Using digital to advertise locally

- Speaker A: Advertising on the web has changed how buyers and sellers connect. It is now available to anyone, anywhere in the world. Local advertising is targeted to showing ads to people who are local to you and are likely to be or potentially customers.

Advertising on the web has changed how buyers and sellers connect. What used to be the phone book has now evolved to almost exclusively search engines, online directories, review sites, and social networks. And while all of these digital mediums are available to anyone, anywhere in the world, many of these offer ways to advertise to your local audience. We're going to talk about the basics of local advertising for your business. We'll explore why local advertising is important, the different places you will be able to buy local ads, and the things you can do to tailor your reach to a local audience. First, you've got to remember that the Internet is everywhere. That means if you own a bicycle shop in East London, people in West London are still going to be able to find you online. That also includes people from Sydney to New York as well. But we assume that someone in New York isn't likely to hop across the pond to buy something from you. Which means it's probably not going to be a good idea for you to waste your advertising money targeting New Yorkers. And that's what makes local advertising different. It's targeted to showing your ads to people who are local to you and and are likely to be or potentially become your customers. You can do local advertising online through lots of different channels. Search engines, local directories, review sites, and social networks are a great place to start on search engines. You can bid to show your ad when people type in certain terms. All of the major search engines allow you to limit your ads to showing only to people in certain locations and geographies. For example, if you are bidding on a keyword like bicycle repair, you could set up your campaign to only bid if the person that typed it in was within, say, 10 miles of your bike shop. So what else? Well, social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn offer business pages as well as paid advertising to target local customers. Social networks can figure out where people are. And just like with search engines, you can specify your ads to show only to people who are nearby to your store. Local directories and review sites offer advertising opportunities as well. Over and above your local listing, which is usually free. You can often pay a little bit more to get your ads shown in premium locations like search results or even on your competitors listings. There are some pretty neat things that you can do with local ads, like targeting your message to someone that's physically close to your shop. Lots of local advertising channels offer some unique features. You can list your hours of operation or only show your ads when you're open. You could also let people get directions right to your store on a smartphone or mobile device, and you can let them ring your phone number with a single tap or even let them browse all of your Great reviews Local advertising can help you find customers that are close to where you do business, and there are lots of options for running local ads, whether you choose to use search engines, social networks, directories, or review sites. Limiting your advertising budgets to people near you and taking advantage of the special local advertising features can help boost your business in the neighborhood.