I don’t have to stare at the media spending reports too long before a striking conclusion hits me. Traditional (i.e expensive) media down; online media (not expensive) up. What will retailers and SMB’s do now that they don’t have to feel hostage to traditional media to promote their business? What will they do with all that extra coin?
If you’ve spent any time around dealers you know how they love to carp about the yellow pages. The huge cost of the books that they’re in — the ones they couldn’t afford — the ones they missed deadlines for and were blocked out of the market for a full year. On and on the stories go. Newspapers are a close second. Thousands spent for one issue.
No more.
Local businesses can pay per click through and promote their message to in-market consumers through online search marketing. They’ll know how many people saw their ad, and how many clicked through on their landing page. If they use a free service like Google Analytics they can even tie those consumer clicks to specific actions on their website like filling out a quote request, or a contact form. Change ad copy and offers as often as you like. Very cool. Very flexible. Very actionable.
No wonder spending on local search is increasing by double digits while print newspaper and yellow page spending is decreasing by double digits.