NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Local Advertising
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Local Advertising
LawMatt_at_aol.com
Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:14:24 -0500 (EST)
The reponse to my recent posting about local online advertising was very
gratifying. Thanks to all of you who wrote and called. Here is my response to
some of the respondents:
On Thu, 13 Mar 1997 17:44:08 Wayne Browning wrote:
>
>absolutely disagree 1000%. The thinking you have is primitive and that
>particular sector(regional) is dealt with much more precisely by local tv,
>radio, print. Perhaps a BBS line is what you should look into. I consider
>your marketing philosophy to be restrictive and mis-guided. Microsoft gave
>up their plan for regional type platforms and Yahoo is having difficulty
>finding sponsors especially since their exclusion from softbank marketing.
Wayne, I would like to respectfully suggest that you start reading the
trades. Local advertising is going through the roof! For one thing Yahoo is
not having difficulty. They are my biggest competitor here in Dallas and they
have quite a few advertisers. By the way, they resigned Softbank Marketing -
they weren't "excluded". Also, you mentioned elsewhere in your missive that
MicroSoft was getting out of the business of local. Wrong - their service is
called Sidewalk and is very much alive and well. They just recently announced
new additions to their existing list of cities.
As for Digital City Dallas, we have 290,000 members in the DFW area, many
local advertisers and are getting revenues that are comparable to local media
such as radio stations. Last month we had over 1.4 million visits (not hits -
they would be about 12,000,000). This is definitely a business model that
works.
Also we are moving product: we just did a remote event chat for a specialty
retailer and the store manager said their sales went up 50% with no
additional advertising support. He was astounded.
At any rate, the success of, and need for, local online advertising is firmly
established, but thanks for your reply anyway.
Thanks also to Rick Freeman who came to my defense. He responded to Mr.
Browning:
>Why would a local business want to pay $30cpm on a million-hit-a-month
site, when only .01% of the visitors are even POTENTIAL customers.
Until that site can serve ads to visitors based on geography (my
guess, no time soon), those sites are not a resource of any value for
most businesses. Better spend your energy thinking of a better way to
attract visitors, or else not try on-line marketing for local
businesses.<
You are right Rick. Far and away, most of the business done in this country,
retail consumer business that is, is done through local retailers and they
are not going to pay national sites the kind of rates they charge. Its the
same reason they don't advertise with the local NBC affiliate rather than
the NBC network.
The entire psychology of shopping is that people like going into stores -
they like to actually touch and feel the products thay are looking for.
Shopping is also a form of entertainment and always will be. While there are
certainly categories of products (computers, certain clothing categories,
specialty items, etc.) that people are more likely to order directly (online
or from catalogs) they will always want to shop at local stores. My
suggestion is that the online ad industry understand this and begin
determining how to go after this 90% of the advertising potential rather than
everyone going after the huge ad dollars that only want to appear on
mega-sites anyway.
Doug fox wrote on 3/14:
>I was wondering Larry if Digital Cities or other local content producers
intend to partner with any of the thousands of conference organizers who
are promoting their upcoming events on the Web. Conference and trade
show promotion Web sites could use some more substantive information
about local attractions and events in destinations where future meetings
will take place.<
Doug - we have a business section of Digital City and could easily accomodate
such a directory. Along with the 13 other Digital Cities around the country
we cover about 60% of the nation's population base. Sound like a great idea,
please let me know how you would like me to help you with this.
On March 14 Cathy Dupre wrote:
>It appears that ever-changing local news, local events (cultural events,
concerts, art shows, etc), etc would be necessary for these local and
regional sites to pull in visitors.<
Cathy - definitely and thats why we have a local content staff that changes
our screen daily. We can give weather alerts, traffic conditions and local
headlines throughout the day. We also have a complete listing of restaurants,
arts events, concerts, local attractions, etc.
Recently, during the spectacular bank robbery and shootout in Los Angeles,
one of the bank employees got online in our Digital City chatroom and was
reporting what was going on from inside the bank. Pretty amazing stuff.
Local sites have to change content throughout the day and be as up to date as
a newspaper in order to ensure repeat usage from users.
.............Thanks to all, and I would love to hear any other comments on
local online advertising.
-Larry Matthews
Advertising Sales Manager
Digital City - Dallas Fort Worth
lawmatt_at_aol.com
(214) 954-6213
