Announcing Clock Tower Site Evaluation Services

As we continue to navigate the digital age, the importance of site evaluation services remains high. Online shopping may be expanding its reach in major retail markets, yet that has not prevented brick and mortar businesses from thriving and even expanding. Properly performed site evaluations do much more than estimate a property’s potential as a retail space, they can also determine customer demographics, overall value of a property, and much more!

With this in mind, today we will be discussing local commercial landscapes, drive time analyses as they pertain to single or multiple locations, how data analytics can be combined to get a complete site evaluation, and how these evaluations can be leveraged into well-informed business decisions.

Identifying the Local Commercial Landscape

Before taking a deep dive into drive times, detailed customer demographics, and spatial datasets, we must first identify the high level commercial landscape of a current or potential site. Let’s look at an example to understand how this concept might work. Here is an example of a business looking to expand their brand and their territory:

• You are a local business owner with several restaurants in a local pizza shop chain.
• There are currently five (5) locations spread over a 30 mile radius to the north of a major metropolitan area.
• You are interested in opening a sixth location relatively nearby, but where you will not be cannibalizing your own business.

A commercial landscape analysis for this situation might start by identifying population densities in your areas of interest. You may also want to highlight certain regions and identify the number of total restaurants, pizza places, other American food restaurants, bars, and so forth. This basic information will allow your business to identify several location possibilities while ruling out some obvious missteps.

Drive Time Analysis and Location Data Collection

Traditional regional maps use physical distance as their only measurement. Drive time analysis graphics instead use the projected drive times to and from a specific location to determine trade-areas and consumer convenience maps. After all, a potential customer located 5 miles away in downtown Los Angeles will be much less likely to make the trip than a customer located 5 miles away in Northern Georgia. Drive times are much better indicators of realistic commercial landscapes than distances alone. 

Another key feature of drive time analysis is determining potential consumer overlap between your potential business site and your competitors. This is particularly beneficial in a situation like the one presented above. Oversaturated markets for businesses like pizza joints are common. Drive time analytics allows for intelligent location scouting.

Incorporating Demographic, Firmographic, and Spatial Data to Paint a Complete Picture

After identifying these key pieces to the site evaluation puzzle, focusing on specific demographic groups, firmographic data, and spatial data can combine to give you an unparalleled look into the viability of a location. D&B Commercial Profiles, Experian data, and detailed US Census data all play a major role. No two businesses are exactly alike and no two site evaluations will key in on exactly the same information.

Is your pizza place catered towards broke college students or is your niche high end pizzas with expensive, imported toppings? This will radically change the demographic data a site evaluation will look for. Clock Tower site evaluations piece these data points together to paint a complete picture of site viability whether you are looking to open a retail location, office building, purchase investment property, or anything in between.

Using Location Analytics to Discover Market Opportunities

Naturally, none of this information does your business/brand any good if it isn’t actionable. That is why we focus on using location analytics that will help our clients make prudent business decisions. Site evaluations are all about determining market opportunities. Industries change quickly, property values change quickly, market opportunities change quickly.

Yet we can get ahead of the curve and stay ahead of the curve by performing deep site evaluations which allow us to project growth and market behaviors well into the future. There is no such thing as a guarantee in real estate investment or in business. Clock Tower site evaluations offer the next best thing: an unmatched insight into the current and projected health of a market using both industry and location data analysis.

Clock Tower Insight Proudly Offers Site Evaluation Tools for Businesses

Clock Tower Insight helps our clients to build their brands through any means necessary. We believe in using cutting edge research to deliver unparalleled insight and understanding into today’s rapidly changing marketplace. With over 15 years of dedicated experience, our marketing insight has helped organizations including Belle Tire, Nielsen, Orbitz, and Kraft Foods. 
We are proud to offer a number of services to our clients, including customer experience management, brand positioning in the marketplace, market sizing, market testing, and more.