EMCS Web Marketing

This economy Sucks! Finding new clients to offer products and services is getting harder because people are sitting on their hard earned dollars. When they do decide to spend, they are looking far and wide for the best possible solution for their needs or wants.

You know that if they find you, they will certainly give you a second look and maybe even contact you so you can convince them that your products or services are the best for their needs.

Are they Finding You? Where are you advertising? Remember that people are now looking further and wider then ever before and maybe local advertising isn't enough. Depending on your products and services, you can stretch out to regional areas, or maybe you can go national.

I looked into Print advertising and, for this small business in a little town in NEPA, it wasn't a plausible alternative, national radio and TV advertising was cost prohibitive too.

The internet is the only media that is not controlled by large corporations, you can have a website, created by professionals that are local to you, that is available to every “internet connected” individual located locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The cost of this professionally designed website compared to local advertising is comparable. We aren't talking about full page ads in the newspaper, local circular and 12 months of billboards, we are talking about a 3 month campaign on a ¼ page ad in the local weekly newspaper or the weekly circular.

I am not saying that local advertising doesn't work or that you should stop, what I am saying is that your audience needs to be larger because people are spending less and looking harder before they buy. Your competition 1 or 2 counties away, or maybe 1 or 2 states away, is trying to lure buyers from our county to spend with them which makes our audience even smaller, isn't it a smart idea to look further away? Are they Finding you?

Now you could go out to these other counties and advertise in their local circulars that come out once a week for costs similar to what you are paying now, but you have to cover another 4 or 5 counties and the costs now rise more. Even if you did advertise there would the Find you?

To reach the same number of potential buyers in this rough economy you now have to expand your advertising budget and place 4 or 5 times the ads in the regional print media. Now are they Finding you?

* May 2011 Pew Internet Project surveys finds that search and email remain the two online activities that are nearly universal among adult internet users, as 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Web, and the same number (92%) use email.

I figured it was time to mention Internet Search and Statistics. Because, even with a fantastic website that creates “Jaw Dropping” amazement and leaves a lasting positive impression and creates sales to those that visit, they still may not Find you!

Did you know that you can hire a local team of Search Engine Professionals(SEO) from your local area for about a 3 month campaign on a ¼ page ad in the local weekly newspaper or the weekly circular. This cost will get your website optimized to be found using keywords that will bring you clients interested in your products or services. You know they are interested because they were searching specifically for them. “Now They are Finding You!”

* Kristen Purcell, Search and email still top the list of most popular online activities, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Aug 9, 2011, http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Search-and-email.aspx, Sep. 19, 2011.