Building Brand Awareness Pays Off
Make Yourself Known
One of the toughest things when starting any business is making sure people are aware that you even exist. In the domain investment industry that we are in we do tend to focus on the online part of our marketing efforts (SEO, search marketing, etc) but we sometimes forget that word of mouth is still one of the best ways to gain traction for getting real business done.
We have focused hard on making sure we have a mix of online and offline awareness campaigns and we are starting to see the results. Our account executives have been hearing more and more comments like "Oh yeah, so and so talked about the website you did for them." or "I just submitted a classified the other day on your site". Those seem like small little comments, but when you are a new business that is gold. People are talking, it spreads and if you have produced results it gets even better.
This week we have started to get unsolicited requests for various products that we offer. Once again, that comes from people hearing about us and passing our business cards around, etc. What really has made us feel good is that its not just in one community, it has been in places hundreds of miles apart.
What does this mean to my domain investor friends? It means do not overlook the the value of having offline ways to build awareness of your business. The Tour of Missouri work we did is paying off, the various seminars we have done are paying off, plus a myriad of other things that we do that we do not necessarily discuss are all coming together to help us grow our business that all started with one domain name but is now much more than just a name. The value is now the business and the brand.
Hyperlocal Online Media Acquisitions Heat Up
With the hyperlocal/community based approach to news that we have built on Missouri.me we have already started to witness the community involvment we had hoped for start to happen in various towns across the state. In those towns that either community leaders or community networkers have started to post we get additional content plus the goodwill that comes with the citizens no longer having to fight the battle to get their story out.
As many people have seen this push for hyperlocal news has caused a bit of a stir in the legacy media world as well as sites that focus on online media as they fight to determine the proper business model to approach this type of news model. As much as we love our citizen journalists on Missouri.me we also know that it does take time get these people involved on a community by community basis and as such we have not focused purely on them as our news source. And I think overall the model in the industry will be a mix of local people reporting what they consider news alongside legacy media writers doing true research journalism for indepth stories.
All that said, there have been some great stories come out this past week and month about this, here are a few stories you in the Geo domain space, or online media space in general may find interesting or useful.
I normally try not to do posts filled with links to tons of other stories but these were interesting so decided to loosen up for the day.
Hyperlocal News a $100 billion dollar market - FastCompany.com This is a great read, if you have any interest in localized/geo domains read this.
Everyblock.com Acquired by MSNBC.com - TechCrunch.com
Jeff Jarvis Creates Spreadsheet to Save Local News - TechCrunch.com
Local Yokels - Hyperlocal News Sites
AOL Buys Two Hyperlocal News Sites - AllthingsD.com
And one story about print media continuing to fall on its face (to put it bluntly): Readers Digest Goes Bankrupt
Big River Telephone Partners with Missouri.me and Localtek
Well, I can officially announce our first strategic partnership between Localtek/Missouri.me and a leading technology provider to rural communities throughout southeast Missouri.
Big River Telephone, based in Cape Girardeau, MO serves 10's of thousands of customers not only in Missouri but in several other states that we will be launching in. As part of the partnership Big River Telephone will be promoting the Localtek services along with the associated state portal, intially Missouri.me. Localtek will also be promoting Big River Telephones business Internet services to its customers.
With a long history supporting the communities they are in and with their place in the upcoming rural broadband stimulus and drive we could not of found a better partner to work with. They are targeting the exact same customers we are looking to support and help.
As part of the initial launch they have scheduled a seminar at the Career and Technology Center in Cape Girardeau for September 29th. I will be speaking to 2 groups of businesses (125 people per group) on how to help bring their businesses online and compete as broadband continues to penetrate deeper into America. In a nice twist Big River Telephone is promoting this event with TV commercials, Radio Ads, and Billboards as well as online advertising. The cost is only $20 if you are in Missouri and want to attend.
To hear the radio commercial click on this link web-advantage-radio-spot
Second .ME Geo Domain Name Launch Moving Forward
Well our first sales meeting is behind us, we filled a room with our full time sales team and a few agents that will be working with us to bring us customers. One thing that we did a little different to make a point was we actually had 2 CUSTOMERS at our sales meeting. Thats right, normally an internal sales meeting has a bit of dirty laundry that gets aired, but we were so confident that having real customer feedback would be great we invited a couple customers. Talk about giving a sales team real feedback, real time and validating what will work and what will not.
Well we had a bit of a surprise acceleration in our launch plans for state #2, we had a couple people targeted in another state that we had previous experience with and due to various reasons we were able to bring them into our "world" a little faster than planned, they made plans at the last minute and made an 8 hour trek to come to our sales meeting to make sure all was as it seemed and then signed on to manage marketing and sales for another great Geo .ME domain name. I am not announcing the state yet but we expect the intial site to be up within a few weeks and their work to start right along with that. My experience with these two individuals is long and their abilities are as good as anyone you are going to find from both an operations and sales perspective (I hate to admit it but I may of learned a thing or two from him.....). Exciting stuff.
I have had many requests in the last week for various partnerships, domain offers, etc. I will say that I am interested in partnerships on quality geo names but we will be very selective as the last thing we want to do is get distracted by a partership that may not have the sales and marketing legs behind it on the other side. With our own names we control the sales and marketing efforts and have a plan in place. Many of the partnership requests are something quite different in that our platform is what is being used while the other side will be the sales and marketing leg, that only works if they truly have that experience.
Oh yeah, a reminder, StilettoSandals.com will be on Bido auction next week:)
LocalTek Launches Innovative Internet-based Advertising Solutions for Rural America
First Market Launched Serving Over 1,000 Communities in Missouri
August 03, 2009, Desloge, MO - LocalTek, LLC, an innovator in targeted advertising solutions, announces the launch of a new, internet-based advertising medium focused on small and mid-sized businesses throughout rural America.
LocalTek was created to provide targeted marketing solutions to businesses throughout the United States and also provide a local online resource for rural communities. LocalTek provides cost effective web development, advertising, and targeted online marketing packages that virtually any business can afford. Targeted marketing solutions that normally come from three different companies can now be provided by one single source vendor, LocalTek. LocalTek brings services to rural America to let businesses compete with large corporations who have strong search marketing resources that would preempt small local businesses from competing effectively online.
LocalTek's online resource web portals will utilize the state name and the newly released ".Me" domain name extension for various markets in America. The first portal recently launched by LocalTek, Missouri.me, is currently serving over 1,000 communities in Missouri. For more information about the new .Me phenomenon, please visit www.domain.me.
"LocalTek's new approach to on-line advertising will transform the way businesses are able to cost effectively market themselves and attract new customers," said Bruce Marler, president and founder of LocalTek. "After working in corporate America for the past 15 years but still living in rural America, it became obvious that local businesses were not being offered the chance to compete fairly online. We created LocalTek and the Missouri.me concept to level the playing field. Missouri.me allows each and every community in the state to have their own online presence while LocalTek's web development and targeted marketing services provide value that cannot be matched by traditional advertising only firms, newspaper, and even radio".
Additionally, LocalTek has plans to launch service in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
About LocalTek
LocalTek provides cost effective, locally targeted, online advertising and website solutions for a variety of business types throughout the United States. LocalTek solutions are targeted at specific geographic areas, which allow businesses to focus on the customers they find most valuable. Headquartered in Desloge, Missouri, LocalTek is rapidly expanding its service offering in over 20 markets nationwide. For additional information, please visit us at www.localtek.com.
About Missouri.me
Missouri.me provides a local, online resource web portal that contains news, weather, free e-mail, classifieds and business information for most communities in Missouri. Headquartered in Desloge, Missouri, Missouri.me is a LocalTek company currently serving over 1,000 communities in Missouri with sales and marketing operations in over 114 counties. For additional information, please visit us at www.missouri.me.