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Pubcon - New Orleans 05 - Local PPC Advertising - Brad Geddes
Car Marketing
It’s a familiar scenario these days. Mom, Dad, Johnny, and Jane all having their own cars, and only seeming to talk to each other on their cell phones—with a family plan of course.
In fact, although the national average for families still hovers at around 2 or more cars per family, it is clear that when you factor in the poor who cannot afford to own a car at all (like many of the unfortunate people trapped in the gulf region in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) that many families own far more than two cars. Many American families have one automobile for every driving age member of the family.
Add to this the fact that the political pundits were dead wrong about gasoline spending: not only have Americans kept driving in the face of US $70 a barrel for oil, they have driven more. And they have increased their purchases of gas guzzling SUV’s (not that hybrid cars begun holding their own in the market).
All this spells out that the car market has never been in a better place. The time for marketing your car dealership has never been better, and new technologies are making that marketing even more efficient at moving cars off the lot.
Car marketing in the 21st Century means utilizing all the tools that technology has brought us. Hanging up hundreds of flags and renting a spotlight is not enough advertising to bring in the modern consumer, who goes online for nearly everything these days.
Now, technology has been created allowing your car dealership to market itself directly to the people who are looking for cars in your community. This is not some future vision. With online, search-based advertising, car marketing has stepped into the information age in a big way.
Imagine, if you will, a person who is looking for a car in your community. What if every time this person puts in a search term like “car” or “buy” or “sale”, your company’s name popped up on their screen? This is exactly what car marketing is now capable of.
Successfully marketing your car dealership in today’s economy means utilizing the Internet to its full advantage. Search-based online advertising is the most cost-effective way to spend your marketing dollar. Consider it a giant hot air balloon with your company’s name written on the side, except instead of flying through the sky, your ad is presently tastefully on the computer screen of countless potential customers. This is exactly what marketing online is for your customers—a bright and clear sign of who you are, what you are selling, and the incredible deals that you can make.
MSN quietly looks for SEM community assistance
MSN realizes the power of blogs and online forums. Places like Search Engine Watch, Threadwatch, and Webmaster World have a large audience reach where every topic related to webmasters is discussed.
These forums can help shape the perception of distribution properties, advertising platforms, and affiliate programs.
The forum I spend the most time on, Webmaster World (co-moderator of the AdWords forum) has two Google employees who regularly post very helpful answers about Google. Specifically, the AdWords forum has a member who goes by AdwordsAdvisor who visits the forum almost daily to offer helpful advice and feedback.
Yahoo has a few individuals who post about Yahoo search and other products, by the member who goes by OvertureRep is sporadic at best, having only 23 posts in 13 months. While I enjoy the direct connection I have to Overture through our current rep channels, this has tarnished their online reputation as being a very standoffish company, as their support to smaller clients can often be very slow or completely ignored; and often these forums help the smaller advertisers get their questions answered, and allows for others with similar problems to find the help necessary in the future as the answers become permanent webpages.
MSN has been watching this over time. They have an individual who sometimes posts in the MSN forum named MSNdude. However, he often jumps into a thread, and then disappears (like he only checks in once a month) when other questions come up. I had a chance to meet MSNdude at one of the conferences, and he did wish to post more often, but due to job and time constraints, wasn’t often able to visit these forums regularly.
Yahoo’s Subscription Search
The Yahoo Developer network has posted some more information on how to make the Y dev network work with subscription search.
Post here
Yahoo subscription search announcement.
Web search documentation.
MSN debuts Local Search
MSN has entered the local search arena. Building on the ‘near me’ feature of MSN search, it is trying to show relevant results to users looking for local business information.
The algorithm that MSN is using is still easily spamable by providing local addresses and information on websites, and there seems to be very little quality control at present. However, MSN has stepped up efforts in the search arena considerably in the past year, and we expect MSN to find a way to improve this search algorithm.
Because MSN really wants to compete with Google Local, and privately admits that this is the leading property they must compete with, expect to see a map feature and more local features in the next few months from MSN. The guys over there are especially helpful with a lot of problems, and have been very willing to listen to feedback and communicate with agencies over much needed assistance in both advertising and search features.
Related Links:
MSN Local
Google Local
BellSouth and SBC to provide Yellowpage listings to AOL
Businessweek announced today that they’ve learned AOL will use SBC and YellowPage.com information in their Internet Yellow Page product.
There has been a huge fight for local business and yellow page data between the major search and IYP providers over the past several months, and this distribution deal helps AOL to serve more local information. Their local search product has not changed much since it’s launch, and has not brought in any rave reviews.
In a move that looks like AOL is still trying to provide some competition in the local marketplace, AOL will continue to enhance it’s yellow page based data in providing value to local businesses.
Related Links:
Businessweek Article
AOL Yellowpages
SBC homepage
Bellsouth homepage
Restaurant Marketing
One of the saddest sights is when a well thought-out restaurant in your neighborhood-one with great design elements, friendly atmosphere, and wonderful, unique food-goes belly up. It is a sight that we are more and more used to seeing, mostly because almost 90% of all new restaurants fail in their first year. The only thing is, it does not have to be that way.
The things that set the restaurants that succeed apart from those that fail are very subtle. Often people say that some locations are just cursed, as one venture after another in the same venue collapses. Perhaps these locations have poor parking access, but could that really be the only thing stopping such restaurants from succeeding?
Experts agree that the food and the ambience rarely have as much to do with a restaurant’s success as you might think. They say that the key to making it past your first year in the restaurant business hinges on two important factors:
- Finding a suitable location for your restaurant. This, of course, includes adequate parking, or barring that at least plenty of foot traffic. Many times it is the random walk-ins that keep you afloat, especially in the first year.
- Making sure that you are marketing yourself in the best possible way.
So, once you have your location all figured out, it is imperative to start advertising your restaurant as much as possible. Restaurant marketing can include putting ads in the local paper, sponsoring community events, or donating dinners for two to local school raffles (sometimes repeat customers are developed out of just that scenario), and placing ads on the Internet.
This last item may seem like it is a little ahead of its day, but with 100 million people logging on each day, it is one of the best kept secrets in restaurant marketing. Putting your ad online where all the people in your community can see it is a great way to expand your clientele.
But it is imperative that you make sure that your ad is going directly where the people you want to can see it. Indeed, setting up a search-based online advertising system is the best way to see a physical return on your advertising dollar.
And remember, always make sure that your have plenty of capital, there are always unforeseen risks during the first few years of running a business, and having the capital on hand is a good way to ensure that you make it over the rocky points.
Overture Local Advantages & Disadvantages
Overture local advantages:
No need to choose geographic keywords
Overture leverages user data for searches
No minimum budget (precision match is $20/month)
No website required
Overture local disadvantages:
Must use business name as ad title
One ad per account, no matter how many keywords
Bid placement for positions other than #1 are about impossible to predict (no bid tool for local)
local.yahoo.com is currently showing more national ads than local
yahoo.com is showing more local ads than national for local based queries
The concept of overture local is good, and since there’s no minimum budget, it’s worth trying out. However, if you want to advertise on across the Yahoo network, precision match accounts with geographic keywords can be much easier to work with.
Google AdWords
Seminars for Success
Learn about Google AdWords from experts hand selected by Google.
These seminars will educate advertisers on the creation and management of successful AdWords campaigns.
Upcoming Seminars:
Phoenix AdWords Seminars January 22nd & 23rd
Austin AdWords Seminars January 28th & 29th
Learn More about the Seminars:
Seminar Information
Official Google Seminar Page
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Brad Geddes
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