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Inc. Magazine
Make the buyers come to you
How They Work
For businesses that primarily serve local customers,
the promise of the Internet has long been tantalizing.
However, the inability of search engines to match up
customer queries with truly local ads has made collecting
sales leads online difficult. That has begun to change,
as Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), MSN, and
AOL (NYSE:TWX) have ramped up their local search functions.
Indeed, online local advertising is poised to jump 53
percent, to $2 billion in 2007, according to Web research
shop eMarketer.com. Meanwhile, a number of start-ups
targeting local advertisers are providing new vehicles
for local online advertising.
Leads.com, for example, converts a customer's online
queries into e-mails that are sent directly to an advertiser's
in box. Then there are pay-to-call services such as
eStara and Ingenio, which convert online ads into phone
calls by posting a toll-free number in a Web ad. Clients
are charged a certain amount per call, and, unlike with
typical phone calls, businesses can track the origins
of each lead--and, as a result, the efficacy of the
ad campaign. Prices vary, depending on the nature of
the campaign, ranging from $2 to as much as $30 per
call. But studies suggest that it's worth the expense:
According to one survey, pay-to-call has been found
to have lead conversion rates three to five times higher
than traditional Web text ads.
Case In Point
In January 2006, Kevin Couser, the CEO of Couser Supply,
a construction supplies company in Woodlawn, Maryland,
got an e-mail on his BlackBerry from a hotel engineer
at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. The hotel,
which was undergoing a renovation, was looking for someone
to supply ceiling tiles. The engineer, it turned out,
had found Couser Supply through an advertisement on
the Web at Google's local pages--an ad placed for him
by Leads.com. The Hyatt account ended up bringing in
$23,000. And such results are hardly unusual.
Couser sets a fixed monthly online ad budget, picks
keywords, and Leads.com does the rest, bidding on keyword
auctions and plotting the most cost-effective balance
of keywords and placements. Couser gets 40 to 50 sales
requests a week, many delivered directly to his e-mail
account. In fact, he now gets so much business online
that he's pretty much stopped buying print ads. While
he's spending a lot more for marketing--nearly $3,800
a month, or 20 percent more than in the past--he's getting
a far greater return on his investment. The company's
revenue has grown from $1.9 million in 2004 to more
than $4 million in 2006. Says Couser, "When people
go on the Internet locally they've already decided to
buy. They are just looking for somewhere to buy it."
Inc. Magazine: http://www.inc.com/
Link to article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20061201/sales-into-science_pagen_2.html
Contractor Magazine
"The number of businesses using the Internet as
a search mechanism is booming. A survey released in
February revealed that among the 5,582 online shoppers
queried, one quarter of the searches were for merchants
located near their homes or workplaces, which was more
than twice the percentage estimated in 2003. The study,
conducted by the Kelsey Group, a research and advisory
firm based in Princeton, N.J., and BizRate.com, a shopping
search engine, reported that 64% of respondents use
search engines as the "main way" to find things
on the Internet and that 44% are performing more local
commercial searches online than in the previous year."
ContractorMag.com: http://www.contractormag.com
Link to article: http://www.contractormag.com/articles/column.cfm?columnid=300
Wedding & Portrait Photographers International
"To expedite the listing process and to maximize
return on investment from your advertising dollars,
you may prefer to use the services of an online search
advertising facilitator, such as Leads.com, that partners
directly with selected IYPs and offers small and medium
sized businesses a range of advertising packages including
some not available directly from the IYPs."
NAA Auctioneers
"Some facilitators, including Leads.com, offer
limitless free modifications of your listing, which
can be advantageous because changing key phrases in
an ad can result in a higher number of viewings of a
listing and a higher rate of click-thru if the listing
links to your website."
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