Attracting Customers the New Old Fashioned Way.

As I sit here preparing to write another article outlining the fall of the local Yellow Page directory, a call comes into my office and is routed to one of our Internet marketing consultants.  The caller is interested in learning more about our Internet marketing services. Potential leads calling my office is a fairly common occurrence, what’s uncommon about this particular caller is the way in which he found us - the local Yellow Pages. Talk about timing, I didn’t even realize we were in the Yellow Pages!

 So, does this change my opinion of the big yellow lug? No.

The Yellow Page directory is a paper dinosaur and not long for this world. Yes, we did get a lead from it today, one lead, not a very good one and the first lead from the yellow book in seven years!

Are the Yellow Pages completely useless? Not completely, even dinosaurs served a purpose. If not for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs what would all those paleontologists do?  Speaking of extinction, if you market or sell to senior citizens the yellow book may prove to be of some value in attracting customers however, this as well will be short lived. As today’s seniors move on to greener pastures they are being replaced by aging baby boomers. Boomers make up a third of all internet users and they are bringing their Internet know-how with them as they enter their golden years. The one thing these boomers are not bringing with them is their big yellow book.

Another nail in the yellow coffin has been the generation every business is talking about, the “Millennials”.  Millennials are those born between 1980 and 1995 (give or take a year or two) and their numbers on the Internet rival those of the boomers. And guess what? More than three quarters of them don’t remember a world without the Internet and a large percentage of them have never picked up a Yellow Pages directory in their life!

So what’s a local business to do when looking to market to a local audience?

Just like the dinosaurs the Yellow Page directory has evolved (assuming you buy into that evolution stuff).  The powers-that-be at the Yellow Pages believe that SuperPages.com and Yellowpages.com (referred to as “IYP”, short for Internet Yellow Pages) are the vehicles to keep them out of the tar pit.

Don’t go waiving your terrible towels in praise for the yellow mammoth just yet. IYP’s are still fairly new to the online search game and they face some pretty stiff competition. Mega search giants Google, Yahoo! and MSN have invested heavily in developing local search tools and they’re playing to win.

Search volume within the IYP’s for local products and services pales in comparison to the searches done in the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN etc.). Does that mean IYP’s have no value? Depending on your customers and your offerings marketing with the IYP might be a huge success or a miserable failure.

Here’s an example.

I have a client that operates a small regional chain of NJ car audio stores. They have been in business since the 70’s and have always advertised in the Yellow Pages. Recently they shifted to an IYP marketing solution to the tune of $1,800.00 per month.  Once my company took over the development of their new website and Internet marketing services we began to measure where there website visitors were coming from. We noticed that they were consistently getting 47 visitors per month originating from SuperPages.com. We compared that number with the visitors they were getting from Google and it wasn’t even close. Google consistently delivered over 7,000 visitors a month compared to the 47 from SuperPages.com.

Maybe the 47 visitors per month were high quality leads and worth $1,800.00 per month? We did the math. 47 visitors at $1,800.00 per month is $38.30 per visitor. Their average conversion rate from website visitor to lead is 10%.  Out of 47 visitors they can expect to be contacted by 5 potential customers (rounding up) which makes the cost of acquisition $360.00 per new lead. An average gross sale for one of their retail locations is $300.00 with an average gross profit margin of 20%. If they turned every lead into a sale they would have a net loss of -$300.00 per customer. In this case, SuperPages.com is clearly not worth it.

The success of any Internet marketing solution whether local or global is commensurate with the economics of the products or services you offer. I have another client where IYP works very well.  This particular client is a NJ Mercedes Benz dealer. They generate roughly the same amount of visitors from their IYP marketing as does the NJ car audio dealer however they sell a much larger ticket item not to mention the enormous lifetime value of a Mercedes Benz buyer.  

How can you get the most out of local search advertising?

Marketing in general is not for the faint hearted. In order to prevent your head from exploding you need to be more than a little risk tolerant. I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage, “you win some you lose some”? I have a slightly different mantra, “You lose some to win some”.  Failure is a pre-condition to success. Don’t be afraid to try something new, step out of your comfort zone and you just may be surprised with the results.

The great thing about Internet marketing is that EVERYTHING is measurable. If something is working you can tell. Adversely if something is not working you can try and make it better or cut your losses and shift budget to a program that you know works.  The only way you can truly fail is if you don’t take the time and effort to measure and manage your local marketing. If you have a set-it and forget-it mindset, Internet marketing is not for you.
Go waste your money on billboards.

No matter what online service you use to market locally be sure the service you choose offers statistics and reporting on the activity generated by your advertisement.

Measurement statistics you must have at a bare minimum:

·         CTR or Click thru rate. This will give you a percentage of how many people viewed your ad and then clicked on it.

·         Actual clicks. You need to know how many people in a given period clicked on your ad and visited your website.

Any online marketing service worth it’s salt (what does that even mean)should be able to provide you with these stats and if they can’t don’t  use them.

Measurements you can do without:
Impressions. Ad agencies (my favorite people in the world) and online advertising sites are famous for touting how many “impressions” your ad had. This is how many times your ad is viewed by a searcher no matter if they click on it or not. This number is always large and in any search scenario, irrelevant. No one ever remembers what they don’t click on.

A few tips for succeeding in local search advertising:

·         Get the absolute most out of your advertisement space.  Make sure you put as much information into your ad as allowed. Google Local allows hours of operation, pictures (a logo goes a long way here), videos, links to your website, multiple categories, payment types and more. Use everything offered to you, you never know what will connect with a potential customer.

·         Use as many listing enhancements as budget allows. Most local search sites offer enhanced listings such as bold text, colored background or even preferential placement. With all the choices today’s connected customer has you need to do whatever it takes to get your marketing to stand out in the crowd.

·         Think like a customer. Remember, customers search for problems not solutions so be sure to address their needs in your ads and speak their language. Forgo the industry jargon in lieu of the problems you can help a customer solve.  The better you connect with their needs the better your chances they will connect with you.

·         Utilize your peers and their experience. See what works and doesn’t work for others in your industry. People love to talk about their successes and adversely complain about poor services. Just be sure to take everything your told with a grain of salt (two salt references in the same article) and try to get details. Should your peer have the set-it and forget-it mentality the service was doomed from the door.

I know this looks like a lot of work and that’s because it is but the effort pays big dividends. If you think showing up properly and productively in local search isn’t worth the effort, then gather up all of your employees for a moment of group prayer and pray that your competition thinks just like you.

Two of my favorite restaurant chains have fallen victim to the economy and possibly disconnected marketing. Bennigan’s and Steak & Ale have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and stores owned by its parent company will shut their doors.

The news appeared to be a shock to most of the company’s employees, but some may have had an inkling that the company was not doing well. Steve, a Bennigan’s waiter in Plano Texas, said he recently went from making $30 on a good lunch shift to only $10. “Business has been slow,” said Steve, who said he relies on tips. “I went from making a lot of money on a shift to making very little.

I’ve shared many a laugh and a meal within the walls of these two restaurants and I’m sad to see them go. I fear this is just the beginning for the restaurant industry unless a major marketing mind shift takes place.

At first glance the closing of these two casual dining mainstays seems to be indicative of the economy. Sure the economy has something to do with it but I’m not 100% convinced all the blame lies on the economic downturn.

I have been a keynote speaker for the New Jersey Restaurant Association numerous times and my Internet marketing company has prominent restaurant clients such as Charlie Browns Steak House, The Palm Restaurant, Glen Rock Inn and New Brunswick, New Jersey’s historic Frog and The Peach, I’ve been privy to conversations about the economic outlook and its effect on the restaurant industry, casual dining specifically.

Yes people are not dining out as much and when they are they are either going somewhere quick and cheap or making it special by going somewhere a bit more high end and memorable. Diners have literally cut out the middle man! Casual dining has taken a huge hit while their gourmet and fast food counterparts also feeling the effects of a slow economy are able to survive and even thrive.

Take my Internet marketing client The Frog and The Peach for example. It is one of the best restaurants in NJ and saw the economic writing on the wall. Its management began to shift marketing efforts from offline marketing to online marketing in order to target diners looking for, “something special” on which spend their hard earned money .

In a few not- so- easy steps (nothing good ever comes easy) they were able to take advantage of an opportunity that came from the economic fallout.

Step One
Create a new and improved professional website development strategy that let diners looking for that special experience know that the Frog and The Peach atmosphere, customer service and cuisine is exactly what they are looking for. A place where they can satisfy their appetite and their need to feel their money was well spent.

Step Two
Use search engine optimization strategies to target core search phrases hungry diners are searching for when they want the best. Type (without quotes) “Best Restaurants in NJ” into Google and you’ll see The Frog and The Peach on page one.

Step Three
Keep a strict diet of regular fresh content, delicious events and scrumptious news to entice previous diners and keep the site intriguing to search engines that are driving valuable dining masses.

These steps illustrate how a high end restaurant is working harder and smarter to stay ahead of economic failure. But what about the struggling middle market, the casual dining restaurant? After all, they are the ones that are hurting and in need of an Internet marketing strategy.

Charlie Browns’ sister establishment, The Office is hoping to attract new and existing clients by leveraging the informal social atmosphere of their brew pub while at the same time touting their affordable but delectable menu to patrons at their exact time of need. Here are the steps they have planed to incorporate in order to avoid the effects of the economic slump .

Step One
Create a professional website development strategy that allows diners to take advantage of the social interaction the Internet is becoming known for. Patrons will be able to upload pictures of their friends enjoying a drink at the brew pub right from their cell phones. Allowing friends to comment on these images on the restaurant’s website when they get home will help to create a much needed viral component for the restaurant.

Step Two
A mobile version of the restaurant’s website will allow a potential customer to use their mobile phone not only to search for an area restaurant, but peruse restaurant specials and events. This is a great feature for those leaving a movie looking for a local hot spot to grab a bite with friends.

Yes the economy is terrible and there seems to be no end in sight but the companies that have succeeded in tough times historically were the ones that sought out opportunity while their competitors whined about how tough things were.

The Frog and the Peach and The Office Restaurant are two restaurants that are hungry enough to make a change and prove that they have something to offer no matter what the economy throws at them.

Happy marketing and Bonappetit.

My office is a two story building located on Route 34 in Wall New Jersey. My Internet marketing company occupies most of the second floor and there are three other companies in the building.

For the last eight weeks, each day I enter the first floor lobby I see four plastic bags sitting inside the front door.  Can you guess what’s in the plastic bags? Garbage? Not exactly but very close.

If you were to open the bags you would find the most recent Yellow Pages or Yellow Book or whatever the hell their calling it these days. These bags have been littering the lobby floor for over two months – nobody wants them! It’s just a matter of time before they end up in the recycling dumpster in the back.

It appears that no one wants their fingers walking anywhere aside from a mouse and keyboard and I have not met anyone in the past 5 years that can answer the burning question, “why be yellow?” When will this book die?!?

We live in a clickable culture where everything we want is just a click away. Whether local, national or global our connect customers turn to the Internet, search engines to be more specific, for everything they want. Companies are spending their former Yellow dollars on Internet marketing such as search engine optimization, Pay Per Click, podcasting, blogging, email, social media and alike, and rightly so.

The yellow pages failed to adapt quick enough, they rested on their laurels and now they are paying the price. Back in the day the Yellow Pages controlled all the information and companies’ payed big money for their coveted listings. Along comes the Internet and the Yellow people decided that they were not going to give away their information. The thought process was that their reputation and market share would keep the book at the top of mind of consumers. They were wrong.

Along came search engines like Yahoo!, Google and MSN. These search engines began to categorize and index businesses for free. Consumers began to see the benefit of having the world (not just their county) at their fingertips. Yahoo! launches local search and put yet another nail in the Yellow coffin. Now all search engines have a local component complete with detailed maps and driving directions. In just a few short years the market completely shifted from Yellow page lookups to online queries.

The yellow response to all this change, Superpages.com and YellowPages.com. Too little too late. Even with big budget advertising campaigns featuring Kung-Fu star David Carradine (I liked him better in Kill Bill), the Yellow online movement never takes hold and now just like their spokespersons Kung-Fu character,”Caine”, they are destined to aimlessly, “walk the earth”.

Contrary to what business people are being told by Yellow sales reps, no one goes to SuperPages.com or YellowPages.com to find the products and services they need. If we did, we’d be, “Yellowing” people as opposed to, “Googling” them.

I personally deal with businesses of all types and sizes and I hear the inflated claims made by Yellow reps. I’ve heard it all from inflated numbers of searchers to claims that SuperPages.com powers Google! Some businesses fall for it but far more have and continue to shift budget to online offerings. At best companies are hedging their bets by keeping a very small ad in the book and a listing within the online Yellow counterparts.

Here’s a quick little fact. One of my clients is Zippos Car Audio. Zippos is one of the top car audio dealers in NJ. They own four car audio stores in New Jersey. In the past they have been big Yellow Pages advertisers in multiple books. The budget was staggering. They were convinced (by their Yellow rep) to add their listing to SuperPages.com to the tune of almost $1,800.00 per month. The Yellow rep told them that they would get tons of traffic to their site because SuperPages.com is the largest shopper’s portal on the Internet.

Once my company was hired we re-developed their website and began an intense search engine optimization program. We started watching where traffic was actually coming from. On average Zippos.com receives 3,700 visits per month from search engines (Google, AOL,Yahoo! Ask and MSN). SuperPages.com delivers a whopping average of 42 per month. Not 42 hundred or 42 thousand, just plain old 42.

How much do you think Zippos spends with SuperPages.com now? Zero. How much has it impacted their business when they stopped spending almost $22,000.00 per year on SuperPages.com? Again, zero.

All this being said I don’t want the Yellow Pages to go away. There are plenty of great uses for the Yellow Pages. Makes great kindling, can be used as a booster seat for children, doorstop, origami paper supply and that’s just off the top of my head! Plus what would all those tough guys at the gym rip in half to impress women if the Yellow Pages went belly up?

On a personal note I just hired a new landscaper. Guess where I found them?

The Better Business Bureau reports that car dealerships are the most complained about business type with cell phone sales a very distant second. No big surprise that car dealers are the brunt of consumer complaints. Car dealers have historically had a reputation for underhanded dealings which is why the term, “car salesman” evokes images of plaid jackets, patent leather shoes and toothpick sucking shysters.

To be fair, not all car dealerships are bad and not all car salespeople are scam artists, in fact most of them are quite the opposite. There is no shortage of bad salespeople and unscrupulous businesses in every industry, car dealers just seem to have gotten permanently tattooed with an unethical moniker.

In my marketing book I rant about the uselessness of car dealer websites. I ramble about the absurdity of practically every car dealer on the planet using one of three companies to develop their websites, email marketing and just about any other type of online advertising a dealership does. 

When it comes to marketing why would you use the same company that your competition uses? Every car dealer website seems to be a variation on every other car dealer website. The same useless information used over and over again.So why do car dealers do this? I’ll tell you why, because it’s easy. They have to put zero effort into it. They pick a template and all the content is created automatically. Even in their email marketing they just have to choose a few canned articles and voila! Instant email!  Sounds pretty easy right? When was the last time anything easy produced worthwhile results? The same car dealers that have been accused of scamming consumers seemingly have forgotten one of the oldest rules in the book when it comes to sniffing out a bad deal. “If it sounds too good to be true…”

With the car sales industry taking a major hit due to our current economic landscape it seems that dealerships are taking a second look at the web as a marketing tool and an even closer look at the services they are paying for. Recently I was called into a very prestigious Mercedes Benz dealer in New Jersey to take a look at their Internet marketing efforts.

After looking at their website, pay per click programs and email marketing it became abundantly clear that they were being ripped off. First off their website was exactly what I expected it to be, useless information. What I didn’t expect to see was a search engine spamming technique called, “cloaking”. Cloaking is where you use technology to show a search engine spider one thing and a website visitor another. This type of tactic is what got BMW banned from Google a couple of years ago.

On the Pay Per Click side of things they were paying for a ridiculous amount of irrelevant key phrases. One of the first questions I asked was, “do you sell Mercedes Motor Homes?” the answer was no so I wondered why they were paying to show up under that search phrase? The company handling this program for them gets paid on the clicks so they targeted lots of phrases even if they had no relevancy or benefit to the dealership.

Their email marketing program was no better (big surprise). Again, they are using the same service as all of their completion. Here’s how it works. Every month they select a few canned articles and an email newsletter is sent out to their list of 27,000 names. I asked if all the email addresses were people that purchased vehicles from their dealership. Half were and half were just people that requested information or stopped in while shopping for a car and end up purchasing elsewhere.

At first glance you may not think this is a big deal especially since they told me that they are getting some response. Here’s the catch. If I did not purchase a car from them and I’m on their mailing list chances are I’m on the mailing list for other dealerships as well. If they are all using this email marketing service that means I’m getting the same content from lots of dealerships. This is not only annoying but shows a lack of effort on the part of the dealership. They can’t event take the time to create something original? Here’s an opportunity to show your expertise and all you do with it is show that you’re the same as every other dealer and that I’m not worth the effort.

Long story short (too late) make sure you are involved in your marketing efforts. Know what people are doing on your behalf and stop being lazy! Nothing good happens without effort. If you truly want to connect with your customers show them that you care enough to put the effort in.

Some of you may say that it’s poetic justice that car dealers are being ripped off. Keep in mind each time they rip off a car dealer we the consumer end up paying for it in the end so if you happen to run across any of these car dealer centric marketing companies be sure to show them your appreciation.

This post written from Starbucks in East Brunswick, NJ

Yes you too may suffer from RRHS (red riding hood syndrome) and not even know it! Little red riding hood (“red” to her friends) was clearly in denial. She knew damn well that it was a wolf in grandma’s bed but refused to believe it.

Red: “What big eyes you have grandma” – Wolf: “All the better to see you with”.  All the better to see you with! Are you kidding me!

Red saw a figure in her grandmother’s house, her grandmother’s clothes and her grandmother’s bed and just assumed it was granny. If she failed to mentioned the big teeth she wouldn’t be with us today.

How many times have you fell victim to an offer that looked to good to be true and assumed it was? How about all that spam messaging on the Internet, ever gotten sucked in only to wonder later, “what was I thinking?!?”.

If you’ve ever punched a monkey in a banner ad to instantly win an iPod then you too may suffer from RRHS.

Well there’s good news! RRHS is treatable. Many past sufferers even go on to live full and productive lives but the first step is admitting that you may have a problem.

Here are some signs that you may suffer from RRHS.

1. You never wondered how the deposed Nigerian dictator got your email address in the first place.
2. You ignore the fact that Viagra is a prescription medication and should be prescribed by a doctor. Just because the email states that it’s “The Real Deal” does not mean it is. Buying prescription drugs from spam email is like buying produce from your garbage man.
3. You approve the comment on your Blog from the guy who writes “Nice stie – thank you ” even though it’s followed by a hyperlink reading “Cheap Levitra”
4. You actaully think that your loan was approved even though you never applied for one.
5. You can’t wait to open the next e-card from an old classmate.

These scams exist because RRHS exists. RRHS is very real and until we cure everyone, scams like these will continue to run rampant.

Some scams are not as recognizable. There are tons of self proclaimed Internet marketing and search engine gurus out there claiming to have created riches for their clients and guaranteeing they can do the same for you!

Claims of guaranteed Google placement! Page one rankings! Increased PageRank instantly! Raves of how they’ve unlocked the secrets of search that will lead to tons of traffic for your site. These animals prey on hapless RRHS sufferers and it must stop!

Just as Red eventually realized that a wolf has no thumbs and could never have possibly tied up an elderly woman, you need to realize that no one can guarantee anything when it comes to search engine placement. There are no great secrets to unlock, no magic bullets, just lots of over inflated claims.

If you suffer from RRHS it’s imperative that you question everything. Analyze every detail and then question it again before hiring anyone to assist you with Internet marketing.

Thanks to corporate supporters of RRHS like Google, there is information available to help combat those who prey on RRHS sufferers.

It is my hope, no, my dream to see a world free of RRHS but I can’t do it alone. Together we can wipe out RRHS through common sense and just not being stupid. It won’t be easy, some people may need to be beaten but it can be done. Won’t you help?

On a side note, many of you will be happy to know that Red went on to live happily ever after. Oh sure she had to go through years of therapy after the woodsman defiled her muffins and ran off with grandma but eventually she pulled herself together, went back to school and became a partner in the law firm of Wolff, Wolff and Muffit – Good for her… Good for her.