The Ready-to-Buy Psychology of Local Online Marketing

The internet is not just a global medium. It’s a powerful local medium. No matter where you live, people are searching for the service you provide with a local modifier: “[your city] [your service]” (like “Chicago dog walker” or “Kansas plumber”).

Marketing with this “[your city] [your service]” technique has some advantages: It’s faster to achiever higher search engine ranking placement and it costs less because you’re not competing against larger multinational conglomerations with huge search engine optimization budgets.

But there’s something else that is important to consider about the psychology of searchers who are searching locally. Let’s say you are thinking of buying a car. You type in “car” into a search engine and see what comes up. Maybe you narrow it down by manufacturer.

So, let’s say that as you do your research you go from searching for “car” to searching for “midsize car” to searching amongst “general motors”, “ford”, “dodge”.

This is all at the conceptual level; the research level. What happens when you’re ready to buy? You don’t just type in “Ford dealership”.

No. If you live in Atlanta, you type in “Atlanta Ford dealership”… Notice that’s the [your city] [service] search.

So, the psychology of people search locally is this: They are ready to buy.

The web is a powerful research tool, but the terms used to research are general and broad. Searchers hit credible, authoritative sites to get more information. And when they’re ready to buy? They add a local modifier and look to a solution provider in their neighborhood.

Why Internet Marketing is Right for Local Offline Businesses — Part 3 of 4

This is part 3 of a series. To read the first article, click here and read the second article here.

Local businesses need to market themselves and they spend a lot of money on offline marketing to do so. Sadly, these “offline-marketing-only” businesses have missed the boat and they are being eclipsed by their larger online competitors.

According to a recent study by online marketing firm Internet-Engine, offline businesses have not kept up with the shifting needs of their customers.

This excerpt, from the CEO of Internet-Engine, says it all: “On-line retailers have developed and maintained a dominant presence in search marketing… To put this in perspective, when a shopper does a search on the Internet, he or she will find three listings from on-line retailers for every one listing from a traditional retailer. I find it very surprising that brick and mortar retailers have not invested more dollars in search marketing, since e-commerce sales have grown 28% since 2006 (according to comScore) while total retail sales have grown by only 3% over the same time period.“

With more and more shoppers starting their shopping “process” online, it’s no wonder that they are turning to online stores who outnumber local stores by 3-to-1.

Your organic local marketing domination today.