How to Draw Boundaries on Your Google Map

When examining a series of points on a map, it can be difficult to draw conclusions based on raw data. Sometimes, it takes a little more narrowing in to determine what the pattern is and what it means to your business. This is why it is helpful to learn about drawing boundaries on your Google Maps and the benefits that it can provide to you.

Boundary Maps

The purpose of a boundary map is to differentiate the specific areas that you are examining. The boundaries will be highlighted based on your criteria. Some boundaries that are often defined are countries, states, or zip/postal codes. These are commonly defined areas that companies find it useful to examine.

Benefits

Companies often use spreadsheets to keep track of their sales data. This is good to have, but simply looking at numbers in a row will rarely give you the analysis that you are looking for. Being able to visualize the different boundaries that you are trying to sell to will help you to set up a strong strategy to increase revenue.

For a business, it can be useful to define established boundaries to see the sales of a certain area. If they are trying to target a certain state, for instance, they can look at their boundary map and see whether they are succeeding or failing in their goal.

Read:- Where is my train, live status app about to bag funding from Google and Xiaomi

In some cases, it can be more beneficial to the business to draw their own boundaries on the map. This will help them divvy up sales leads and focus their marketing campaigns in certain areas.

How to Draw Boundaries

By using Maptive, a mapping software powered by Google Maps, you will be able to create custom maps, including adding your own boundaries.

• First, sign up for or log into Maptive. Click ‘create new map’ or click on the name of an existing map if you wish to edit it.
• Then you will input your location data. Follow along with the prompts to either manually enter or import an Excel spreadsheet. Normally this data will relate to sales and the location of customers.
• Next, select the ‘boundary/geographic territory’ tool. This can be found at the left-hand side of the screen, under a list of menu options.
• There are a few different boundary types that you can choose from. This is when you select the size that you want your boundaries to be. If you are searching by postal codes, the location will be smaller than if you were going by state boundaries.
• Then, you will select the boundary fill type. These include no fill, your numerical data, your group/territory data, market count, location density, demographic census data. Your boundary will be drawn based on the type that you select.
• If any of these boundaries do not suit your requirements, you can adjust them as needed. All the specifications can be tweaked so that you are looking at the area that you need to focus on.

Drawing a Radius

Another tool that Maptive offers is called the radius & proximity tool. This allows users to draw a radius circle from any location on their map. This shows how many points on the map lie within the radius and the distance between points.

The radius tool is helpful in regard to keeping an eye on the competition. You can easily look at the radius and see if there is room for you to open a new office, or if the competition is too close to do so.

You can have multiple radii in an area to ensure that you are the correct distance away from both your competition and your other franchise locations.  

Demographic Census Data

Depending on which boundary you are looking at, you may be able to add demographic census data to your map. The data is pulled from census data, which Maptive provides. Being able to view the demographic data of your customers will give you an edge on your business strategy.

For example, if you see an area that you have not sold many products to, the data may be able to tell you why. If the majority of the population in that area are young adults in their 20s and 30s, this will give you an idea of your next marketing steps. Rather than delivering flyers in that area, maybe you will send out an advertisement on social media instead. This will likely catch their attention better than the physical mail would.