~ special report for local business owners ~
Consumers by the MULTI MILLIONS are turning to the Internet to find, evaluate, and make local business buying decisions.
Will you be there to greet them?
Effectively?
Or will your competitors be there ready, willing, and able to erode YOUR business into OBLIVION?
Dear local business owner,
Frankly, I was a little shocked when I learned the truth — over half the local businesses in the United States still do not have a web site.
And out of the businesses that do have a site, the vast majority of them have online marketing programs that are far from being as effective and automated as they should be.
Meanwhile, consumers are turning to the web for information on local businesses at an increasingly rapid pace.
Fully 25% of all searches — over one billion a month — are now locally focused.
That’s huge. And local search is just starting to catch on.
It’s a lot like digital photography was a few years back. It started slow, but once everyone got used to the new technology the change was amazingly rapid — rapid enough to leave some very large photographic equipment and supply companies bankrupt!
However, for other companies who saw the change coming and positioned themselves for it, business has boomed.
Every now and then a “window of opportunity” opens up and creates a bonanza for those who see it first...
As Mark Twain said, the secret to easy wealth is to figure out where everyone is going and get there first.
Well, in the very near future “everyone” will be going to the Internet to locate and find information on local businesses.
They’ll type “shoes in Spudville Idaho” into a search engine and expect to get results on who’s selling shoes in Spudville.
The businesses who show up in a meaningful way, will get the jump on the sale and will be seen as more reputable.
This is actually happening now in a major way, but the big news is, the vast majority of local businesses have failed to show up on the Internet in a way that will take maximum advantage of the opportunity.
Now, in all fairness, there are actually some very good reasons why local businesses haven’t jumped on the Internet “bandwagon” like they should.
For one, up until now, it hasn’t been critical.
In the past, the vast majority of consumers weren’t looking for local businesses online, nor did they expect local businesses to have an online presence. In fact, in the past, getting people to the web sites of local businesses took a bit of work.
But all that is changing — fast!
If your business is dependent on the Yellow Pages or other offline directories be prepared for a rude shock.
Offline directories like the Yellow Pages are just no match for what the Internet can provide consumers.
With local online search, customers can find you, learn about you — effectively becoming “pre-sold”!!! — plus, if you have a physical store, they can get store hours, maps to your store, and much more.
Side benefit — this cuts down on routine “when do you open” and “how do I get there” phone calls. It also allows you to reach out and sell 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
But the reality is this — Costs for Yellow Page ads and other print advertising are up and readership is flat to decreasing at best.
So your paying more for less. This trend will continue.
But online, it’s just the opposite. For local businesses, opportunities are opening up that are incredibly cheap, even free!
Most local businesses, however, don’t know what they are or how to really take advantage of them.
Google, Yahoo, and other search providers are aggressively building local online search capabilities, and once consumers catch on to the benefits, there is no going back. And if you know how to get yourself properly listed as a local business in the search engines, there is a bonanza to be had.
Yes, local search is becoming huge, and rich rewards are flowing to those who can master the tricks of the system. Truth is, it’s really pretty easy if you know how.
But showing up in the search engines is only a small part of the “battle.” Getting online effectively requires a broad set of unique set of skills which is another reason why local businesses have been slow to fully reap the benefits of online marketing.
For example...
You need to know how to design a business system that will attract prospects and convert them to customers the “online” way.
You need to know how to stake out and protect your online “real estate” properly.
You need to have the technical skills to develop and maintain a web presence — or — you need to be able to hire and manage someone who has the skills you need without getting ripped off (this is a big problem in the online world — one company we know of paid $17,000 for a web presence that should have cost a few hundred bucks...ouch!)
You need to know the best methods to get the right people to your site profitably (you can really waste a lot of money here, but if you do it right, the results can be truly golden.)
You need to know the best ways to convert prospects to paying customers either right there online, or by getting them to call, or driving them to your store.
You need to know what software is available to automate the process (being able to personalize and automate your marketing is one of the really “cool” features of online marketing) — and —
You need to know, and comply with, the legal requirements and liabilities of having a commercial online presence.
And that’s just a “short list” of a few major categories of what you need to know.
Beyond that, there’s a whole world of little nit-pickin’ details along with a few land mines, booby traps, and other assorted dead ends waiting for you as you try to maneuver through the rather messy online marketing landscape.
So it’s no wonder that many local businesses haven’t taken on the challenge of marketing online.
And why the ones who have, aren’t utilizing the web to its fullest potential.
It’s also why so many local businesses have fallen prey to outright scams — or just as bad — well-intentioned people who don’t know what they’re doing.
Both are carcinogenic to your business and the only way to avoid these types of major, expensive, and sometimes fatal, business mistakes is to arm yourself with the right information.
On the “information highway” knowledge is power.
Why all of this is an immediate opportunity for you...
The fact that marketing online can be confusing, complicated, time consuming, and hugely expensive if you don’t do it right is a very, very, good thing because it puts up a nice barrier for the people who are too lazy and cheap to get the help they need to do it right.
OK, let’s get one thing straight before we continue — simply putting up a web site is not online marketing. I could point you to at least a couple dozen resources where you can slap up a site almost instantly for less than pocket change. But unless you combine that with traffic generation strategies, conversion strategies and systems that can automate the entire process you won’t be getting the benefits you should, and you may even be doing yourself more harm that good.
With the right systems, however...
You will be in the right place at the right time when your prospects and customers are looking for you online.
You can reach many more prospects than you could before at lower costs.
You and build credibility and “pre sell” or fully sell online with no extra effort on your part.
You’ll be able to streamline customer service, while at the same time, building a superior relationship with your customers.
You can put your marketing on virtual “autopilot.”
You can expand the geographical reach of your business (in some cases, to even national or global markets).
You can compete with much larger businesses — good online marketing isn’t expensive, it’s a game of skill, and it truly is an “equalizer” for those who know the right way to play the game.
You’ll look “reputable” — let’s face it, not having an online presence is quickly becoming the equivalent of not have a phone!
How to get your business on the fast track to easy online success...
Back in the days of Lewis and Clark, getting to the American West took a very special person. Travel was tough.
These days, however, there’s a superhighway and you can travel the same routes quickly and easily. All you need is an accurate map.
It’s very much the same with the Internet. We’re past the difficult pioneer days — but — you can still get lost on the “back roads” if you don’t have the right “map.”
And the problem with that is, until now, there’s never been a complete and clear map on how local businesses can make full and effective use of the Internet.
Sure, there’s been a few “pieces of the puzzle” laying around.
For example, you can get plenty of e-books on how to get your site ranked highly in the search engines.
A little bit of a warning here — there are some good books on this subject and some bad ones. Some of this type of information focuses on “tricks” that may work for a while, but can end up getting you banned from the search engines — which is why you need the straight up-to-date scoop on this!
But let’s just say you do pick up a great book on getting free traffic from the search engines, it works, and you get a bunch of traffic coming to your site.
Well, unless you have all the other “parts” in place — a well thought out system that automatically handles the traffic and converts them to customers — your “online marketing efforts” will be like placing the front end of your car up against a brick wall and stepping on the gas... you’ll make a lot of smoke and noise, but you won’t be going anywhere!
And that’s why we’ve created the Local Online Marketing Association’s Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center — we don’t want you to be “spinning your wheels.” We want you to be a survivor in the local online marketing “war.”
And rest assured it is a “war.” The rules have changed.
Your business is now subjected to being “reviewed” on local review sites, openly, and by anybody and everybody... do you know what’s being said about you and how to deal with it?
Right now people are online looking for what you offer... do you know how force them to find you?
Smart businesses owners are boosting sales — practically for free — by using e-mail... do you know how to effectively and legally use this powerful media?
Some web sites are totally ineffective, others get people to take positive action... do you know the difference and why?
These are just some of the things you will learn about in the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center.
Let’s take a look and what else you’ll learn...
Special note — The Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center are a powerful combo that consists of a manual you can download and print or access on your own computer and an online member-only web site.
And you’ll know how to proceed step-by-step to implement your plan.
Here’s a sampling of what you’ll learn from this comprehensive Guide and Command Center...
How to build an integrated online and offline marketing system that automatically attracts prospects and turns them into customers! It all starts with designing the right system for your business. If you don’t get this right, not much else will matter and this is one of the things almost no one teaches or pays attention to!
How to stake out your own online “turf.” Getting set up online is easy, but there are some big “booby traps” you’ll want to avoid when establishing your presence online! And if you’re already online, you want to check up on a few things so you don’t wake up one morning to find that your web presence “disappeared overnight” like what happened to one company we know (one simple oversight probably cost them many thousands of dollars!).
Web site design. How people react to, and flow through, your site is critically important, and in this major section of the guide we’ll cover in detail the elements of web design that you’ll want to pay close attention to — from layout, to navigation, to readability, to color schemes, to optimized graphics and more — whether you’re doing it yourself or working with a designer.
Web design, by the way, isn’t an art form it’s a science and there are a lot of things we know from tracking traffic and watching behaviors that we will pass along to you. Plus we’ll show you how to put your own tracking systems in place so you can adapt your site to your customers behaviors!
How to deal with outside vendors. We’ll also tell you what to watch out for and how to deal with web designers and programmers who do like to think of web design as a “creative” endeavor, and in the process, take the “sales” out of your site.
And they’ll charge you a ton to do it — you really do need to be careful when working with outside service providers. We’ve seen people paying as much as $17,000 for services that should have cost a few hundred bucks. Yes, the online sharks are circling and we’re going to show you how not to feed them!
Legal considerations — learn how to protect yourself and comply with online regulations like COPPA and the Can Spam Act. Online marketing has its own set of “rules” and there are a few legal documents every website should have. They’re easily obtained. You just need to know which ones you need and where to get them.
Optimize your site to get free targeted traffic. Free prospects from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN is the sweetest of all deals if you can get it, and in this section, we’ll tell you in detail the ins and outs of setting your site up to attract free search engine traffic. We’ll also cover what you shouldn’t do — the things that can get you banned or sent to search engine “oblivion!”
Free listings and directories. Getting listed in local search engines and directories is one of the fastest and most effective things you can do for your online marketing program — if you know where to go and what to do.
In fact, you can utilize this technique even if you don’t have a web site. And the best part is, some of the highest-quality listings are totally free.
But take note, getting listed involves more than just listing yourself. There are things you can do to greatly enhance the effectiveness of your listing and almost none of the businesses out there are doing it! You’ll want to jump on this one immediately!
Paid listings. Are they worth it? We’ll give you some things to consider before popping for a paid listing!
Pay-per-click advertising. This can bring you some of the best and most targeted traffic you’ll ever enjoy and you can “turn it on” (and off) in a matter of minutes. But you’ll really need to know the “ropes” on this one. Ultimately, it’s a simple process, but there’s a mind-boggling array of options, and unless you have a good guide to help through the process, you can blow through a lot of wasted cash fast.
Joint ventures and tapping into other people’s lists. There’s some real gold here if you know where to look and how to ask!
Banner and other advertising. Should you use this type of advertising? Is it effective? Banners were once the king of Internet advertising, we’ll give the latest word on these types of ads.
Blogs and RSS feeds. They’re all the rage, but should you add them to your marketing mix? We’ll give you the pros and cons.
How to build an online list you can extract money from over and over. This is where most local businesses completely miss the boat. And that’s too bad because this boat is loaded with cash and that’s why we’ll be talking to you about list building throughout the Indispensable Guide Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center! Neat thing — it can all be automated.
E-mail marketing. If you build an online list, you’ll be using e-mail for a good part of your marketing. E-mail is a very effective way to market, but recently it’s gotten a lot tougher to get your message through. To make e-mail marketing work for you, you’ll need to know how to get your e-mails delivered past the spam filters, how to get them opened and read, and how to comply with state and federal laws that regulate the use of e-mail for commercial purposes.
How to automate everything. This is where the Internet really shines. Your entire system can be automated which means you can be attracting and collecting prospects and converting them to customers, automatically, all day, all night, all year, and all while you’re doing something else!
How to test and track everything. How would you like to have a marketing system that’s constantly improving itself? With the testing and tracking techniques you’ll learn in the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center you can. With the Internet, it doesn’t matter much where you start your marketing — just get started and let your prospects and customers tell you what they want. With testing and tracking you don’t have to guess!
Tools and resources. The Internet runs on computers and software and one overlooked marketing “edge” is being savvy about the technology you use. Weeding through all the options to find the best solutions for your needs, however, can be time consuming and expensive when you make a mistake. Let the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center point you to the best resources...
Get your local business on the fast track to online success — your only one click away from getting the information you need to get your online marketing program started or to take it to the next level — Enroll in the LOMA Online Success Course now!
The Loma Online Success Course includes...
Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing (large printable e-manual gives you the online marketing fundamentals every local business owner needs to know!)
Access to the Online Command Center (one year of access to extensive action guides, articles, and handy links to resources)
Quick Start Action Guide
(nine simple steps to get your online marketing started quickly, easily, inexpensively, and effectively!)
How to get an effective web site up an running the fast, easy, and inexpesive way
Let the LOMA Online Success Course show you how to literally “click your way to online success” from anywhere on the planet with an internet connection!...
Enroll Now!
While Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing gives you the all-important foundation for marketing your business online, the Online Marketing Command Center gives you the up-to-date nitty gritty information and resources you need to make it all happen. And since it is actually online, we are constantly updating and adding to it.
You’ll find...
How to and step-by-step guides
How to videos
Links to important web sites
Reviews and links to resource, tools and marketing software
Case studies
In depth articles on everything from search engine marketing, to web building to conversion strategies and much more...
The Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center is like have a team of $500-an-hour consults on call waiting to take care of your Internet market needs “on the fly” exactly when you need the help. And whether you’re a novice or advanced marketer, you’ll be able to jump right in at the right level and get the expert help you need.
Yes, of course there’s a whole lot more to the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center than what’s described in the “short list” above, but I think you have a pretty good idea that we’ve put together the most complete, no-nonsense guide to effectively marketing a local business online.
You may, however, be wondering...
Exactly what is the Local Online Marketing Association anyway?...
Well, it started out as a printed manual about 10 years ago. Now, a printed manual is a great way to lay out the essential foundation you need to be successful in marketing online. But the world of Internet marketing can be fast paced. Things change fast online and you need an ongoing information pipeline that’s as agile and dynamic as the Internet itself. So an online portion was added, so you can keep up with the latest developments and best practices.
More recently, we realized there needs to be a comprehensive “clearinghouse" of ideas and information for local online marketers and the Local Online Marketing Association was born.
Why should you listen to us?
As you probably know, there’s no shortage of “Internet marketing” information floating around the planet.
Unfortunately, almost none of it is geared towards small local businesses, and even worse, the bulk of it is has been created by people who have never run a real business selling real products and services.
The only thing they’ve sold is information about marketing!
And even when you do happen to find something good, it’s just not particularly relevant to local businesses. Most often, what you get is a hodge-podge of ideas and techniques with no clue on how to put them to use in a finely-tuned marketing system that works on a local level.
Or you get the information dribbled out to you month after month, when you really need it all NOW!
Or you get it thrown at you at some live seminar faster than you can absorb it.
None of that is particularly helpful.
The Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center is a little different...
First of all, it has been created by two well-seasoned business people who have successfully sold millions of dollars of real products and services (not just Internet marketing information!) on and off the Internet and they’ve done it on local, national, and international levels.
But the best part is this — we have put the best-of-the-best online marketing ideas and techniques into an easy-to-understand and implement system.
A system that will get you ahead of the pack and keep you there, yet won’t eat up all your time or make you nuts with a lot of technical details you don’t need to know.
In fact, once you set things up, you can let much of it roll in the background on “autopilot.”
You see, if anyone knows how busy a small business person can get with normal day-to-day activities and how many “hats” you need to wear as a small business person, it’s us. And the last thing we want to do is to bog you down with something that’s too time-consuming or difficult to implement.
Sorry if this is a little “blunt,” but your only choice is getting a jump on the “Internet thing” now
— the right way! —
or scrambling like a maniac to catch up later, provided it isn’t too late...
The Internet is an incredibly exciting place to do business. Done right, it can provide you and your family with a whole new standard of living. Ignored, it can deal your business and your lifestyle a severe “body blow.”
The real question is, how to you get started and make this dynamic marketplace work for you, and that’s what the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center is all about! It’s crammed packed with the information you need to put your online marketing on a major “roll.”
You could go to $3,000 Internet marketing seminars and purchase $1,000+ Internet marketing courses and not get the exacting, detailed, and complete solution that’s delivered to you in the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center (I know because I’ve been to the seminars and bought the courses!). I can wholeheartedly guarantee that.
Three grand for this information, by the way, would be cheap compared to the business you’re losing right now by not fully taking effective advantage of the opportunities that the Internet offers you.
Three grand is also cheap compared to the money you’ll waste by trying to go it alone — being the “lone ranger” — and trying to figure it out for yourself.
And $3,000 is a downright bargain compared to the money you can waste by hiring the wrong web designer, Internet marketing firm, the wrong hosting service, or by bungling a pay-per-click campaign on Google or Yahoo.
Three grand would be a bargain, but we’re not going to charge you anywhere near that much. In fact, we’re not even going to charge you what it would cost for a short hour of consulting with any decent consultant.
By the way, we have asked business owners what they thought we should charged for this, and the prices ranged from $1-$5,000.
But, for the moment, we’re not even going to charge the $1,000 “lowest price” — the current cost for the entire Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center and access to the Online Command Center for one year is only $397.
Why? Because we want to make this powerful “playing field leveling information ” accessible to even a “struggling” business.
You see, nothing makes us happier than to hear how a small business operating on a “shoe string budget” used online marketing to kick the butt of a much larger, but complacent and stuck-in-the-mud organization.
So for now, the $397 stands, but we may, and we probably will, raise this price in the very near future.
How much extra business would it take to recoup a $397 investment? Heck, you’ll probably save that much just by getting to the right resources we recommend. And frankly, if you value your time at more than a 50¢ an hour, the short cuts to online success we'll hand you will more than cover your investment in very short order.
Get your local business on the fast track to online success — your only one click away from getting the information you need to get your online marketing program started or to take it to the next level — Enroll in the LOMA Online Success Course now!
The Loma Online Success Course includes...
Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing (large printable e-manual gives you the online marketing fundamentals every local business owner needs to know!)
Access to the Online Command Center (one year of access to extensive action guides, articles, and handy links to resources)
Quick Start Action Guide
(nine simple steps to get your online marketing started quickly, easily, inexpensively, and effectively!)
How to get an effective web site up an running the fast, easy, and inexpesive way
Let the LOMA Online Success Course show you how to literally “click your way to online success” from anywhere on the planet with an internet connection!...
Enroll Now!
>>> NO RISK GUARANTEE <<<
We want to make this a “no-brainer” for you and we don’t want you to risk a dime. If you’re unhappy with any part of the program in any way just return your manual within 90 days and we’ll refund your money.
As you can see, we’ve tried to remove every barrier to your online success.
And please, do let us know about your success. The success we’re confident you’re going to have.
It’s important to Fred and me. The choices of businesses we could have created, or gotten involved with, are endless.
We chose this one out of a sincere desire to help local businesses master the power of the Internet. And the best payment we can get is hearing about how the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center helped you!
Yours for online success,
Jeff Farr and Fred Waters
Acquire the Indispensable Guide Local Online Marketing and Online Command Center Now!
The printable Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing is a large manual that will give you the essential “big picture.” You wouldn’t build a house without a plan, yet, that’s how most people try to build their marketing systems. Consequently they end up with a “roof” before they’ve built the “walls.” A little time with the Indispensable Guide to Local Online Marketing will keep you from making those kinds of mistakes, and by the time you’re finished, you’ll know more about marketing a local business on the Internet than 99% of business owners. 