My neighbor has his own pest control business. He does quite well for himself. Owns a small fleet of trucks, doesn’t hurt for business, and has a small stable of regular clients. He helped me a few weeks back get a picnic table into my back yard. We got to talking and he started asking me about what I do. I told him about WhyDontYouGoogle.us and gave him the shorthand version of SEO. He seemed pretty interested and spoke of how he’s been thinking about creating a website for his business for some time. Now since he was helping me with my picnic table, I didn’t want to throw out my pitch to him. Chances are he’d see that I was trying to sell him something and he’d go into shutdown mode. I know the feeling. As a Director of Marketing for a large Real Estate firm, I field pitch calls every day of the week. Someone trying to sell me a spot on their Restaurant place matt… that sort of thing. So I told him that I thought a website would be a great idea and let that be that. The trouble was I could have actually helped him and helped his business.
The fact is, more and more people are using the internet to do a great number of things, not the least of which includes local business searches. I do know that my neighbor has a nice little ad in the Yellow Pages, and I imagine that the cost of that ad is the bulk, if not the entirety, of his marketing budget. And I thought about all the potential sales that he was missing out on by not having a presence on the web.
I recalled a speech given by Bill Gates in 2007 where he suggested that “Yellow Page usage amongst people in their, say below 50, will drop to near zero over the next five years.” Now I know that Bill Gates is a smart guy, but I think that he might have been the victim of hyperbole. I don’t think that Yellow Pages is going to die any time soon, but that’s not the point is it? The point is that neglecting your web presence is to deny a rapidly grown section of your consumer base to the detriment of your business. It’s as if some business owners pretend that web searches don’t exist when the stark reality is that they are rapidly on their way to becoming the number 1 way that clients find a business.
I am reminded of another local business. This time it’s a Pizza shop. They’ve recently begun running some very creative commercials on television, quite catchy. And they point people to their website. What’s truly innovative is the fact that they actually take orders from their website for pizza deliveries. I’d say that they’re ahead of their time at least on a local level. I checked out the site, which was beautifully designed, and then for laughs I decided to do a Google search for “Latham Pizza”. Lo and behold, amongst all the Local Business listings, this company was nowhere to be found. Did a quick scan of the SERP and again, the site was lost. I started to imagine what kind of capital this business was investing in local television spots, and creating a dynamic website…. all the while completely ignoring any type of Search Engine marketing. I began to wonder how many potential sales were being lost to competitors by ignoring a critical aspect of their marketing plan. If this business were to spend just a small portion of what they’re spending on television ads, they’d have the market cornered on the local pizza biz.
I guess what I’m getting at here is this. Internet Marketing for local business, as much as we might like to deny it, has become not just important, but critical. Can your business survive without it? Sure. Can it flourish? Likely not. If you’re going to take the time, money and wherewithal to create a website, isn’t it simply neglectful not to market it on the internet. It is, after all, a website. And for all the big huge Yellow Page ads and funny television commercials you do, in the end, the greatest number of people who are going to find your business on the web are going to find your business on the web! You can choose to ignore this facet of marketing if you’d like, but I can assure you that your competitor is not.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I love when my older neighbors tell me they’re gonna “google” it! Meanwhile, I have 5 yellow pages to burn…save some trees!
I can’t even begin to tell you when the last time I used a real phonebook was. Nice post Skip!
I actually avoid businesses who don’t have an Internet presence. If they’re going to make it difficult for me to get information about themselves, why should I give them my business?
Thanks for the comment Phillygrrl, the way you feel is the same way many people are feeling nowadays and this is why it is extremely important for any company, big or small, to have a web presence of some sort.
You have a great point philly. And it is a point that all too often lost on the small-medium sized local business owner. Now if I can just get them all to read my post. I wonder how many actively peruse Sphinn.com?!??!
When googling many things come into play such as seeing what criteria best suits a customers needs, for pizzerias, the internet is huge, however many people in that area that do spend cash may not use the internet say its 40 % who get’s there business. The internet is huge but evidentally phone books are around for a reasons, and millions are spent on them, if they are such dinosaurs what am I missing?
I know that I am a lot like phillygrrl, and if I cannot find a company easily online I will not use them. I have not used a real phonebook in years, instead I will just Google it either on my computer or my phone if I am away.