Local Consumer Market

by aderra Banned
3 replies
The founder of LivingSocial.com was on Fox yesterday. At the end of the interview, he talked about how people want to do business locally if they can. I think that's a solid preference but also a trend that seems to get stronger.

Has anyone thought about a website business that focuses on your city or somewhere nearby? This would be a dynamic where your offline marketing efforts could bring you even more traffic than SEO.

Besides selling ads, you could work out individual affiliate agreements to promote local businesses and do some referral marketing. I'm envisioning an online community magazine that would generate some viral marketing. This might actually be one of the easiest ways to establish an authority site. What do you think?
#consumer #local #market
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    I've been a big promoter of going local and going in person on this forum since I started actively posting.

    Local vs some random cold call is so different from what we are used to getting as business owners and managers. It can make a huge difference.

    I'd personally rather spend a day calling or cold walking local businesses vs. just random cold calls.
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  • Profile picture of the author ImDanHoward
    Aderra, yes...I have thought about doing a local directory site of some time implementing those ideas.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aussieguy
    So you actually mean more than a "listings" site...but a site perhaps where owners can log on and update their own info, perhaps have their latest FB posts / tweets coming through etc. Perhaps a feed on the main page where local businesses submit their latest news to you (the site owner) and you are posting goings on etc. Community events page. Of course it could grow from there to become all sorts of things.

    Upsells could even be offering businesses websites/GP/FB etc for those who don't have those things....videos on the site (premium listings).....setting them up for email marketing. Once you've got great traffic you could have email/sms offers etc.

    But really add a local value that goes beyond a "listings" directory site. Gosh, once you're talking community events, classifeds for the community etc you're getting close to an online newspaper!

    Anyway - seems to me like a site that offered for free, listings that other directory sites consider "premium" listings would be the way to go. All the upsells could come from both getting local businesses up to speed with their websites, fb accounts etc....and also paying to advertise offers etc.

    Apart from community events, I think local classified ads could be something that helped to get traffic to your site (as you're talking a local site here).

    Anyway - yes...I've thought of the idea for my (small) area. I'd love to do something on a grand scale such as I'm talking about in this post. But I've also thought of doing a basic business listing type of site (for free) just for the sake of getting out there....what an easy / quick / cheap way to be able to go and meet stacks of business owners in your local area.
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