Advertising vs. Search Marketing in the Flathead
The reality of most advertising…
You know this story… a salesperson walks in your door and pitches you on their latest advertising “opportunity”.
It is always (according to them) the best solution for your business and promises of hordes of new customers and your phone ringing off the wall are usually implied.
It sounds like a good story so you decide to take a chance; you invest your money and wait, and wait and wait. The new customers don’t appear and the phone remains silent.
The problem is that these “new opportunities” never seem to stop, and the next person through the door has a different “opportunity” promising to yield the same results as the last 26 “opportunities” in which you invested your hard earned cash.
Advertising’s bright shiny objects
Don’t feel bad, all of us are guilty of reaching for every new shiny object that we believe (hope) will reach the people who might buy our products or services. We just don’t know which ad will hit the mark, or which commercial will click with our audience. 99.9% of the time our advertising adventures are nothing less than a crap shoot – we pay our money and we take our chances (and wait and hope).
We try everything that sounds like it might work, especially if it worked for someone else (we’re told), but in reality there is nothing that works for all businesses with the same results. At least that was true before “search marketing” evolved.
Search marketing is advertising your products and services to people at the exact moment they are ready to buy!
Nothing illustrates the power of search marketing like results
One of our business listings, Bigfork Outdoor Rentals, renewed their listing today for another year and I wanted to see how their first year with the Flathead Guide had performed for them, so I drilled into my Google Analytics.
The screen capture below tells a story that will be of interest to every business in the Flathead Valley. Their business is seasonal so most of their traffic occurs between June and August, which accounts for the dramatic spikes in activity.
In the past year they had 384 visitors view their listing with 90% of that traffic occurring during their seasonal business. They had days where as many as 48 – 60 people viewed their listing – in one day! Do you think that if 48-60 people searched for your products or services and found your website that some of them would turn into new customers? Duh!
No ads or commercials - search results!
These were not 384 people who saw an ad or heard a commercial; they were people who searched for terms like “RV Camper rental” or “Stand Up Paddle boards” or “kayak rentals” and “canoe rentals”, etc. and they clicked this Flathead Guide listing in search results instead of the main website for Bigfork Outdoor Rentals.
If only one of these 384 visitors became a customer, that listing in the Flathead Guide literally paid for itself - the other 383 potential customers were a bonus!
A listing in the Flathead Guide is NOT “advertising” in the traditional definition of the word; this is “search marketing” and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for local businesses.
Advertising helps to build your brand recognition and create top of mind awareness, but today people SEARCH online when they want to solve a problem or buy something. The Flathead Guide helps deliver ready-to-buy customers. At only $4 per month, there is no better advertising or search marketing value for your business. Add your business NOW and get found!
Get your business website off life support, list it in the Flathead Valley Business Directory!
