One of the greatest things about online marketing is the ability to hyper-target local consumers with ads that magically appear before them while they’re looking for you. It’s really a beautiful thing for marketing and for small business owners. But why is it that most small business owners have no clue that this type of marketing and advertising is available to them? It’s a culmination of misinformation and media hype about other forms of marketing that take the spotlight away from what is typically a much better form of marketing for small business owners.
Small business owners can reap rewards and target consumers like they never thought possible. If you want to target business owners by zip code then geo-targeted local search marketing is for you. Pick out an area and target your ads to those users. Do your clients typically fall within a certain income bracket? All of this information is easily attainable to further improve your return on investment.
Is This Really That Effective?
It is essentially search-marketing maximized to its full potential. This form of marketing is highly targeted in that you can target search terms that people are searching for plus the area they are searching from. Imagine being in front of a consumer when they’re looking for your services in the town, city, zip code or neighborhood you want to do business in. Smart business owners jump at the chance to get highly qualified leads. What’s more qualified than someone looking for what you offer, where you offer it?
Why Haven’t I Heard of It Before?
You’re probably familiar with social media marketing, right? For a while it was in the news every other day, everyone you know is on Facebook, celebrities are on Twitter and the fact is all these things make for great news headlines and relate to a large audience; the general public and celebrity watchers. No one wants to talk about geo-targeted search marketing, it’s not “cool” and it’s typically not something that’s going to drive discussion because of its limited audience. That limited audience is small business owners. The News Cycle is why you haven’t heard of it before. News and media drive off of current trends that are happening at the moment not what’s best for small business owners.
Where Should I Start?
Keyword research is a great place to start to see whether or not the traffic is there in order for you to make the leap. Google has a great keyword tool for accomplishing just that. An easy way to check is to do a Geo-related search which would be, city name + service name. If type this into the word or phrase form and hit enter you will see the results with your own two eyes.
If there is a number that shows up under your search terms then you’re in business. This number is an estimate of the number of people searching for your services on a monthly basis and the fact is it means that people are searching for you and what you provide. You can also estimate city volume by searching for the keyword term without the Geo-modifier attached (city name) and then take the population of your city against that of your entire country. Fact is not everyone will throw in the Geo-modifier when performing a search but those people are still located in your target market and should be a part of your estimated base numbers.
What’s Next for My Small Business
If the numbers are there then you can go it alone and set up your Google Adwords Account or you can hire a company to manage it for you. If you decide to manage the campaign yourself you will need to become familiar with ad practices, copy that converts well, bidding strategy, software applications to increase performance, quality score, re-marketing, strategic placement and more. There are plenty of variables that come into play when dealing with pay per click management and having an experienced campaign manager is highly desirable and strongly advised.
Perfect for small business, geo-targeted local search marketing is a highly effective form of reaching buyers that should be considered by any businesses targeting consumers in their local area. Professional search marketing companies offer pay per click management services and should be used to maximize campaign results effectively.