Quick rundown of business types
1. Dodge Dealership ( Only Single main dealer in the town )
2. Small local restaurant mid market range
3. Local Children s day care center
4. Local State Farm Insurance Agency
5. Pellet Stoves and Fire Hearth Store
What was interesting only 2 had real websites and 1 had some page on free hosting.
None realized they should make sure they were listed correctly in Google Maps and that it cost nothing
to add / change listing including a website if they had one
( The real funny thing is they had all used Google maps )
Every one of those businneses were running advertising in the local free weekly paper
some with full page adds every week and used advertising in yellow pages.
They all had tried using the Internet to advertise but were scared off by
complexity of things like adwords, when asked about what the difference was with local newspaper
was a girl rang or came round and helped them from start to finish but they felt very alone when trying
online internet advertising.
At the end of the lunch they all planned to check Google Maps and find someone to help with
website but all were pretty worried about getting ripped off and not understanding
the buzz words
I would say these people were all pretty intelligent and were big users of the internet just not sure how they could use it for their small local business and were used to dealing with a human when placing advertising, I took a quick straw poll to
understand how much they thought they would like to spend on internet advertising and the general idea was $500.00 per month till they worked out if it would bring them business ( Not one of those their mentioned the words ROI which I also found interesting ) just will it bring me more business.
I wonder how many other small town companies around the Country feel the same way and if so how
can you bring them up to date there are 5 local chambers of commerce in my local area in towns ranging from 5,000 to 14,000 population. I suspect if any of the big boys Google, Yahoo or MSN was to put the simple tools in place first and then try to get a few of these small local chambers together for a presentation and Q and A they could create a new wave of internet advertising usage.
1. Dodge Dealership ( Only Single main dealer in the town )
2. Small local restaurant mid market range
3. Local Children s day care center
4. Local State Farm Insurance Agency
5. Pellet Stoves and Fire Hearth Store
It is interesting that you see these folks as big users of the internet and yet they seem unable to see how to apply what they use and experience on the web to their own businesses.
Could it be that they see the web as global in nature and less as national, regional, or local and that affects how they perceive any possible use or benefit for their business?
In your conversation did you get any sense of what kind of sites they visit and what they liked about those sites and how what they liked might be applied to their own business site?
I am not sure how the online advertising can bring those on line you can be sure the same local newspaper where they advertise is unlikely to put something up about how easy it is ( as an adwords advertiser myself for 4 years even I do not consider it easy ) and once I have got an add to work am very loath to change it because you never know , well I dont anyway.
I just found the meeting interesting because all of those businesses would gain by using adwords for example and if ad was simply targetting
local town name,
specific widget or service
special offer
they would not be spending large amounts but would gain increased exposure and leads.
I am also sure couple of them could double or treble business by targeting other towns where there was no similar service
steve
Not one of those their mentioned the words ROI which I also found interesting
Not many small business run their business on a ROI model - I suspect most do it because they love it, or think it is a good idea. On this side of the Pacific most small businesses go under within 3 years. Most small business owners are probably working 60 hour weeks - what is their hourly rate of pay?Bottom line, using an ROI argument doesn't wash.
Greg Sterling has been writing about this problem for some time - I've followed his descriptions of scores of online businesses targeting the US SME market. Repeatedly he notes how tough this nut is to crack. I think that most SME owners are distrustful of things they can't touch and understand. They don't have time to learn a new technology - let alone the complexity of Adwords.
I think Google has a program for students(!) to get SMB involved in Adwords. IMO, Google are now an ad agency - and their big clients probably bring in the lion's share of profit. Getting SMBs to use Adwords is probably just a nice thing to wish for and to say in public.
Sometimes, you have to offer call tracking to show how successful you are (or offer multiple metrics like calls, driving directions, contacts, coupon redemption, etc).
In addition, the sales rep and the product team need to come up with language that educates the business while providing an easy-to-understand product that makes the SMBs want to buy (and of course, you have to deliver measurable results to receive renewals).
Many marketing companies do not spend enough time making a simple product and sales message for SMBs to understand what they are actually receiving with their marketing.
The product/sales positioning and the end reporting are as important as the product and results.
"We'll advertise your widgets and you'll get hundreds of calls" vs "We'll advertise your widgets and you'll get hundreds of visits to your website"
