THE ISSUE OF LOCAL VS INTERNET ADVERTISING

Imagine if your Radio rep sold you a schedule and then posted one rep in the parking lot to see who came to see your sale and another at your cash register, writing down the names and addresses of each customer the advertising attracted and what they bought, when they bought, etc. and then advertised that list for sale…to you…and your competition?  

You’re laughing, right?

You shouldn’t be.  That’s exactly what Facebook, Google, and other sites do. 

This is a big issue for local advertisers who are currently being wooed by digital advertising/social media platforms, etc.  And for radio and TV stations who are being told they 'need' to move more of their customers dollars onto digital platforms.  

So...you move your local budget from radio -- which reaches your local clients well and efficiently for the dollars spent (in fact the ROI on radio is about $8:$1) -- to digital, like Facebook or a website or email campaign:    

The pitch is...your clients are online an obscene number of hours and you can buy your way onto Facebook and other pages they look at. But here is what digital is actually doing.  They are asking you to ask your customers to transact on the digital landscape....where they can pull all the info about them -- what they buy, when they buy, what offers you make that they like -- and re-sell it.  You will get some data if you pay for it, but often the good stuff gets sold to bigger digital customers – your competition both on and off-line.

There is really no such thing as 'your' Facebook page, Mr. and Mrs. Local Businessman. They are all Facebook's pages.  You just decorate them and fill them with enticing content for Facebook's benefit.  You can't even push your Facebook posts to your own followers unless you pay Facebook for a ‘boost’.

Some industry groups -- like car makers -- are demanding that local dealers put more dollars into digital and less into local radio, or TV. They want dealers to believe it's because digital will make them more money.  But it is really because when customers go to a dealer website that is set up by the car maker, the car maker can skim the customer info off and then they can contact the customer directly.  And the car maker charges the local dealer for the cost of this transfer.  Neat.

The best way to protect your relationship with your local customer is to advertise regularly with a medium that brings your customers to you...not your competition. 

Sheila Callahan
Mountain Broadcasting