How to target a low income area?

Hello All,

Most of you will of seen my recent threads on different things mostly in the offline section. Why? well because ive tried internet marketing and made bits of cash here and there but I think offline is mostly where its at and where I want to focus.

So what am I doing exactly? well im targeting my County of 600k people with multiple large towns and all in reach of me.

Since I know this and know what ive learned from the other threads ive quized some business owners I know from a variety of things from hairdressers to car garages to paving stone factories to large industrial units selling signage etc. The general consensus from these people is no one will pay even 30 pound a month for things like seo as they just dont understand it and dont want to be tied down monthly.

Now note that these people ive asked know me fairly well and its not a case of being a bad salesman its a case of their opinion. They have all told me that they just simply do not understand seo and online marketing and even after explaining dont see it as a needed business expense. I even asked them about like 30 pound a month and all think its to expensive..

Most of them said directories are a good thing that they would pay for if it was about 20 a year and actually got traffic which it would

Now in the area i live in the north east of england theres not a huge 'low income' majority but it is mostly comprised of smaller shops from things such as picture frame shops to small hardware shops and all of those kind of things just small shops in general small businesses. We have the larger businesses as well and the national chains but we dont have bigger local businesses as such and its mostly as mentioned small shops.

Note that the above makes up a good 90% of my area.

How do you propose I target these places? theres also lots of fly by night businesses such as people working in factories and also doing tvs and computers and electrical and that sort of stuff.

Could I potentially make as much money by selling more lower priced goods as they would be easier to shift?

I previously lived in australia where it was much different.

Thanks.

I don't have any experience in this field, but from what I've been reading:

Are you able to explain how being page 1 gives traffic? Try and give them some numbers and ROI based talk if you haven't already done so.

Provide case studies?

If you do review management, try targeting ones that need help, then upselling SEO.

yes I have but most have the ignorant attitude of I dont understand and I dont care.

It may just be these few people ive asked but I really dont know. How do you all corner people? pictures of statistics etc?

Its a numbers game. I am on the south coast of England and i get it all the time down here. I try and explain how many searches a term related to there business gets and how being on page 1 of Google, say in Google Places, that traffic will convert into customers. On one occasion when i was told it was a waste of time, i pulled up 4 of his competitors listed on page 1 and said if its a waste of time why are your competitors doing it? I also compare what i am charging on a monthly basis to what they pay for local newspaper advertising (its normally a lot higher).
Finally i do a 3 month rolling contract so they are not tied to a long term relationship. You can normally show them improvements after the first six weeks (especially if you pick a low compitition keyword ).
Keep plugging on, i am and slowly getting a good customer base. Once you get one who is happy, ask him to give you a testimonial so you can show satisfied customers who you have helped.

Thanks for the input dragon.

You know what the north east is like its worse then down south but im sure I can some how make it work. I also looked at 3 month contracts and have an ipad to show them competition.

Any other advice you have found works for you?. Are you making a living with this? and what roughly do you charge and for what?.

In this case, build a local business directory and sell them online advertising in the same manner they are used to. Display their banner ad or iframe in their site, charge like a print advertiser. Track the links and send them a report each month, something print advertisers can't do. Do seo for your site pages based on the service it covers regardless of who advertizes there.

hist0ry said:

Thanks for the input dragon.

You know what the north east is like its worse then down south but im sure I can some how make it work. I also looked at 3 month contracts and have an ipad to show them competition.

Any other advice you have found works for you?. Are you making a living with this? and what roughly do you charge and for what?.

Click to expand...

I am not just doing one thing, you shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket as has been said on here many times. I do web design, Google Places, Affiliate Marketing, writing and other stuff.
My charges vary depending on what niche the business is in, what competition there is, difficulty of keywords chosen etc.
A few outsource there Google Places work to me also, what i charge them depends on what they have charged there client as well as the other factors mentioned above.
I can give you a more detailed breakdown if you want to PM me. As i said before...DO NOT UNDERCHARGE JUST TO GET THE JOB!

You're offering a service that these people don't understand, so you need to finesse the angle such that they DO understand. They don't understand SEO? Fine, do they understand bad reviews? Probably! Find businesses with poor reviews online. If you know them, call them and tell them look, you have just read too many negative things about them online to not offer to help, because you know their service isn't bad.

Then follow tips from http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/offline-marketing/354896-22-letters-17-000-profit-3-weeks.html and make a killing.

Pay kids to hand out massive amounts of flyers ?
THey will do that for pennies to the dollars

With a shotgun.

Sorry couldn't resist!