Location Based Internet Marketing
The efficiency of a well-planned, geographically-targeted, web advertising campaign is truly impressive. Rarely if ever does it make sense to commit a lot of money to your campaign. Your ad doesn't show up to anyone who isn't in your target market, and you don't pay any money unless someone actually clicks on your ad. You can set your advertising budget as low as you want. Many successful local advertisers budget less than $10 per day.
Why Google Adwords?
IT'S HARD TO ARGUE WITH SUCCESS
Google's revenue for 2009 exceeded $23 billion. That's a 9% growth rate over 2008 even though we experienced the most severe recession of our lifetimes. 97% of that revenue came from advertising. Revenue for the first quarter of 2010 was up 23% over the first quarter of 2009. Adwords is NOT an experiment. It's an unqualified success.
Google has 84% of the search market. Yahoo! has 6.2%, and Bing has 3.3%. Google can deliver significant traffic to a local business. The other players really can't. They're just not big enough.
LOCATION BASED ADVERTISING IS GOOGLE'S FUTURE
Google's size has allowed their team to focus efforts on opening up local markets to the same kind of Web success that Google originally became famous for delivering to national and international businesses. It's working. That's why their stock is so expensive.
Google's stock price is $509 per share as of 5/11/10. Sophisticated investors know that huge growth is in store for Google as millions of local businesses all over the world come to understand just how powerful Google can be as a local advertising medium.
You can place an ad for your business that will only show with Google search results for key words and phrases you choose, and it will only show up in cities, counties, states, or countries that you specify. You will only pay when someone (who is actually in that specific geographic area and searching on a specific keyword or phrase that you choose) clicks through to your site. You can set any daily spending budget you want and change it at a moment's notice. Maybe you don't want to spend more than $5 a day. That's OK. You can change your mind any time.
Not only that, but you can write lots of different versions of your ad copy, and Google will programmatically invoke "survival of the fittest" so that versions of the add that get a higher rate of clicks per thousand impressions are shown more often, and weaker performing ads are eventually discarded.
You can pause the ad, change the geographic targeting, change the keyword targeting, and increase or decrease the amount of money you're willing to spend - all at a moment's notice.
Why Facebook?
FACEBOOK IS A TRUE REVOLUTION
It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people. In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users. Facebook currently has 450 million users, and half of them login in every single day.
If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size. Facebook’s US user base grew from 42 million to 103 million in 2009. That’s a 144.9% growth rate. The 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base. The 55+ audience grew a whopping 922.7% in 2009.
PERSONAL PROFILES ALLOW FOR PINPOINT TARGETING
Each Facebook user has a personal profile that allows her to share important information about her life with friends. One of Facebook's primary draws to older users is that it's a terrific way to find long lost friends and catch up on what's happened to them while allowing them to catch up on what's happened to you. This is a major incentive for users to load their profiles with lots of information. These profiles allow advertisers to produce extremely efficient laser-targeted advertising campaigns.
For instance, the owner of a wedding dress shop can target females in driving distance who are engaged. Her ads will only show up to those people. She only pays when a potential customer clicks on the ad, and the price for a click is rarely more than a dollar or 2. She can set a low budget. I probably wouldn't go over $10 or $15 a day, but I'm conservative about such matters. She can change her budget, pause, change the ad copy, change the keyword targeting - all at a moment's notice.
IT'S NOT ALWAYS THE RIGHT VENUE
Facebeook is only at its best when you can zero in on your target market by using keywords, age, location, and other demographic data. Also, it's often not a good direct response medium.
THE BEST APPROACH
The best approach is to use a Facebook ad to open the lines of communication between your business and your market. All a potential customer needs to do is click the "like" button on your ad. Then your blog posts will show up on that user's feed along with the posts from all of her friends.
It can be a terrifically effective way to allow your audience to get to know you (and vice versa) over time.
Why Yelp?
YELP FOR THE SMART PHONE
I have Yelp on my phone. I use it to find restaurants, repair shops, and other stuff when I'm some place where I don't know the area. I tap on the Yelp icon. I click on "Restaurants." Then Yelp displays all the restaurants near me in order of their distance to my exact location as calculated by the GPS in my phone.
Each restaurant shows up with a picture of it (if the business owner has submitted a picture) and a rating (0-5 stars.) If another Yelp user has been to the restaurant, she can go online from her phone (while she's there or while she's on her way home) and post a critique along with a rating. You might be surprised how many Yelp users there are, and the numbers are growing rapidly.
I can also click on "Sales" and find a listing of all sales posted on Yelp by local businesses near me. I haven't tried that yet, but I probably will next Christmas.
WHY YOU NEED TO BE ON YELP
Yelp has lots of ways to find businesses to list. It's likely that your business is already on there even if you have never heard of Yelp. It's quite possible that you already have ratings and critiques. You really ought to know what people are saying about you on Yelp. It's valuable to know when folks are unhappy. Yelp allows you the possibility of turning a dissatisfied customer into a life-long evangelist for your business. It also allows delighted customers to share their positive experience with potential new customers.
You can claim your Yelp listing if it already exists, or you can create a new listing. Then you can populate the listing with relevant information about your business including hours of operation, photos, sales, specials, etc. You will receive updates when someone posts a comment about your business.
Why Google Places?
IT'S GOOGLE, AND IT'S FREE
Google Places is similar to Yelp. It's another place on the web where there may already be a listing for you and comments about you. You can turn this to your advantage similarly to the way you would with Yelp.
When someone does a location based search for a business in Google, a map appears at the top of the search results with pins in it representing businesses that are listed in Google Places. There is also a list of these businesses to the right of the map. These listings can contain links to your website if you have claimed your listing and you have provided that information. They also contain a link to your "Place Page." Your Place Page contains directions to your business. It can also contain photos, coupons, and other relevant information.
It normally takes months for a new website to show up on Google. You can set up a Place Page, and your listing will show up within about 2 minutes, however.
Why Us?
WE HAVE BEEN AROUND THE BLOCK
We have been helping small businesses market on the Web since 1998. We have been advertising with Google Adwords since 2002, the year it was launched. We have been on Facebook since 2006. We're new to Yelp, but Yelp is new.
Can you setup your own advertising campaign without our help? Yes. It's not rocket science. There's nothing about it that requires sophisticated technical knowledge. It does, however, take time. There's also a trial-and-error process as there is with any new activity that you undertake. We can take out the learning curve and get you moving in the right direction faster.
IT DOESN'T COST MUCH
We set our clients up on Google Places and Yelp for free. For Google Adwords, we charge $450 for setup and management for the first month, $250 for management in the second month, and then $50 per month for ongoing campaign management. A Facebook campaign is the same price.
NO CONTRACTS
You can pull the plug on your campaign at any time. The downside risk is low. The potential gain is high. We believe the world of local business advertising is changing rapidly for the better. We're here to help that along.
