Category Archives: How To
97% of Shoppers Go Online Before They Shop Locally
I’ve always felt comfortable in saying to dealers that 70% of everyone who walks into their store went online first. I’ve gotten that statistic from many different studies. Maybe now I should up that percentage to 97% as this recent study from BIA/Kelsey shows.
Here’s a quote from Kelsey,
Yes, I would agree that if 97% of [...]
Google Beats Bing by Over 6X in February
Local advertising is changing as SMBs shift dollars to digital outputs from traditional media. One of the questions I get a lot is, “What about Bing?”.
Here’s why I tell SMBs to concentrate their limited resources on Google Local Search for now and we’ll wait and see about Bing.
Google beats Bing by 6.6 times in February.
So, [...]
Advertisers Have to Adjust to Location-Based Services or Risk Losing Relevancy
There is an avalanche of news lately about geolocation and how when you’re on the Internet we can track approximately where you are and this changes everything for local and national advertisers.
Two recent examples come from Facebook, last week they offered advertisers the opportunity to buy ads limited to certain cities. Now, according to The [...]
Facebook Offers Local Ads
Now Facebook is getting in on the local ad game according to a recent blog post. Here’s a screen shot that shows how an ad can be targeted for a specific city.
This is just another opportunity for your dealers to present themselves online in their local market. Granted, this is only for some cities right [...]
Google Adds “Nearby” to Search Options
One of the biggest changes for the internet since we all got interested in it in 1995 or so is that it filters information for your geographic location. While we’ve seen how Google allows advertisers to buy adwords based on the geographic location of the searcher, they now are allowing the organic search results to [...]
Homefurnishings.com Connects Consumers to Dealers Via Microsites
Homefurnishings.com is site owned by The National Home Furnishings Association. It’s loaded with helpful information for consumers in the market for home furnishings and links consumers to local dealer microsites in a rather interesting way.
Here’s how it works to protect the brand and the dealer.
The idea is to have lots of shopping information on Homefurnishings.com [...]
Facebook Tops Yahoo for Site Visits and Should Change the Way You Promote
As a marketer you have a lot on your plate already and I know it’s difficult to just manage business in this economic environment without having to worry about the way local advertising is changing. Well, here’s another sign that doing business the way you’ve always have done business just won’t work anymore.
Facebook for the [...]
Here’s How a Dealer Microsite Helps Sell More Products
Here’s a good example of how a dealer microsite can make your dealer locator be more effective for you, your dealers and your consumers.
This dealer microsite is linked to directly from the dealer locator results page.
It’s loaded with up-to-date content from the brand, has the brand approved look and feel and the dealer adds the [...]
Social Network Sites Continue to Grow Dramatically
According to a recent report from comScore, social network sites continued to grow in 2009.
Other findings from the report give marketers even more reason to consider social sites for local advertising.
With numbers like these it’s no wonder that McDonald’s has developed local fan pages in Facebook so local stores can promote their own specials. Other [...]
Solution to Dealer Dis-locators
As the Internet matures brand managers are starting to understand the need to connect consumers from their brand site to their local dealer to complete the sale. And, most often the first step should be to the dealer’s site, since the consumer is already online.
Unfortunately, most dealer locators link the consumer to the dealer’s own [...]