Page 171 - Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing

based on a click, have grown into a major form of local advertising.
Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and AOL all offer the ability for any business
to bid on specific search terms in an effort to attract Web surfers to
a classified-type ad. Ads can be targeted to specific local terms and
geographic locations.

PPC also offers a tremendous opportunity to test messages and
headlines very quickly and inexpensively. An ad placed on a system
like Google AdWords can start appearing in a matter of hours after it
is placed. The system also allows you to test multiple ads. Each ad and
ad response is automatically tracked. In a couple of days of testing and
at a very low cost, you may be able to determine that one headline gets
far better response than another. While not every business can rely on
PPC advertising to generate sufficient leads, it is one of my favorite
testing grounds regardless of where you plan to run your ads.

Neighborhood. Almost every community has coupon ad packs,
flyer distribution services, and other co-op type opportunities that
may make sense for your business. Again, the question is always, who
does it reach? not, how cheap is it?

Create your own advertising vehicles. Bob Hamilton Plumbing
created some yard signs during an election and convinced some cus-
tomers to put them in their yards at the height of the electioneering
cycle. These signs promoted “Bob Hamilton for Plumber.” They were
cute and likely generated some positive buzz.

I’ve long considered the yard-sign idea to perhaps be more powerful
than the casual, onetime use might imply. What if you were to find a few
well-placed homeowners—that would mean on high-traffic residential
through streets—and offered to buy some advertising in their yards?
The stipulation would be that each household would agree to place a
sign promoting your business or service in its yard and to leave it there.

I know some of the homeowner association types might be roll-
ing their eyes, but like anything you do, if you take care to select
homes that have side yards and maybe only use a thirty-day term, who

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