Trying to develop a marketing strategy for local advertising is a difficult task today as consumers are abandoning the tried and true print mediums for online sources of information. While gaining brand presence on social sites isn’t on the top of the list of things to do (Google local-search is number 1) it’s worth experimenting with.
TMP Directional Marketing’s fourth annual Local Search Usage Study came out recently and it included this chart:
THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL BUSINESS INFORMATION OFFERED ON SOCIAL SITES
I was surprised to see how much information consumers expected to see on these sites. It really seems that consumers expect the social sites to act as a retailers Internet site. And, we know retailers like having a social site because it’s free and they have complete control of it.
Now the challenge is to get brand approved information, images and text into the retailers hands so he can easily add it to his social site. The best way to do that is through your ad builder, let the dealer build a microsite and incorporate that into his social site. The information is controlled by the brand, customized by the retailer and distributed by the retailer without any publication costs. Sounds like a great plan.