Huge Growth Predicted for 2010 Local Online Advertising

[microbee]

If you’re a small business owner, you’ll identify with the following numbers and be heartened by the following forecast. First the numbers: There’s anywhere from 14 million to 22 million small businesses online in the U.S., and they spend about 83% of their online marketing budget on advertising – compared to 26% for all sizes of businesses. Yet, while all businesses spend 67% of their online dollars on advertising support, small businesses spend just 9.3%. Why such a small ratio? Because they can’t afford an agency (and its rates) to provide a listings product, PPC campaign, site development, email auto-responder, call tracking, and a significant amount of consulting (client education). Typically, the full solution needed costs $2,000 per month, but the typical small business is willing to plunk down only $500.read more



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Source: www.sys-con.com

[JohnMiller]

the full solution needed costs $2,000 per month, but the typical small business is willing to plunk down only $500

Is this the reason that many small business owners are switching from competing for expensive keyword clicks on Google to less expensive local internet advertising clicks on social networks like Facebook with lower rates, and local ppc banner advertising networks with even lower flat rates like PocketCents?

Seems as though the price per click can really be harmful when dealing with a $500 budget. If clicks are up to $5 for certain keywords on Google, you can only get 100 people to click on your advertisement, yet you could still get 500 or more locals from Facebook and even more from the local banner advertising networks.

I think local printable coupons as banner ads are going to be one of the big things this year also. It's so much cheaper to distribute a printable coupon online than to have them distributed in the mail. I'm interested to see how many of the banner ads are slowly replaced with content relative to my local area. I'm definately clicking and printing coupons from the local grocery stores, pizza places, chinese food, and any other places right down the street if I ever see them.