Local Internet Marketing

[linda.pirrie]

Hi,

I am Linda running a small business, and am reasonably web savvy. I wish to target my local audience in the Bay Area where I am able to speak directly to people in the area by using local internet marketing, and know precisely who am I talking to. I wish my advertising endeavor to be a lot more affordable yet effective. Any thoughts —how to go about it?

Also, I have heard a lot about Video advertising. So, is video advertising ready for the Web? Looking forward to your input...

Cheers..Linda

[BasicECommerce]

Welcome to the forum, Linda. Here's 3 quick points:

1-You can use geo-targeting campaigns in all major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) to only show in areas you want. This gives you a distinct advantage as the ads will be much more targeted and relevant than nationwide competitors.

2-You can include Bay Area keywords in your website's text and meta data to rise in the rankings for those local searches.

3-Video advertising is probably not the path you want to take. It is available and mostly on a cost-per-impression basis. I do not suggest this for anyone looking to keep costs low and profitable.

-BEC

[roban]

I'm a tad unsure about your request and what it is you want to do. Are you talking about a web presence? If so a URL to your site would be helpful.

If you're talking about on line advertising, articles and press releases are good tools for driving targeted visitors. A live help desk on your site would work for you as well.

When you say: "I am able to speak directly to people in the area by using local internet marketing, and know precisely who am I talking to." What exactly does that mean in terms of your request?

[linda.pirrie]

First things first—thanks for your input.
Essentially, I am looking:
1.Different ways to advertise online and the one which suits for a small company like us.
2.My appropriate target audience for my online ad campaign by using: geographic, demographic, and contextual parameters.
3.To define campaign dates, budget, and place ads on the sites that my potential customers visit (right now, I am interested in local advertising to attract customers within my service area.
4.To track and monitor my ad results in real time, so that I know what works, and what doesn’t.
As mentioned earlier, I am reasonably Web savvy. So, I understand the value of online advertising. So, I am looking for ways and tools to advertise my product and services online locally.
Cheers,
Linda.

[roban]

One of the first things I would do as a marketing consultant is find your competitors and their customers. Once you know this you'll want to get those customers to you. There are several ways to accomplish this over time and I won't go into this here because its how I pay my mortgage.

There are codes that you can add to your site to track the performance of your ads in 'real time' and companies abound that claim they can do this for you. I prefer to do this myself for several reasons the least of which is keeping costs low at least in the beginning.

[BasicECommerce]

Without giving away secrets so 'roban' can continue to pay his mortgage, use geo-targeting AdWords. AdWords does not display results in 'real-time', but it is only delayed by 1-2 hours.

-BEC

[max]

I joined the forum today itself and stumbled upon on your post. I would like to address the second part of your question first “I have heard a lot about Video advertising. So, is video advertising ready for the Web?”

Video advertising is relatively a new concept but there is no doubt that people love to watch videos online. I read an article on The wall Street Journal(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1218...ature_articles) that addresses something similar.

Thanks.

P.S:- Unfortunately i cannot post the link...so am posting it as text... :

[dwn]

Hi Linda,

I am a MBA student at a Bay Area university and my marketing e-commerce class has a team project to analyze and recommend online marketing strategies for local small businesses. If you are interested we can work with you on this in return for your participation and feedback. Of course, our report may not be as extensively done as a marketing consultant.

Thanks,
dwn

[max]

You can try text/flash overlays on popular video ads that run on local news, ad, travel sites in your area.

[chris_nelson]

Hi folks,

I came across this interesting article on online video advertising:http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006589

Cheers!

[Tamsin Presley]

I wanted to earn money from Internet business. How to start or any help or Guide book, any thing please tell me.

[voxy]

If you want free brand of advertising then social media marketing might be the kind of marketing your looking for this kind of marketing is using social networks such as facebook twitter youtube myspace etc to market your site or product

[Brain]

I wanted to earn money from Internet business. How to start or any help or Guide book, any thing please tell me.

For that first of all you need to analyze your own potential. First figure out what you are good at? Are you a good designer, writer, marketer etc. Then go for the one in which you believe you can do well. How to earn online there are many freelancing portals and forums where you have online job vacancies or bids that you can place in and earn by sitting at home.