April 14th, 2014 
This post shows how a business owner should integrate his/her online marketing strategy to the recent and remarkable change in consumer behaviour.
Previously, before the Internet revolutionized marketing, consumers trusted in traditional media such as local newspapers, TV and radio stations to find local products and services.
Today we can say that the Internet has beaten yellow pages and newspapers as a primary source for local consumer service information. Due to the technological development of the Internet as well as of the PC and mobile devices, consumers can use search engines like Google to find local products and services online. Figure 1 below shows how consumers find local businesses on the Internet.
Figure 1. How Consumers Find Local Businesses
Revolutionary Change in Consumer Behaviour
This year of 2014 a significant milestone is reached, when over 50% of all local searches are performed on mobile devices i.e. on smartphones and tablets. Please see the figure 1 below. This is good news for local business owners, because people perform these searches when they are on the road.
Figure 2. Mobile and Desktop Internet Users
This revolutionary change in the consumer behaviour is sensible to take into account when planning your online marketing strategy. It is more efficient and less expensive to advertise on the Internet compared to traditional newspaper advertising. Why is it so?
Online Vs. Newspaper Advertising
Firstly, online advertising is efficient, because it is continuous 24 hours a day and 7 days a week activity. In addition, it reaches consumers wherever they are with their devices. Compared to this, traditional newspaper advertising can reach consumers only when they get a newspaper where you have placed an ad.
Secondly, online advertising is versatile with multimedia content i.e. it includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video or interactivity content forms. When we compare this kind of rich content marketing to newspaper ads, it is easy to see how superior online advertising is. Old-fashioned newspaper ads do not offer such a versatility of features.
Thirdly, online advertising is less expensive than newspaper ads. We can say that it is very cost-effective, in other words it produces good results without costing a lot of money.
For example, if you place a one-time full page ad in the Dublin Gazette we are talking about a price range from €1550 (1 title) to €6100 (7 titles).
How do these prices compare to our services i.e. what would you get from us for the prices? The following comparison does not provide exact prices of our services, rather it gives a general idea.
Example 1. The Dublin Gazette Advertising Vs. DotComSecrets Local Services
The Dublin Gazette, 1 Full Page Ad in 1 Title for €1550
DotComSecrets Local Services for €1550
- WP Mobile Responsive Website, 5 Pages, Theme Based
- SEO Basic, 3 Keywords for 4 Months
Example 2. The Dublin Gazette Advertising Vs. DotComSecrets Local Services
The Dublin Gazette, 1 Full Page Ad in 7 Titles for €6100
DotComSecrets Local Services for €6100
- WP Mobile Responsive Website, 5 Pages, Custom
- SEO Mobile 5 Keywords for 7 Months
- Intermediate Local Buzz for 6 Months
- LinkedIn Marketing – Small for 4 Months
As you can see from the rough price comparison above, online marketing satisfies all the before-mentioned criterions of efficiency, outreach, versatility and cost-effectiveness.
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