Neighbourhood or city: how far your customers actually come from

Distance is the first thing to look at, before anything else. And yet it is the most ignored factor when choosing who to collaborate with.

The right question

It is not "how many people follow them", it is "how far are the people who buy what you sell willing to travel".

For a bakery, that distance is a five-minute walk. For a specialist bike shop, it might be half the province. They are different businesses and they need different reach.

How to work out yours

Look at where your current customers come from. If 80% live less than ten minutes away, that is your real radius and no content will change it.

Ask at the till now and then. It is free information almost nobody collects.

What it means when choosing

If your radius is short, a small but well-established profile in your area is worth more than a large, scattered one. Their followers walk past your door.

If your radius is wide because you sell something specific that people seek out deliberately, then greater reach does pay: someone travelling twenty minutes for a particular product is not looking for "a shop nearby".

The expensive mistake

Paying for reach that cannot convert. A thousand people living forty minutes away are not going to come and buy bread, however well the story is told.

The practical bit

Before deciding, put yourself on the map: draw the radius your customers come from and rule out anything clearly outside it. That filter alone improves collaborations more than any tweak to the content.