Effective Marketing…From Outer Space

Technology can be your friend.

Effective marketing can, and should, be done from outer space if you learn to leverage it.

Space may be the final frontier for your effective marketing efforts.

Think about it.

Google owns the online search and advertising space.

They also own Google Earth and Google Maps.

(Which, by the way, has been impacted with the loss of their maps as the default map application on iPhones back in September of 2012, so this marketing from outer space just got a little more complicated.)

A great many searches today are local and that trend has steadily grown over the years.

What that means is people—your prospective clients—enter a search with whatever it is they are looking for—plumber, Italian restaurant, dentist—and they add their city or zip code before it or after it.

This makes sense for clients in need of a local services companies. (Why would anyone do a Google search for “dentist” unless they’re doing a research paper?)

So you need to make sure you are being found for your main services as well as a few “outside the box” words.

For example, a friend of mine owns a family-friendly, casual Italian restaurant. I told them not to worry about getting indexed for their company name.

That will happen organically, for the most part. Besides, if someone knows your business name they already know you exist.

We want to be easy to find by people looking for what you do but don’t know you are there doing it!

So we went on over to the Google Keyword Tool and typed in a few ideas that included:

• temecula italian

• murrieta italian

• temecula catering

• murrieta catering

• temecula family dining

• murrieta family dining

• best temecula restaurant

• best murrieta restaurant

• temecula spaghetti

• murrieta spaghetti

The results?

Right now they own the first five Google results and six of the 10 spots on the first page for “temecula spaghetti.”

However, they do not appear on the Google Maps results nor do they appear for “murrieta spaghetti.” (Murrieta is the neighboring city.)

Now those were kind of easy since the word spaghetti is in their name.

I’ve pushed them to go after broader terms that include “Italian,” “lasagna” and “meat balls” in the keyword phrase because you need to enter the conversation going on in the mind of the prospect and ensure you are found when they come looking.

Your prospective clients are looking for you. Make it easy to find you both on computers and mobile devices.

Speaking of mobile.

Here are some of the key local search and mobile usage trends from recent research:

• Nearly 80% of people in the U.S. now own a smartphone according to comScore (March 2016) 

• 66% of smartphone owners use it to access the Internet on a daily basis

• 62% of smartphone owners perform daily searches on their mobile devices

• 94% use smartphones to search for local info

• 66% visit the business and 90% take action as a result of their search

Your clients are searching, finding, calling and driving to you based on what they find on their smartphone.

Many are driving right by you to go to your competitor because you are not easy to find online.

Effective marketing can be done from outer space.

You just need a little guidance from an internet astronaut. I know where you can find a good one.

Market like you mean it. Now go sell something.