ThatAdamGuy - 12:45 am on Nov 4, 2005 (gmt 0)

I just wandered into a small local pizzeria in San Francisco today, and ended up chatting with the friendly new owner who just took over the place a week ago.

He's already on the right track for improving the restaurant's local stature by engaging in thoughtful offline community building (sponsoring a little league team, adding free wi-fi, etc.), and I couldn't help but think he should consider online marketing / advertising as well.

I recommended that he submit his restaurant's menu to Amazon.com (for their free scanned-restaurant-menu section)... and was debating on whether to suggest that he engage in an AdWords campaign.

Now this guy probably can't afford to hire me to do AdWords stuff for him, but I was wondering whether it'd instead be worth his dollars and time for him to plunk down $299 for the AdWords Jumpstart service.

Heck, I'm not even sure if he has a Web site, but he could at least link to his restaurant's CitySearch profile or have his son whip up a fast page with a printable coupon, etc.

My main questions:

1) Are many people really using the Web to scope out pizza places to go to? I know I use Citysearch and related sites for reviews on high-end restaurants, but for pizza, I'll generally go to a place I already know or I'll try out a place if I get a coupon on my doorstep or in the newspaper. I don't generally look for "pizza" or "pizza in [my zip code]" on Google.

2) Have any of you done regional campaigns on AdWords for something like this? How successful were your efforts? Any tips?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!