Episode 12: Win new customers using local online Newspaper ads
April 27, 2008 | 3 Comments
The allure of local online newspapers
If you are wondering if an online news site is a good bet for your ad dollars I am going to save you a lot of money by sharing some money-saving secrets with you. Done the right way an ad on your local Newspaper web site can be effective but there are some major pitfalls that you need to know or else you will get burned - your ad dollars that is.
On April 9th, 2008 Borrell Research, a well known firm that collects and sells their research primarily to newspaper companies reported that NEWSPAPER-OWNED WEB SITES EARN MORE REVENUE THAN ALL LOCAL MEDIA COMPANIES COMBINED (capturing 26.9 percent of the market). The underlying message your local newspaper web site hopes you hear in this news is that their web site is the best vehicle to advertise on to attract new local business.
I spent five and a half years on the online advertising side of the nation’s second largest newspaper publisher where we had over forty online web sites. One of my jobs was to build their online ad operations where we used sophisticated ad targeting software to deliver over a billion ads per month across our network of sites. You really get to know what works and what doesn’t work when you’re running hundreds of ad campaigns at a time across a diverse set of web sites spanning small towns to major cities.
Reach
Does your product or service appeal to the majority of your local population? If so, it’s hard to beat the broad reach of an online newspaper. You can really blanket a large segment of the population in your market, reach multiple ethnicities, age groups, and other demographics. If you answered no, then stop reading and start researching targeted online marketing methods like e-mail or blog marketing where you can dial up direct response and niche audiences with comparable ease.
Targeting
As I mention above, a newspaper web site’s real strength lies in its broad reach. The problem with that reach is that it’s out of reach of your marketing budget. Even a week long ad campaign on a local news web site that’s big enough to demand attention could run you $10,000 or more. The answer to this is to use targeting. Targeted ads do cost more but they’re still way more efficient than an untargeted ad and almost always a lot less money in the long run. Using targeting does mean that you’re no longer going to reach as BIG of an audience but that’s OK - leave that to Circuit City who has the bucks for it. You can still reach a very diverse and large audience, and one that uses the online newspaper for local buying information.
First, get rid of all those out-of-towners that can’t buy from you
Local Na8ion is all about local online marketing which means that you’re likely the type of business that gets all, or the vast majority of your business from people who live or work in your town or city.
Newsflash: Local Newspapers aren’t as Local as you think!
Here’s a big secret that is true of local online newspapers: up to 50% of the viewers are from outside the main area served by the paper’s web site. Big city newspaper web sites typically have larger out-of-town web readership whereas small towns tend to have less out of town readership (expect 70-80% of your small town paper web site to be local viewers). This means there is a tremendous amount of built-in waste for any ad you run on a local newspaper web site. No sense washing your visiting Uncle’s car with your garden hose if he just has to drive home on a dirt road.
Think of it this way, if you sell exclusively to people in your town or city only $50 to $80 of every $100 you spend in your local online newspaper advertising will be seen by people who can actually buy your product.
Let’s talk about specific targeting methods to address this
The best way to beat these poor odds is to ask your local online newspaper for your ad to be geo-targeted. Geo-targeting banner ads doesn’t cost any more than other forms of ad targeting (e.g appearing on just the Real Estate section). Geo-targeting is highly efficient because your ads only get shown to locals that visit your local newspaper site. In this case, less is more! There are two kinds of geo-targeting: IP based geo-targeting and user-registration based geo-targeting. Typically only major web publishers like Yahoo! offer the latter and most newspaper web site will offer you IP based geo-targeting. Ask which version of targeting your local newspaper web site offers and chose user-registration based geo-targeting if it is available as it is more accurate. But don’t fret that the more common IP based geo-targeting is less accurate, it’s still miles ahead of delivering un-targeted ads to people who won’t be interested in them.
Here are some other tactics to target your ad or run effective banner ads on your local online newspaper web site
- ask if your newspaper has any fixed monthly sponsorships where you pay a monthly set dollar amount (e.g. $500 a month). These sponsorships can be a good value in high traffic areas of your local newspaper (even without geo-targeting) if you’re looking to reach a big audience. Hint, local news sites get most of their traffic on sports and news. Ask to see a traffic report by section of the online newspaper (e.g. sports, business, travel, news, etc.) to get the specifics.
- buy a small ROS campaign (run-of-site) to test which areas of your local newspaper site actually perform for your business. Review the click-through rates of each section (the newspaper should give you an ad report free of charge) and then buy a geotargeted banner ad campaign on that section. Better yet, buy a geo-targeted fixed sponsorship where you pay a set monthly amount on that section.
- See if your local newspaper sells text link ads as they often perform better for direct response ads then banner ads do. Conversely, text ads DON’T work well for branding efforts (no logo or imagery to visually communicate your image, or an emotion that you’re trying to tap into). If they sell text links, buy them geo-targeted.
- Don’t worry about designing your banner ad, most newspapers will make your banner ad for your as part of their service.
- Ask your newspaper rep what e-mail sponsorships they offer. Because newspapers typically have strong trusted brands people don’t mind giving them their email address. Better yet, many consumers opt in to receive ’special offers’ from newspaper partners (that’s you if you buy an email sponsorship). That means you can send out a tailored offer to your market and ride along on the coattails of your local newspaper’s brand. Like Martha Stewart says “It’s a good thing.”
If this sounds all together crazy, you’d be mostly right. Online newspaper advertising makes more sense for larger regional companies with bigger ad budgets or national advertisers with a local footprint. As a small business you can do much better with performance based methods of attracting new visitors to your web site like optimizing your site to increase your natural or organic search engine rankings. Buy ads on the major search engines with paid search engine marketing (SEM).
If you want a free method to brand your business use blog marketing, it’s the best branding tool around and it only costs your business the time you put into it. That can add up to a lot of time but if you’re smart you’ll read about “The best kept secret for quickly creating new content for your blog and web site.” The specific content you put on your blog attracts people with very specific like interests - that’s the kind of efficient targeting and branding you want! Just don’t forget to put all your location information on your site or you’ll get visitors from areas you may not be able to sell too!
Lastly, if you have a small town, neighborhood, or community newspaper web site that competes with the ‘big’ newspaper in town they can occasionally present very good advertising options at substantially reduced rates. Give these a try to test effectiveness with a small ad buy.
Episode 11: Local Search Engine Optimization in Three Easy Steps
April 4, 2008 | 4 Comments
Want to appear towards the top of local search engine rankings on Google and Yahoo! when a buyer searches online in your city for your product or service? Sure you do - it is free search engine marketing after all.
Today in Episode 11 on Local Na8ion (run time 9:57) we feature a video lesson on three quick and easy steps to optimize your web site for local search engines. Using non-technical methods, we will demonstrate three ways to hardwire your web site to increase local sales with something called a title tag, and adding your address to your web site footer (the bottom of your site).
Our three Local SEO tips can be implemented on your WordPress site in less than 10 minutes, even if you don’t know a lick of HTML.
Want some good tips optimizing your title tag? These recommendations from Google will come in pretty handy.
Don’t have an easy-to-update WordPress web site and blog? Why on earth not! Well, in the mean time, here’s a link to the old not-so-easy way to change the title tag on your web site. You would use the same method to update your footer of your index.html file to put your physical street address in your web site footer.
Want to save yourself time and headaches and upgrade to WordPress for less than $100 a year
Upgrade to WordPress today and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches and avoid the technical mumbo jumbo that old web sites require you to learn. WordPress is a tremendous platform to build your local online sales on. Here’s how you can get started with Wordpress for less than $100 year.
Julian, editor Local Na8ion
Where you are is where it’s at
Episode 10: Hosting your Wordpress Small Business Web Site on Midphase and using Auto-Install
March 26, 2008 | 3 Comments
In our session today, Episode 10 (run time 9:54) we cover how to get your small business web site and blog hosted and activated with our recommended web host MidPhase using a method called auto-install (also called a one-click install). In our next video how-to session we’ll cover how to select a FREE or Pro Wordpress design for less than $100.
You may want to watch my previous posts on this topic where I have covered the reason why we recommend Wordpress for your small business web site and blog. We also covered how to select a Wordpress host which includes a useful web resource where you can read independent reviews on Wordpress hosts.
By clicking on my link to MidPhase and then entering my discount code “GOTAPEX-ROX-01″ (no quotes) during the order process you’ll get three months of free hosting plus your domain name FREE for life. Make sure your MidPhase order confirmation page reflects the discount. The package should come out to less than $72 in total hosting costs for the year (12 months) at which time you’ll renew for the next year. Disclaimer: I receive a small commission if you sign up with MidPhase that helps me defray the cost of delivering Local Na8ion. Even if I wasn’t paid this fee we’d still recommend MidPhase because we’ve used them and they’ve lived up to their marketing claims.
I also mention in my video today that you should pick up a copy of Wordpress For Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. It’s the perfect desk reference and self-paced study guide to help you learn Wordpress. Grab a copy of WordPress For Dummies today
Let’s recap why we recommend Wordpress for small businesses in the first place.
From my Jan. 28, 2008 post “We Recommend Wordpress for Small Business”
“It’s FREE, easy to use and update, has more built-in Local SEO Goodness than any comparable product, and you can use it to power your regular web site, not just a blog.”
and
“Did we mention that Wordpress has an active community of over 10,000 contributors? They’re busy year-round making new theme designs that you can use on your site (most are free to use) along with adding specialty features and functionality (called plug-ins in Wordpress) that do everything from power a job board, help you run a newspaper, or make the SEO goodness in Wordpress even better.”
I hope you enjoy today’s video and as always, let me know your questions and comments.
Julian Seery Gude
editor Local Na8ion
Where you are is where it’s at
Episode 9c: Social Media for Small Business and Local Marketers
March 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Introduction
In part three of our series on social media for the small business and local marketer (run time 9:46) we conclude by discussing two more practical tools or applications of social media.
Hint: I will introduce you to online word-of-mouth marketing and next generation online public relations.
Show Links for Word of mouth Marketing
WOMMA.org - The Word-of-Mouth-Marketing Association.
Make sure to by read Learn WOM 101.
Next, check out the story about how nimble small businesses are especially well positioned to take advantage of word-of-mouth-marketing. Of course you already know this, you may just need to make the transition to using your existing WOM skills in a new online venue.
Show Links for next generation Public Relations (PR)
Fellow Internet OldTimer, plus Twitter Bud and Facebook Friend, the amazing adventurist PR God Peter Shankman.
Then there’s the magnificent, the magnanimous, the one, the only PR 2.0 Guru Brian Solis and yes, another Twitter Socialite like Peter and yours truly - Jinfinite8.
Enjoy and let me know what questions and comments you have - it would be downright social of you.
Julian Seery Gude
editor, Local Na8ion
Where you are is where it’s at
Episode 9b: Social Media for Small Business and Local Marketers
March 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
If you are like most people you do not like hype and that may well have kept you from exploring social media as a tool to bring you new business. After all, the fervor and hype surrounding things like Blogs, Facebook, Second Life and the cool kid applications like Twitter are enough to make you puke.
Here’s the thing though - there are also really practical applications of social media that represent big opportunities for small businesses to market yourselves for free.
In the next two sessions I’ll try to dispel some of the hype about social media and show you three to four practical social media tools that almost any business or local marketer can use today to win new local customers. I hope you will give social media a try and come to realize what I have - that social media is beyond hype - it’s revolutionary.
In this episode (runtime 9:58) I’ll explore some pitfalls of social media and also outline a simple definition of social media. I’ll finish by discussing two great social media tools that you should focus on today. My next session will cap things off with my final two social media recommendations for businesses that want to attract new local customers from their town or city.
I mention during the podcast that I would link to a previous post on how small business people can quickly create blog content for use in their blog marketing campaigns. Here’s the post I wrote back in January called The best kept secret for quickly creating new content for your blog and web site.
Julian Seery Gude
editor Local Na8ion
Where you are is where it’s at
Episode 9a: Social Media for Small Business and Local Marketers
March 18, 2008 | 1 Comment
In this three two-part series I discuss using social media to connect with local customers (run time 8 minutes).
First up, I’ll relate a personal story about a great new site called Alltop.com, and how using social media got Local Nation listed on the small business section of Alltop.
In my follow-up vlog session I’ll give you three practical uses for social media that can help you build traffic for your site and win new business from your local marketplace.
Saving loads of money on marketing expense highlights a fundamental value of social media marketing - that is, you can connect with customers online without spending a dime.
The visitors I’ve already received from Alltop would easily have cost me thousands of dollars to acquire if I were to have used traditional online media like banner ads or offline media like Yellow Pages or Newspapers. Do I have your attention yet? Great!
Yes, using social media in your marketing mix will save you tons of money, but that’s not the only reason you should consider it. There’s also a very good chance that social media will connect you with new customers who aren’t using traditional advertising to find local products and services. This number is already large and grows bigger each day. Sure, some of them are younger and you may or may not care about this market (yet) but I can assure you that some social media tools connect with every age, race and demographic group. In other words, there are social media tools that you can’t afford to ignore.
I’ll end with a BIG THANK YOU to Guy Kawasaki, Kathryn Henkens, and Will Mayall who run Nononina the company that produces both Alltop and other sites like Truemors.
And now for a story about Julian (that’s me) and a guy named Guy.
Julian Seery Gude, editor Local Na8ion - Where you are is where it’s at.
Watch part II in our series on social media for small business and local marketers.
Episode 8: 28 minutes to better Google Local search results
March 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
We will give you three simple-to-implement tips that can rocket your site to the top of Google’s local search results. In episode 8 of Local Na8ion’s video podcast (run time 12 min) we detail how we used these exact methods to move Linda’s Cleaning Service - a house cleaning service in Wellington Florida - from page four of Google Local search results to page one. This didn’t take months, it took days.
We discuss
- Using your city name in your URL (your web site address)
- Putting your location information on your web site
- Adding your business to Google’s Local Business Directory
Yes, you can do all of these things in 28 minutes, even if you’re not a techie!
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or our regular RSS subscription!
Corrections: apologies on our typo on slide 6 of the presentation (your NOT you’re - Yes we know the difference!). Would have taken 2 hours in video processing time to fix. Also, Linda has been in business since 2002 - not the two years I reported. Damn, I’m getting old.
Background: Linda’s Cleaning Service is my mother-in-law Linda’s local small business in Wellington Florida. Since Linda’s daughter Shannon (my beautiful wife and partner in crime here at Local Na8ion) and I are both web marketers it’s no surprise that we work on her site for free - and yes - Linda sends her cleaners to our house once in a while for free as well. Will market for cleaning!
Julian, editor Local Na8ion - where you are is where it’s at
Applying our three-phase local online marketing program
February 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Episode 6: Time for us to get real. Time is short, money is tight, and we need ways to grow our company.
It’s time to start applying Local Na8ion’s three-phase local online marketing program in real life - the place where we’re overloaded with information and work and challenges.
We’ll do this by helping our friend Ed and his Firefighter partner get their new business Florida Fire Fitness off the ground (with hook and ladder if need be). You’ll get to come along as I chronicle each move we make.
In this video session that I recorded on SuperBowl Sunday 2008 while out for a bike ride with the kids I talk about our framework for getting you more local customers. It’s what we call our three-phase (create, publish, connect) local online marketing program.
We’ll cover the full range of topics here from the online publishing side where we’ll talk about selecting a web-host, installing Wordpress, getting the Wordpress options set up, and installing plugins to enchance Wordpress’s productivity. Did I mention web site design - yeah, we’ll do that too.
Then we’ll get into some ways to create relevant local content efficiently for Ed’s site that will draw people in from search engines and online communities and keep them coming back for more. We’ll also discuss aspects like how to optimize his site content for local search engines like Google Local and Yahoo! Local. We’ll finish by submitting Ed’s new site to local directories and guides and look at ways to utilize web 2.0 sites like Flickr and Facebook to connect with customers while increasing search engine rank.
Come on - let’s start a three-alarm fire at Florida Fire Fitness!
How to perform a Wordpress auto-install or 1-click install
February 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Episode 5: If you are a typical small to medium sized business you probably don’t have the time or expertise to install a state-of-the-art online publishing system that’s easy to update and has loads of built-in SEO (search engine optimization) goodness.
Great news - you don’t have to. Today’s budget web hosts charge around $10 a month to host, install, and upgrade Wordpress for you. That means that there’s no need to be a tech genius to get up and running TODAY on an easy-to-use content management system (Wordpress) that can replace your old craptastic web site AND give you an opportunity to have a blog at the same time.
In this 11 minute video lesson I walk you through a typical 1-click or auto-install using one of my own Wordpress web hosts - MediaTemple. Follow along and make sure to see my previous lesson about selecting a Wordpress web host if you don’t already have one.
Thanks for your attention and please post any comments or questions on our site Local Na8ion (that’s nation). And don’t forget to subscribe to our email updates or RSS subscription today. Thanks for your time.
Julian, editor Local Na8ion - where you are is where it’s at.
How to select a Wordpress host for your small business
February 1, 2008 | 1 Comment
Episode 4: There is a seemingly endless number of choices in the inexpensive web host arena to power your Wordpress web site and blog. Wondering why we recommend Wordpress for small to medium sized companies? Check out our video post on why we recommend Wordpress for your small business.
In this 15 minute lesson I show you what features matter most for busy small to medium sized companies that don’t have the time or technical skill to install and upgrade a Wordpress site on their own but who still want to take advantage of a fully customizable Wordpress install and enjoy the many state-of-the-art Wordpress features and SEO (search engine optimization) goodness that the Wordpress content management system has.
I discuss hosts that are between $6.95 a month to around $10 a month that offer:
- 1-click or auto installs
- 1-click or auto upgrades for new versions of Wordpress
- Reliable Wordpress web hosting
- inexpensive monthly and setup costs
- More than enough web site storage, bandwidth and web databases to serve even a large organization.
I also show you a great site that offers impartial reviews of Wordpress web hosts and tell you the kind of ‘review’ sites to avoid. Want to find some extra savings? Maybe a hosting affiliate that makes money by signing you up for new hosting can offer you additional savings on your monthly or setup costs? I discuss this as well.
Specific hosts I discuss include Dreamhost, AN Hosting, Midphase, and BlueHost. Just so you know, we don’t accept affilate commissions from these web hosts.
Enjoy, and let us know what questions you have by leaving us a comment on this post on Local Na8ion and don’t forget to subscribe to Local Na8ion via email or you can subscribe via RSS.
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