Okay, so what exactly is the Local Marketing 5 Mile Rule? 80% of your clientele and customers comes from people that work or live within five miles of your location. So, what does this amount to? Well, just about all your customers are within 5 miles of you.
“Throw a rock hard enough in any direction and its bound to whiz by a potential customer, maybe even hit one.”-Unknown
Bullseye, right?
Are you throwing Rocks with your Local Marketing?
Rock throwing can be a Dangerous game and ultimately detrimental to your business. Here are some well known rocks that over 7 out of 10 local businesses throw in the sky and wind up getting consistent headaches from the rocks landing on top of their heads.
Local Marketing Rock #1
The trusted Phone Directory has been used for a long time by millions of local businesses nationwide to reach potential customers. Sounds good, but that statement doesn’t exactly tell the whole story. There was a time when the phone directory was convenient, gave relevant results and was the “go to” resource for people wanting to search for products and services. Not so much today, a concept that brewed up some years back called “local search” on the internet made a major dent in the phone book’s dominance and a few years after that, a little concept by Google called “Google Places” made things even worse for the trusted phone book. Phone books are no longer convenient or give the most relevant results and with 100+ million Smartphones with full web browsers in North America alone we’re actually beginning to see the final nails go into the Phone Book coffins. More on Phone Book Coffins..
Local Marketing Rock #2
The wonders of Television has a couple of substantial potential benefits. It’s in just about every home and millions of people actually watch it, right? This is partially true, which is why BIG BUSINESS aka corporate America thinks it’s getting a good deal forking out $2.5 to $2.8 million for a 30 second ad during the 2010 Superbowl with an average of 1 to 4% return on investment. Considering that on average it takes a person hearing or seeing your advertisement seven (7x) times before they might consider acting on it and an average of 2% return on investment keeps many small local businesses away. The cost alone involved with creating a television ready, 30 second commercial and airing it at least seven (7) times would outweigh the R.O.I by far in most cases. Don’t forget about a little something called DVR/Tivo driving the R.O.I even further down. Even corporate America has wised up a bit, take a look Beyond the 30 Second Spot…
“Half my advertising money is wasted. The problem is that I don’t know which half”, – William Lever, founder of Lever Soap Company back in 1886
The same can be said for traditional forms of marketing like Newspapers, telemarketing, print Ads, Direct Mail and the likes, except more like Two Thirds of the advertising money is wasted, not Half like wise William Lever. These advertising mediums are rapidly declining hence the ROI simply doesn’t justify the cost in most cases.
