E-Commerce for All

There are so many marketing opportunities available to shop owners, but none are as dependable and residual as your own local market. Have you even checked out the potential sales in your back yard? There is little doubt that the Internet provides a incomparable mass marketing opportunity, but these shoppers are rarely loyal to your site consistently. You see the mass shoppers on the Internet have so many choices, they are easily swayed from your shop’s search results over pennies. What value does a strong local marketing campaign offer your Internet business?

Referral sales convert higher and are more consistent than any other sales technique. Additionally, the local sales market is far more likely to deliver dependable residual sales. I am certainly not saying you should concentrate solely on your local market, but neglecting it is passing up a valuable sales opportunity.

What do you have to offer the local market? How about no shipping costs as they can pick their item. Pride is a big one, believe it or not many Americans would much rather do business with a local merchant over a larger faceless business. Many times shoppers will even pay more to shop locally.

There are some very specific optimization techniques to help your store better attract a local market as well as your www mass market. Very simply put, you can optimize your site for both, very easily.

1. Always display a toll free and a local phone number.
2. Use your address in your template pages.
3. Register your business with Yahoo Local Directory, Google Local Business Directory, and other local offerings. Most are free.
4. Offer local free pickup of purchases, or even deliver them yourself!
5. Link out to local attractions and community sites.
6. Advertise on local sites.
7. Offer a price break or coupons for local shoppers exclusively.

These are just a few great ways to better get your store noticed in web search by your local market. Do be afraid to think outside the box, the ONLY bad marketing idea is the one you don’t try. Some of the greatest marketing success stories of all time were expected to fail.

Local hands on type marketing can be very labor intensive, but I have some easy ways to get your name out there for little or no cost and very little work!

1. Get business cards, and not home printed card either. Put your picture and location on these cards, and spend the extra 5 bucks to include a local coupon or special deal on the back.
2. Ask businesses you normally patronize to display your cards… Hell, give then a link in return as it also benefits you. Do this right, buy some cardholders for .50c a piece and display your business in a professional light.
3. Leave a couple of cards on the hand dryer in the bathrooms you visit. Okay, I know this sounds crazy, but folks who find them assume you put them down to wash your hands and forgot them. Hmmmm, they were valuable enough for you to pick up, so they are given the impression that the cards were important to you…