Localizing a User's Web Experience - Scenario Two & Benefits

Localizing your website simply adds to the users experience.  This is now recognized by many of the largest consumer product companies and retailers.  There are still many companies that don't recognize the opportunity of localization.  This is the second in series of Localization Scenarios (click here to read 'Scenario One').

Let's expand on the biggest benefit of Localization, in my opinion - the ability to partner with community businesses.

We will again use Hardware / Home Improvement chains in our example as their opportunities are easiest to for everyone to understand IMO.

As mentioned in "Scenario One", partnering with local contractors / professionals is already done through these stores at the "Contractor's Desk".  Let's take that same concept and transfer it to the website.  Use Lowe's as an example; on the lumber pages 'partner' (feature) companies that build decks, local carpenters and/or handymen; on the plumbing page, feature plumbers; or on the electrical components page feature electricians.  This adds to the localization of the Lowe's and demonstrates greater partnership with the community.  Best of all, it's a chargeable service (advertising) to the partners (give it away if you want).  The incremental revenue opportunity is huge (think of ALL THE LOCALS - EVERYWHERE). 

• Gardening Pages: Landscapers, Gardening Architects and Lawn Maintenance
• Insect Control: Pest Control Companies
• Plumbing: Plumbers
• Kitchen Renovation: Renovation Contractors
• Shingles and gutters: Roofers, Guttering Companies.

Use your imagination here - opportunities are limitless. and collaboration creates winners. If you do not get it, call me; if you do, feel free to steal it and make the local Internet world a better place - Net Better.

And Remember:

Clicks Cost Customers

See The Following Articles in this Series
Pre

Localizing a User's Web Experience - Scenario One & Benefits

Post

Localizing a User's Web Experience - Utopia or Just the Future

Consulting Online Localization

Bob Leonard561-371-4113 (Call My Cell)
512-593-8830 (in Austin)

EDDM is a services provided by all LightsOn / Time4 offices.

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Advertising: That Works - That Does Not Work - Case 2: Having a "Blue Light" Special When No One is in the Store

So here I go dating myself again.  K-Mart used to have unannounced, impulsive-like sales in an attempt to both clear slow moving product and/or create an exciting experience for the shopper.

Modern Look of a
Blue Light Special

K-Mart would have Blue Light Specials at peak traffic times in the store - they created a sense of excitement and urgency in the store which brought more people into the store.  Everyone's heads would pop up when they heard "K-Mart Shoppers, we're holding a Blue Light Special in Housewares - 75% off.... for the next 10 minutes". OK.... We had no life in the 70s.... OK.!

I learned from these E-Ticket experiences (cough) that advertising is about getting to a group of people in your target market - both; and good advertising for you is never cheap, but at the same time, it is never too expensive.  The real cost of advertising is based on the return it provides.

"Doing business without advertising

is like winking at a girl in the dark;

 you know what you are doing

but nobody else does" - Stuart Henderson Britt

Advertising is not a generic product and there is a plethora of good choices - Pick the best one for you.

Avoid ROP* packaged buys as you will be packaged into slots where no one reads/listens/watches bringing down your cost per ad in the package.  They sound real good because your cost per ad is so much lower, but in reality, what you are buying is dead air.

After you have found the advertising opportunity that seems to fit your business's needs (verified because you ask people if they read/watch/listen to it and when), test it and then ask people if they saw it.

Remember, K-Mart never held a Blue Light Special for an empty store.

~B

ROP Definition: "Run Of Paper" is an advertising term used by newspapers referring to an advertisement that may be placed anywhere within the paper.  Similar acronyms are used in other mediums meaning the same thing.

E-Ticket

Read Case One - Advertising: That Works - That Does Not Work - Case 1: Our Restaurant is Empty on Tuesday Nights.

Age sucks; am I the only person that remembers what an E-Ticket was?

Advertising: That Works - That Does Not Work - Case 1: Our Restaurant is Empty on Tuesday Nights.

There are as many reasons why advertising works as there are why it does not work.  Each article will contain one case; welcome to Case One.

Case One:

• You own a restaurant; it is busy on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
• Objective: Create a larger Tuesday and Wednesday crowd.

I gotta find out why everyone
 waits in line for their Pizza.

Suggested Approach: Your first thought may be to promote specials, immediate seating, or no-reservations-necessary in your advertising for the slack times.  This type of ad says to me "Hey come buy something no one wants - no line to wait in".  A better alternative would be to create more demand during your busy time creating lines at the door - making your restaurant a destination.  People that finally get seated learn how good your restaurant is and thus visit it more frequently (ie: Tuesday and Wednesdays).  People that are either impatient or won't stand in line in the first place are curious to the mystique of what is so special about that place; they stop at the first opportunity of no line.

The moral here is that Good Advertising does not sell bad product or product no one else wants.

~B

Read Case Two: Advertising: That Works - That Does Not Work - Case 2: Having a "Blue Light" Special When No One is in the Store

Localization - It's about Much More Than Printing.

Let's make this country a better place and there is no better place to start than in our own hometowns.

As anyone who follows this blog or knows the Time4 and LightsOn initiative; it is quite simple: Make Our Customer Succeed.  We are all about recreating local in a world that knows more about a Jersey Shore celebrity than their own neighbor.  Lets fix this by starting in our own home town.  The following three past articles give some background to this idea.

• Collaborative Marketing Efforts Make The Impossible - Probable. 
• Followup on "Who Me, Who Three - Fixing the Local Print Business" Can the Local Printer Survive?
• The Post Offices (USPS) Encore or the Beginning of the End

Over the last couple months we have been testing our "Buy. Eat. Live. Local." concept with the purpose of moving "Buy Local" from a lip service to a way of life - our lives and our future.  We have made the objective of "Buy. Eat. Live. Local." a product (evolving as it is) to help communities across the country by providing it to local entrepreneurs who, most importantly, live there, work there and buy there.  Have you ever been there?

"Buy. Eat. Live. Local." is the coming together of many environmental, business, social and economic factors.  One of the biggest factors is the forth coming re-urbanization of America over the next 20-30 years which I will be writing about extensively.  For those as old as I, think about it as Megatrends 2013.

How well grasped is this concept?

Here is the Town of Windham Maine's ad - a paid ad - giving 10 reasons why this just makes sense.  So Shop Smart and Shop Local.

 ....and here is what we say:

”Natural Communities Form Around Community and Commerce Centers”.

Buy. Eat. Live. Local

In almost all cases your Windham merchant will provide
Better Service at a Better Price with Less Hassle.

Why?  You know them – They depend on Windham people and they live in Windham.

Buy. Eat. Live. Local and watch Windham grow.

 This is not a concept coming to your home town, it's already there !!!