Searching for Offline Services
- By: ThatAdamGuy [privmsg - website] On 3rd Nov 2005 In
I just happened to wander in to a pizzeria in my neighborhood and ended up chatting with the friendly new owner. He's determined to make the place into a thriving 'community center' (e.g., he hates the whole 'pizza takeout' feel)... complete with wifi, sponsorships of the local little league team, a party atmosphere, etc.
I was debating on whether online advertising (ala regional AdWords) would be a good idea for the fella. Personally, when I think about pizza (and most local stuff in meatspace, frankly), I go with what I already know, what my friends recommend, or occasionally what I see on a vertical site like citysearch. But search for pizza or pizza in [my zipcode] on Google or Yahoo? Not that I can recall.
So with that said, I'm curious to hear from y'all...
1) Do you use the general search engines for finding or evaluating local resources?
2) Have you ever done a regional advertising campaign online? If so, was it a success?
I'm frankly not likely to take this guy on as a client (I can't imagine he has much of a budget), but I was debating whether or not to suggest he do AdWords Jumpstart ($299, Google-assisted campaign setup) or hire someone else to do some online marketing/advertising for his place.
What are your thoughts?
IMO
The adwords approach would be too obtuse for something like this.
If you live in a city there should be tons of local's message boards and sites that already have an audience that he might be able to sponser on the cheap. The downside of course is you have to deal with a bunch of site owners who are probably not professionals. A plus with going this route lets him specifically choose the audience.
Another option might be a social networking space like MySpace. He could sponsor a band or some other event and promote it via MySpace and get people to come to his spot for it.
The difference being you will be able to actually reach locals interested in "a cool place to hang out" versus what a google searcher would be looking for which is "pizza in XXXX".
He'll be broke in no time...
Pizza is an "order out" food unless you're 18 or under and then it's Chuck E Cheese.
Smack him around, he needs a reality check
In Fullham, London there's a
In Fullham, London there's a wonderful pizza place i could never spell, something like pegaasio's er..
They have exactly the type of community feel this guy wants, i dont think they even do take outs. It can be done.
All the waiters sign opera, (now and again), they have all this throwing pepper mills at eachother stuff going on and you can generally spot one or two celebs in their on any given night...
>> All the waiters sign opera
Deaf Opera?
Now that's creative!
heh!
heh!
Traditional off line marketing
I love the idea of local shops tapping in to their community and I for one don’t think there is enough of this. I think the pizza place has a great idea spawned by “friends” I feel these would be more relevant http://www.thomsonlocal.com/ or perhaps http://www.excite.co.uk/directory/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/London
Or just creating their own website. How ever I don’t think you can beat traditional offline marketing in this case, http://www.ukflyers.com and I would also hand out flyers at their local colleges and unis. And those incentives by one pizza get an hour of surf time free ?
I suspect regional ad words may not give him a good roi. Just my pennies worth.
Rather than buying regional
Rather than buying regional ads on Google, I'd think it would be more use to by ad space on some kind of local community site. Some towns and local communities have message boards and things, if his area had one of thse I'd aim at them a bit more.
I'd think regional Google ads might be better for tourism businesses, where people visiting might have searched on the net beforehand to find out what places to check out.
I think the only time I've used 'local searches' has been for things like Hotels.
Thanks for the suggestions!
In particular, you've made a wise distinction between local customers and tourism customers. Due to the location of this particular venue, it's possible the fellow could get both, but I think he'd be smartest to focus on the former.
But IncrediBill, I have to disagree with you here:
Pizza is an "order out" food unless you're 18 or under and then it's Chuck E Cheese.
Methinks you haven't been to the right pizza places ;). Granted, this was in a college town (Bloomington, Indiana), but I have fond memories of two pizza-type places that were HUGELY frequented not only by students, but also by professors and locals... a great place to grab a pint, watch a game, flirt, have philosophical discussions into the night, take your parents when they visit, etc. These places had real character... one of them had big big comfy booths, lots of wood, etc. The other had outrageously decadent and huge ice cream cake desserts that took you an hour to eat, and taking them home was not a viable option :P.
Ah, but I digress.
Anyway, this was my first thread started on TW, I think, and I really do appreciate all the frank responses!