HVAC. It’s revealed that 52% of consumers anticipate a response within one hour of contacting a company. This makes location strategy essential for businesses aiming to provide quick, responsive services.
Essentially, Fract acknowledges that the geographical distribution of potential customers can make all the difference. Businesses targeting higher-income demographics may find more success in affluent urban areas. Meanwhile, those focusing on budget-conscious shoppers should consider areas with larger working-class populations. The same principles apply to B2B businesses. These insights help them pinpoint where to allocate resources and tailor their marketing strategies.
The advantages of location strategy are clear, but the reality of putting it into practice can be difficult. Many organizations struggle to align with various departments around a shared understanding of location data. These silos lead to missed opportunities and inefficient strategies. Recognizing these problems, Fract created a more streamlined, accessible way of integrating geospatial intelligence into their decision-making processes.
The Atlanta-based company offers a business territory mapping platform that simplifies the creation of data-driven territories for franchises, sales territories, and new ventures. It allows users to generate well-balanced territories in seconds and customize them to suit their business needs.
One of the platform’s innovative features is its heat mapping tool, which provides a visual representation of the most crucial factors for success in a territory (e.g., demographic data, business revenue, population centers, and even drive time analysis). This allows businesses to see the areas with the highest growth potential. For example, a plumbing franchise can use heat maps to visualize the number of households in a territory, whether an area has the disposable income needed for its services or the number of renters vs homeowners.
Fract’s sales territory management makes it easy to create and adjust balanced sales territories using automated tools such as Auto-Territories and Hot Swapping. This service aims to boost sales by targeting the right customers in the right areas. The company also provides accurate information about businesses in any area, helping make informed decisions and refine search based on real-world usage data.
Lastly, its area analytics simplifies complex data with machine learning. With this, businesses can gain insights that optimize their marketing strategy and determine the most profitable areas to target. Included in these insights is understanding why a territory underperformed in the past. Consider a doughnut shop struggling in a health-conscious neighborhood with residents preferring organic cafes and juice bars. Fract’s platform informs the owner of the mismatch, allowing the shop to shift to offering healthier, plant-based options to align better with customers’ preferences.
Fract desires to make this geospatial intelligence accessible and intuitive for businesses of all sizes. The company’s position is that: “Many in this space still rely on outdated systems that need technical expertise or complex software. We developed Fract from the ground up to be as easy to use on whatever device you choose. The goal is to give users data-driven insights without requiring a handbook or a PhD. Anyone can pick it up and start making decisions that affect millions of dollars. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner, a large enterprise, a service provider, or a franchisor. Fract gives you what you need to improve your location strategy.”
Fracts Head of Marketing Si’mone Lewis shares an impactful real-world story. “We have a franchise owner who was at a game with his kid when a customer asked if there was a territory available in a specific zip code,” Si’mone continues. “He pulled out his phone, typed in the zip code, and in seconds had the answer. The customer was so impressed, they closed the deal right there. That’s why we do what we do!”
Indeed, Fract is trusted for boosting businesses’ confidence in location strategy. It remains committed to helping them navigate geographic targeting by providing tools that integrate modern technology to enhance (not obscure) location decisions.
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