If you have a limited marketing or advertising budget – say less than $10K – don’t waste your money on traditional forms of advertising: the newspaper ads, the television and radio spots, the direct mail pieces. Those forms of advertising are dead. At the least I can hear their ugly gurgling death rattle with each canceled newspaper subscription and with each because-I-don’t-want-to-have-to-listen-to-the-stupid-commercials TiVo purchase.

What’s more, these ad venues are very expensive. Extremely so. A small ad in the daily paper can cost a couple of hundred dollars. And that’s just for a one-day run. If you’ve ever priced out a tv or radio spot, I’m sure you asked the rep not for a pen to sign the contract, but for some antacid to calm you stomach. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a business in Pittsburgh and your products or services are really just geared to a local market – you’re a plumber or a real estate agent, for example – you may be wondering if you should do a little web marketing. After all, you say to yourself, the Internet reaches people worldwide. You don’t need to find people in New Delhi who need a plumber, you tell yourself. You’re not looking for home buyers hoping to purchase a house in Seattle.

But don’t rule out a web marketing campaign just yet – it can be extremely cost effective to market and advertise online, even if your target market truly is Pittsburgh only. Read the rest of this entry »