Good idea to rank in certain locations?

When it comes to local SEO, you really want it to promote a local business, store, etc. But I'm curious. Lets say my business isn't near a certain location, but I ship to said location. Could I potentially promote to that area and in turn increase my rank within that area? I know Google will see it as well, so I figure this would be a good measure to take.

Would it work? I plan to promote all over the place, but I think in some areas it could be helpful to promote more in those areas.

As Adam said it's better to focus on ranking your site and all its pages on Google if you don't have a brick and mortar store within that location you are targeting as that would require more focus and effort that could otherwise be used to help propagate your SEO strategy on Google as a whole that will ultimately result in a greater reach to that locality you are trying to target in the end. Basically the old two birds with one stone adage.

It helps if you have a local business to promote, otherwise I don't see a reason to rank in a certain location. You're better of just ranking with Google and other search engines.

It helps if you have a local business to promote, otherwise I don't see a reason to rank in a certain location. You're better of just ranking with Google and other search engines.