How has the increased emphasis on ”local” changed your marketing strategies (5 posts)

Topic tags: local, local marketing, marketing strategy
  • Profile picture of
    Innovator
    Stewart Kelly said
    1 year, 5 months ago:

    The buzz that is all the rage is this renewed emphasis on local marketing. We’ve seen pundits declaring the yellowpages and print ads, be it in newspapers or magazines, dead as businesses scrambled to create an online presence.

    Now however, Internet marketers are re-evaluating their marketing strategies as  the SERP wars intensify and millions of web sites spring up like mushrooms overnight. They are rediscovering traditional marketing, such as direct mailing and other cross channel marketing strategies.

    I personally am thinking of incorporating post card mailings, flyers and even cold calling to my marketing strategy. I was wondering if anybody has experience with incorporating different marketing channels with the Internet, what were their successes and failures, and how did they adapt of modify Internet marketing with traditional marketing to achieve new synergies and improved ROI?

    @stewkelly | # | Top
  • Don Purdum
    Sage
    Don Purdum said
    1 year, 5 months ago:

    @stewkelly

    Great post and question!!!  Couple of things we’ve done that has been highly successful at http://www.texstarweb.com

    1. We have a tightly defined geographical and services based target market. We created over 150 landing pages dedicated to each target market on our website. Every one of those rank on the first page. You can see 40 of them at the bottom of our front page.

    This takes advantage of the power of local search on Google.

    2. In all of our offline marketing – flyers, brochures, and business cards – we use the QR Codes to send them to targeted landing pages.

    3. I have no personal value for cold calling or direct mail. The returns are so low and people find cold calling so repulsive on the receiving end that we made a decision not to offend people with that medium when we are more successful online and have significantly higher ROI’s.

    That’s my experience and opinion. I’m sure there many who have different experiences and I hope to hear of what others doing.

    @donpurdum | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Innovator
    Stewart Kelly said
    1 year, 5 months ago:

    Thanks for sharing that valuable insight and experience about cold calling and using QR codes on your company literature Don.

    It makes sense that unsolicited calls are an intrusion, especially in this down economy where so much energy is focused on survival.

    I think incorporating mobile into the marketing mix will also be crucial as more people are on smart phones than on computers.

    @stewkelly | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Club Leader
    Rich Brooks said
    1 year, 5 months ago:

    @stewkelly

    The problem with people who drink the social media kool aid is that they forget that kool aid isn’t the cornerstone of a healthy diet.

    What I would recommend is testing a wide variety of tools, but make sure you have a way of testing their effectiveness. You can do this through tracking codes, conversion points, Google Analytic goals, customer surveys, etc.

    If it turns out that your best marketing is sponsoring road races, do more of that. If it’s TV ads, do more of that. If it’s dressing like a giant tortilla wrap…well, you get the idea.

    @rich-brooks | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Innovator
    Stewart Kelly said
    1 year, 5 months ago:

    Yes Rich, I think you are right that we have to remain sensitive to our target audience and what they feel is the best way to interact with them.

    Social media and now Web 3.0 (?) seem to be logical consequences of the Internet’s evolution, but I think the tried and true marketing strategies are still effective.

    BTW, how did you know I have a giant tortilla costume?

    @stewkelly | # | Top

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