AdGrinder

Location, Location, Location

- said by many…
…most recently my father

There is a difference between marketing and branding.  Fortune 500 companies, in the main, are in the branding business.  Whether it be Coke, McDonald’s or Starbucks, the focus of their advertising is to simply show you the brand.  Keep the brand in your face.  Make sure that sometime during your waking hours you have a chance to view their brand, recognize their brand, or associate with their brand.  According to AdAge, McDonald’s Corp. spent over $1.1B on advertising in 2007, and that is far from the top of the list.

For the rest of us, the 501+ as we call them, it’s about marketing.  It’s not about just reminding the public of our brand, it’s about getting them in our stores, using our product, and spending money directly with us.  It’s an important distinction that small- and mid-sized businesses know all too well.  Even with a down economy, this group of advertisers is still spending money on ad budgets.  The reason?  They have to.  They have to reach their audience, and have buyers of their product or service, simply to feed their families.  According to a March 2007 article, John Kelsey, CEO of Kelsey Group, stated:

“Over 50% of SMBs that advertise will include vertical or specialized directories, print and online, as part of the advertising mix. - Why? Vertical or specialized directories will increasingly be considered the most effective media and ad budgets to vertical or specialized directories will grow..”

I think that number is soft.  It’s not over 50%…it’s just about all of them.  Small- and mid-sized businesses always target their local neighborhoods (specialized directories).  They want to search out effective advertising opportunities in their own community, or have the ability to reach those who are expressly interested in what they have to offer.

Content creators need to take notice of this, and act upon it, if they want to survive during the economic downturn.  Those who offer advertising on their site need to find ways to give the 501+ the access to their need.  The local advertiser, most likely, isn’t interested in your total audience, just the segment of your audience that can use their product or service.  And, luckily enough, that is what the viewer wants as well. Ultimately,  viewers are more apt to act on local advertisers.  

These realities offer incredible financial rewards for content creators.  Using AdGrinder, you can give your advertisers, and your viewers, exactly what they want – advertisers and viewers that are relevant to each other.  By doing so, the content creator provides themselves a huge opportunity.  

Usually, a content creator takes one or two advertisers, and plays their ad as pre- or post-roll.  By offering geo-targeted local advertising to the 501+, a content creator can now offer the same post-roll space to multiple advertisers.  They can charge a smaller fee, but take in far more revenue.  After all, isn’t that what the Long Tail is all about?

By giving the viewer what they want, and at the same time giving the advertiser what they need, the content creator makes everyone happy, and far more money.  Does it really get better than that?

Keep on Grinding!

Josh and Tony