• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, October 8, 2019

Neighborhood social network Nextdoor has introduced an advertising offering it calls Local Deals that allows businesses, service providers, and neighbors for hire to target advertisements and marketing to the people in their neighborhood.

Neighbors for hire would include anyone who offers a casual service such as babysitting, dog walking or snow shoveling. 

Beginning Tuesday in the U.S., with plans for a global rollout next year, businesses that have set up their free business pages on Nextdoor can create Local Deals.

“On Nextdoor, we connect businesses with neighbors who become loyal, lifelong patrons,” wrote Tatyana Mamut, Nextdoor’s head of product, in a blog post.

The platform -- a combination of word of mouth, search and hyperlocal targeting -- supports more than 248,000 neighborhoods across 11 countries.

“With 40 million recommendations and 76% of members sharing that they’ve been influenced by a neighbor’s suggestion on Nextdoor, word of mouth has always been a major part of our platform’s neighbor-to-business connection,” Mamut wrote. 

For about 93% of consumers, the majority of their everyday purchases are made within 20 minutes of their home, according to research. About 87% travel no more than 15 minutes from their home, (unless, of course, you live in the Wyoming wilderness where few businesses, if any, are 15 minutes or less from your home. This is when, more often than not, residents must drive more than an hour to find exactly what they need. Believe me, I'm there.)

Nextdoor also shared experiences from local businesses in cities with more than 200 people. For example, about 19,761 people like in Punta Gorda, Florida, where Sue Randall, manager of La Fiorentina Steakhouse Italiana, reported that breakfast sales grew 20% with the help of Local Deals.

It might work in the snow ski resort of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the population totaled around 10,532 in the 2017 census, but it wouldn't work in Kemmerer, Wyoming, the Lincoln County seat, where the population totaled around 2,700 in 2016.

Tom Worley, who runs The Toasted Yolk Café, notes that “in just one month, our Local Deal helped us reach tens of thousands of people who we know live in our target neighborhoods.

Claire Lechtenberg, marketing coordinator at YWCA Central Carolinas in Charlotte, North Carolina, explains how the company did a lot of direct mail, but Nextdoor Local Deals are much more effective and cost-efficient.

Mailing something means she had to send at least three different mailers, which creates a time and a financial investment, Lechtenberg wrote. 

It's not clear what triggers the deals or advertisements, whether it's a search query or the advertiser simply picks categories or keywords in a self-serve platform. For very rural communities, companies looking to advertise on Nextdoor should have the opportunity to broaden the neighborhood within 100 miles or more.