Selling Local
Services on the Web
-- by Rick Hendershot, http://www.sbo-linknet.com
-- http://www.redtienda.com/english/newsletter80.htm#1Do you have a
product that you can sell online to your local
market?
If you
are already in business and you are thinking of
promoting your products or services online, one
of the first questions you have to ask yourself
is "Do I have a product I can sell
online?" Or perhaps in your case the
question should be, "Can I sell my current
product line online? These questions are at the
very heart of the decision whether or not to try
online marketing.
Most of
the problems with products are the result of
delivery issues. Either your product must be
delivered within a narrow time frame (like pizzas
and fried chicken), or it is too fragile or too
large to be economically delivered, or there is
not enough profit margin built into your pricing
to allow for delivery. Most local businesses
address these issues by a combination of
strategies. Either they do not provide delivery,
or they charge for it, or they will deliver only
within a narrowly defined geographic area.
This
question will take different forms for different
products and services. If your business is
selling specialty household items like custom
made candles, the chances of modifying your
current sales approach to reach a broader online
market are pretty good. But if you sell a service
like pool cleaning or home renovations, your
online objectives will probably be different.
Unless you are prepared to travel hundreds of
miles to perform your services, you are probably
only interested in reaching local prospects.
Are some
products suitable for marketing online and others
not?
Think of
all the plumbers, home renovators, auto
refinishers, pool cleaners, landscape suppliers
and so on in your community and ask yourself if
it is feasible to market these kinds of products
and services online.
For
instance, say you sell landscape products such as
paving stones, top soil, crushed stone and so on.
And say you already have an established business
in your local area. Your geographic market area
is roughly the area you can reach with your
trucks in less than, say, 30 minutes. In other
words, your target market area is any place
within about 25 miles of your shipping depot.
Dealing with customers beyond this radius becomes
to expensive because of the shipping costs.
Would it
be worth marketing your landscape products online
specifically to this narrowly defined target
market area?
Well, it
depends. Obviously if your marketing efforts were
free there would be no question. You should just
go ahead and do it. But your marketing efforts
will not be free. To do effective online
promotion you will have to create a website,
create some sort of online marketing program, and
then have the response system in place to answer
customer enquiries and take online orders. None
of this is free. Most of the costs will be in
designing and creating the website. But there
will be ongoing costs for regular marketing
efforts and online advertising.
Regular
marketing efforts? Online advertising?
Absolutely! It is important to realize that you
will be wasting your money if you just set up a
website and expect customers to flock to it. It
just won't happen. You need an ongoing marketing
effort that includes, as a bare minimum, Search
Engine Marketing and probably Pay Per Click
Advertising.
Thinking
about other products in this way will very likely
lead to the same conclusion. Say you are a
chiropractor and you are wondering about
promoting your service online. Is it worth the
effort? Probably not in the short term. You will
probably not gain instant recognition or instant
clients. But a concerted, sustained effort over a
long period of time will help you create a web
presence in your community and establish you as
one of the leaders in your area. And that will
result in sustained and lasting results which
should eventually translate into sales.
Virtually
any product can be marketed online to a local
market if you are prepared to put in the time,
effort and expense necessary to make an impact.
You may be able to get relatively fast results
with some products. But generally speaking
because you are dealing with a confined
geographic area the number of prospective
customers looking for your product at any given
time will be relatively small. So the response
will usually be slow in coming.
But if
you are planning to be around for the long haul,
persistent online marketing efforts will
eventually pay off. And the best time to get
started is right now.
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