If You’re a Local B2B, Consider Mobile Advertising
Posted By Industrial Web Solutions Marketing Team on March 16, 2010
With the growing use of iPhone, SmartPhone, and other handheld mobile devices for industrial and commercial business use, it is a good idea to start considering your mobile advertising options particularly if you market locally.
Budget is always going to be a factor so decide exactly how much money you are able to allocate to mobile advertising and consider, at the outset, how much visibility and reach your options will give you. It is essential to track and analyze your campaigns if you are truly going to understand the return they provide. That means you have to know what you are tracking and effectively coordinate offline results, such as phone calls and sales force in the field, with online results (forms or online orders).
If you are new to mobile advertising get your feet wet with ‘no to low cost ‘options before graduating to the more expensive programs that really require you to manage your campaign and your budget closely. Sign up for a local business listing in Google and Bing to start with. They’re free. Check out Industrial Web Search for a more targeted approach that gives you visibility and reach exclusively to an industrial audience, whether their searching on their desktop/laptop or handheld mobile device, starting at under $500 inclusive per year (no click costs).
Many of the larger ad-serving services like the Quattro Wireless Network, Doublick DART, and AdMob appear to specialize in targeting consumers more than B2B. Adhesion by Crisp Wireless is the “first mobile ad placement technology for Smartphones.” Microsoft’s Search Marketing offers value but once again you must carefully manage your campaign to control costs. I also came across ExpediteSimplicity, which is a text-based SMS (you know, the same text messaging that your teenagers are addicted to!!) advertising platform. I have no experience with this company but would be curious how many industrial B2B marketers have had success with text ads sent this way. So let me know what you’ve experienced!!
Hi IWS Marketing Team,
I am in complete agreement that local business listings are the way to go for any local business dependent upon the local consumer for their revenue. This is a good point in time in which the Internet is a good local marketing tool to be found on web searches and mobile searches.
What I am most concerned about are small and local businesses having to contend with multiple websites when it comes to their local listing. What I’m really talking about are “time resources”.
Afterall, there are over 60 websites in four different categories specifically geared towards local listings. How can a local or small business have the time resources to cover this space?
Even if you made a conscious decision to not manage all 60, there are well more than Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask. The space goes to Local.com (they went public), Yelp, Merchant Circle, and many others.
Consumers will be the ones deciding which of these local listing websites they will go and post their experience through consumer reviews. This adds to the burden that no one single local listing website will do the trick.
It is a changing world and the local business will benefit. There will be some adjustment to this space needed.
Good information from your post and hopefully varying opinions help give perspective.
Thank you for your comments. Industrial B2B marketers have different challenges online from those businesses targeting Consumers. Industrial sourcing professionals utilize search engines and the internet like a student conducting research to formulate and support his thesis. Industrial buyers and sourcing professionals are looking for verifiable information to influence and support their purchasing decisions. They have more at stake than consumers who are motivated primarily by what they like and don’t like.