by Chris Barnard | May 17, 2011 | Reviews and Citations
If it’s a donut shop on Roosevelt, a plumber off El Camino, or a nail salon on Carlsbad Village Drive; online visibility combined with a digital word of mouth strategy can begin to shape your local small business virtual footprint.
Local consumers are the lifeblood of any small business; do you know what your customers are saying about your business through the many review and local search sites out there?
A happy customer is your greatest advertisement!
This isn’t a time to shy away from the difficult questions, local online visibility is often the primary concern for Carlsbad small business owners in today’s evolving social marketplace. Right after making sure the lights are on and the cash register is operating correctly, local online visibility needs to be addressed or your business will not survive.
In a very short time we’ll all be accessing the Internet more from our mobile phones than any other source, and we’ll be instantly sharing our shopping – and let’s hope buying – experience with not only our ever-growing list of virtual friends, but also our local communities, and the general world at large.
If your local business isn’t part of the conversation you’re not only missing out on new customers, you could be losing once loyal existing customers to the competition.
Establish a Plan
This doesn’t have to be intricate, overly expensive, or very difficult. But it will cost you time to effectively develop, execute, and integrate digital word of mouth strategies into your local Carlsbad small business marketing plan. The best place to start is at the beginning, with a plan.
Plan what it is you want to get out of your digital marketing efforts; is it more new customers, is it improved customer feedback, is it amplified digital word of mouth???
First you will need to establish an online identity for your local Carlsbad small business if you don’t already have one. This could mean a website, or it could mean a Facebook Business page. The bottom line is your need some place to send people who either searched for and found your business information online, or are already existing customers.
Consider this your online command and control center, you want to direct local customers to leave reviews in your chosen environment AND their chosen environment.
Some people rule die-hard Foursquare® fiefdoms, others align more with Angieslist®. You want to encourage and facilitate your customer to communicate their dWOM in as many places as possible, but be sure to use your online command and control center as the primary repository. That way you control it.
You need to provide this place to the local consumer AND you also need to transmit that business information to the most popular local search and review sites used in your area.
This will be your online business identity – a website, a blog, a Facebook Business page…a virtual representation of not only your business contact info but also your products, services, and digital word of mouth.
Execute
Once you have an established online identity for your local Carlsbad business you can then begin to execute your plan to elicit, capture, and locally broadcast your digital word of mouth.
For every single customer than enters your doors or secures your business for a job, you want to ask them for a digital review of your small business. Direct customers to your website or Facebook Page, or direct them to the growing list of local search review sites out there – or both.
- Add a ‘tell a friend’ option to your website.
- Start a weekly or monthly (or quarterly) newsletter.
- Ask “Would you mind leaving us a review and help us build our business?”
Encourage feedback, and be ready for it. Remember, this isn’t a time for shying away from difficult questions. You should have already performed a serious look in the mirror as it relates to your business, as discussed in this past 1Local blog post.
Evolve
Be ready for change, it will come. An adaptive fluid strategy to collecting and syndicating local digital word of mouth will allow you to adjust to those changes and continually nurture your dWOM.
What happens to be the most popular local search site today in our immediate Carlsbad area may not be tomorrow. The best way to determine success with your digital word of mouth is to track your efforts and continually monitor the environment on a regular basis.
When you notice a trend, embrace it. If you determine one method of review collection is wasteful, adjust your methods. Just be sure to continue your digital word of mouth marketing efforts at all costs. If you’re not noticing results, analyze the situation and identify the possible reasons, then take action to overcome the challenges.
As mentioned earlier, mobile access is growing and is predicted to shortly become our chosen method of choice when connecting to the Internet. You should already have a mobile app for your business or a mobile version of your website, you should be looking into how QR codes can help recruit new customers…and even up your Carlsbad business’ digital word of mouth!
by 1localbusiness.com | Apr 19, 2011 | Digital Marketing
Is Pennysaver advertising dead?
We feel it should be for some small businesses after a recent review of a client’s ad performance over the past year. Sure maybe that front page ad space is worth something to someone somewhere, but is it worth the price of placing the actual ad?
Gone. Through. Finished. Kaput.
We were inspired to share this recent marketing epiphany after talking with one of our clients about their Pennysaver advertising performance over the past 12 months. As with any advertising, tracking return on investment often presents the biggest challenge. So, we started there with the client – trying to identify what the actual return on investment was from the given print campaign.
Let’s call the company XYZ Landscaping for the interest of this post – and if an actual XYZ Landscaping exists, rest assured we’re not talking about you and we apologize for any confusion…but hey, consider it free digital marketing!
When trying to identify ROI information for the XYZ Landscaping ad listing in the local Pennysaver, we were amazed at the cost involved with the advertisement. We couldn’t get past the staggering rate XYZ was paying for the local print exposure. The number of actual words amounted to all of 8, not including address and phone info. For those 8 words – and associated contact info – the ad cost the business owner $200 a week. Not a month, or a year – $200 a week, for a simple two-line, text only listing, buried somewhere between $.75 Elvis plates and free washer/dryer pickup. The ROI to date, according to the business owner, was exactly zero %.
In the span of a year XYZ Landscaping received exactly zero new customers from their Pennysaver advertisement. With the challenges of tracking and calculating ROI for the average small business owner being what they are, we’ll admit they surely could have missed a few here and there.
And while we’re at it, here’s a simple question to ask every new customer; “How did you hear about us?”
OK, back to the point. We feel there are many better advertising alternatives out there for the local neighborhood business than a zero point zero return on investment, and we communicated that to XYZ Landscaping. We recommended immediate expulsion for the Pennysaver ad, and double secret probation for the XYZ ad budget. A minimum of $9600/year for a Pennysaver Ad?
They’d be better served plying their trade with blinged out lawn mowers. Sure, we know the Pennysaver gets the free circulation numbers, but when was the last time you even opened the thing?
Ours goes from mailbox to recycle bin without even breaching the doorway, literally. At least the phone book is holding up some computer monitors, or offering our vertically challenged employees a more advantageous sight picture while driving. The Pennysaver lacks the bulk for such alterative application.
We’re happy to report that XYZ Landscaping eclipsed their Pennysaver ad performance within the first week of starting a Facebook page and initiating a few online local business listings. All for a heck of a lot less monthly financial investment.
An ad that is not performing well should be examined to ensure you are effectively communicating exactly what it is you are offering to the prospective customer.
- Does your ad clearly communicate your business and/or products and services offered?
- Is there a call to action?
- Is your contact information clearly displayed?
- Is the advertising medium chosen popular within your local community?
Let’s hear some more due diligence questions to share when it comes to small business local advertising. And tell us what you think of the Pennysaver as an effective advertising and marketing medium.
Not so legal disclaimer: We’re sure the Pennysaver is still an effective advertising medium for some local small businesses, in some areas. The abovementioned ad performance is for this particular business owner only…Results may vary…What you see now is happening now…
If you’re one of those local businesses, please share your story with us. Enquiring minds want to know!
by 1localbusiness.com | Mar 1, 2011 | Local Search
No, we’re not getting all 2012 on you. The landscape in flux here is virtual, and if your offline retail business is not prepared to deal with the shift that is already underway, the consequences could prove fatal to your bottom line.
Even if you’re a local business owner that wants nothing to do with advertising or the Internet, you still need to be prepared to at least deal with this monumental change or your business will suffer.
Dealing with change is one thing, being prepared to capitalize on change is even better.
Social media and local search are the two biggest factors either contributing to, or detracting from your profits, now and in the future.
The internet landscape has changed and will continue to do so as technology, consumer habits, and the search engines continue to affect and define your small business virtual footprint.
What we’re talking about here is using social media and local search effectively, in order to increase the online exposure for your local business when people search online (or from their phone, iPad, Xoom…) for similar products or services.
We will continue to bring you the most up to date insights and info to help you navigate this confusing course of social media and local search for the small business owner.
This is just the latest news today – Facebook will surpass Yahoo in Display Ad revenue in 2011: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-pass-yahoo-in-display-ad-revenue-this-year-2011-3
Why should your small local North County San Diego business care about what the big corporations are doing?
Because the landscape is changing…and it is shifting to benefit the small business owner.
How you ask?
For that we had to choose a common starting point, this is it. We invite you to visit our blog regularly and subscribe to our feed, we will systematically present you with the tools and strategies necessary to capitalize on this online continental drift.
For now, we start with the awakening message. It is now time to hold the objectivity mirror to the face of your business, adapt to the change and prosper. Resist the change and your business will suffer, that is guaranteed. But we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.
We’ll get into the changes to the ‘Like’ functionality of Facebook and how that applies to your website (more breaking news for TODAY)…We’ll also examine how confirming your Google Places listing is only the beginning of your business’s local search exposure…And don’t forget about user-generated comments and reviews to amplify your local word of mouth…or social gaming (Foursquare), sharing, caring, and squaring…
Ok, we’ll stop. Consider this the beginning, and embrace the change underway. Your customers, accountant, co-workers, families, and even the Federal Government will thank you for it. Just in different ways, but that’s ok – your business will be better for it.
