Stop trying to push features & benefits on your prospects.

Instead, sort your prospects by those who already understand and believe in the effectiveness of the things you're talking about from those who do not.

Who do you think will be easier to get an order from?

Who do you want to spend your time with now that I've shared this with you?

You may want to check out some of the post written by Claude Whitacre and IamNameless. They are both in small towns and their businesses are doing quite well. John Durham back in the day, would put together directory types sites for small town businesses and charge them $$ per month for a one page listing in his ranked directory. How difficult can it be to rank a directory site for County A, County B and County C businesses in middle Nebraska? They get an inexpensive web presence and you get a residual monthly income.

Search John Durham he had several free PDFs attached to his post about building these types of directory sites. Search the word Findlaw, poster John Durham, he talks about how he got local attorneys in small towns to use his directories, more effective at getting them local client than Findlaw($1100/mo).

First you should know that getting traffic to a website is
just one of a whole pile of strategies you can use for a
brick and mortar business and NOT the most important
strategy.

For most businesses building relationships with their
customers and prospects and following up with them is
going to bring them the biggest return.

One obvious way to do that is with email marketing.

Think of how many people walk into a brick and mortar
business in a month and what it would be worth to that
business to capture their contact details and follow up
with them automatically.


Most businesses are not using a whole range of marketing
strategies you could introduce to them.

Generally speaking the fast profits in a business are in
improving their sales process and follow up...not in trying
to bring in new business.

After that there's usually good profits in creating referral
systems (that can be done in a whole pile of innovative ways
even with businesses that don't ever usually ask for referrals).

If you're having trouble understanding how you can help
businesses without SEO then you should go study some
marketing fundamentals.

Anything by Jay Abraham is great.


Finally don't trust keyword search results. I have
plenty of clients making some serious money with
traffic from long tail search terms that don't show
up in any keyword tool and probably never will.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

If your small town is anything like this:
https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-...&ved=0CKoBELYD

Every one and I do mean EVERY ONE knows each and every single business in town. Interment marketing in my opinion is useless in this situation.

A Fan page would be better if anything.

Here are a few things to consider.

1. Google is getting more local. Even when you don't add the local name to search you will get local results. And I don't mean just Places. Try it yourself. Try it on your phone when you are traveling.

Google is smart and knows that to be #1 in search they have to give the best results the first time. So if they think you will want local results you will get them.

So what does that mean for you? If you rank for "Pizza City" you will likely rank for "Pizza" when someone local searches for it.

2. Just because the town is small doesn't mean everyone knows everyone. People move in and out of towns and those people will not know. Also some of them may work and shop normally in a bigger town and not even realize that _____ is available in town till they search.

What I am getting at here is that ranking for these terms still has value. How to show that value will depend on many factors and will never be a one size fits all. You will need to know about the area and the business itself to know how to frame the value for them.

3. Will they pay what you are worth? Everyone knows I promote going local first. But if what you sell (or want to sell) doesn't fit the needs of the local market you need to go to where the customers are. Maybe this town is too small but could you focus on a bigger city that is 30 to 60 mins away?

I'm not saying give up on these guys but if they are not the right match you need to accept that and move on to the right customers.

4. If the area is small but they lose business to a bigger city you might want to focus on loyalty. Things of ways that you can help a business get their customers in more often and spending more. Things like Social Media, SMS, and email marketing.

"The money is in the list" is not just true for online businesses. So what can you do to help them grow their list? What can you do to help them cultivate their list? What can you do to help them reactive people on their list?

5. EDDM (Bob Ross Method) might be a great idea for this area. Get businesses in the city together on a postcard and mail to the city and surround rural areas.

There are a load of things you could do. What you want to do and what you are good at will influence that of course.

But you need to realize that the problem isn't the lack of traffic on google. The problem is between your ears. And don't go blaming your nose cause it isn't his fault either.

Not having internet-using local businesses is a big plus for you!
It is a sign that they are your potential future costomers.
Prepare a short document, slideshow or a video; go and knock on their doors.
I am sure you can get clients fast!

I started out selling radio advertising to car dealers in the smallest towns in Ohio.

You are locked on your product. Any dweeb can sell them SEO.

Think more creatively. How can I generate business for this dealer? What is their biggest challenge? Don't say, "selling more cars." Be specific? What keeps them awake at night?

Sell ideas and concepts. Come up with a good idea for a specific promotion.

No search volume? Trust me there is some. But why put all the burden on yourself? Partner with a local newspaper or radio station. Heck, put together two dealers and have a special sale. "AnyTownSummerBlowout!" special internet sale.

Build a site just for the promotion: AnyTownSummerBlowout.com. Each dealer puts up unique offers for this promotion and this site only. Get each dealer to give you X thousands of dollars. Not enough dealers? Broaden the geography. "CentralWyomingCarBlast!" Get 5 dealers from all over the place. Now you have some real cash to play with.

Use Claude's strategies to dominate the area. Partner with a radio station that covers the area, or figure out if the local station has sister stations in the surrounding area.

Come up with a radio spot for the promotion. You can have it written and cut in one day.

Heck, you are the internet expert. Nobody else can tie all these towns and dealers together like you. Nobody. You have infinite power.

Think of ways to use mobile marketing and SMS. Get creative.

I'm sure you can come up with something unique, and now you have a specific concept that is designed to move product. Once they see the excitement of your idea build and get results, selling monthly SEO services will be like taking candy from a baby.

Set up a directory or niche lead gen site and see what you get. Then show the businesses your results. Small town businesses are small, because they generally think small. I agree there isn't much action within small rural towns. But you do have a captive audience, what are the residents(customers) looking for? Bring them products/services.


Why not market their products/services to a wider area? I bought a harley Vrod, and got prices around a larger metro area, then got a price from a smaller town dealer and they saved me nearly $5grand. Well worth the 3hr roundtrip drive renting a motorcycle trailer to pick up the new ride.

Selling direct mail services and co-op advertising on direct mail can make you a lot of money in your small town.

Do it right and you can quickly become the 'results' guy in town.

Can you optimize for the nearest "big" town? I grew up in the middle of no where. If I were working on a business in my hometown, I'd target the city 20 miles over. That's the county seat and the only affordable place to buy groceries, so that's where everyone assumes the businesses are anyway.

I am sure that everyone in those small towns have cellphones !
There is more people with cellphones then electricity ....

You pull out your smart phone a do a Voice Google Search for there keywords in Google Local...
Then you explain to them that is the way people search before they buy and That is the reason they need to have a listing in order to increase their business ..

Here is some mobile stats ..

1. Global smartphone use will reach 2 billion by 2015 (Bloomberg)
2. Nearly half of American smartphone owners used shopping apps in June 2012 (MarketingPilgrim)
3. 45 percent of users between 18 and 29 use mobile search daily (Icebreaker Consulting)
4. 31 percent of mobile Internet users mostly go online using cell phones (Pew 2012)
5. Across all industries, mobile traffic is increasing by 3.5 percent per month (Televox)
6. 35 percent of smartphone owners expect to access the Internet using their phone more in the future (Televox)
7. The number of local searches on mobile devices quadrupled in 2012 (Local Search Association)
8. Of the estimated 30 billion annual mobile searches, about 12 billion are local searches (Search Engine Land)
9. Tablet users access search 73.9 percent of the time, more than any other activity (eMarketer)
10. Local mobile searches (85.9 billion) are projected to exceed desktop searches (84 billion) for the fist time in 2015 (eMarketer)

Searches on mobile devices are 66% more likely to have local intent than a desktop search. Meaning people searching on mobile phones are usually looking for something around them. For example, directions to a business or a phone number to call.

I hope this helps

Good stuff here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...e-keyword.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...l-clients.html

You have to look at the type of town and business.

IS it a tourist town? If so how does that shop or restaurant get new visitors?
If so, what is it known for regionally, nationally, or internationally?

Or, are they a business that can sell product or, a travel experience, all over the world?

Best strategy and services for the particular business is always what is needed.

Google the business types you want to work with, the town name, and state and see what - if anything - you can do to get them more business.

Get the owner or decision maker talking about their business until you know what - if anything - you can do for them.

You have to understand their world before you can offer one, or several, of the many types of marketing or advertising services they need.

Dan

This is definitely one of the best threads in the offline forum. I totally agree with what all the posts have given. Great thread

Wow this went back and forth for a while.

[DELETED]

Just came across this thread, I think you have a goldmine here... most of us would love the opportunity to go back to a time before the internet was saturated and bring businesses online. You have no competition, they have no expectations. Easy close.

Nice to go through this thread.
You guys having good conversation there.
It is one of some unique threads on this forum.

Claude, thanks for taking the time and going into such detail.
You share a tremendous amount of information about yourself and
your business on this forum. I appreciate it.

You are right about the host at that event. He had the audience
primed and ready for you, and that had to help. Even though
your time was shortened.

Have you done any webinars as a speaker/guest or will the experience
be a new one for you?

You really only have two options:

1. Sell them advertising (exposure) and charge them a nice chunk 'o change.
2. Sell them leads (results) and charge them a nice chunk 'o change.

In this situation, you're probably better off selling them exposure - otherwise you are going to have to charge a lot of money per lead...and they probably won't go for it.

Hi all Here I am new please guide how I go ahead.Thanks