Online and search engine marketing offer local companies enormous potential for winning new customers.
A classic example of this is searching a restaurant on a trip. Imagine you are on a business trip in a foreign city. After an appointment you are getting hungry. Since none of your friends and colleagues could recommend you a restaurant, you ask your smartphone. The local search will immediately give you a few hits. An italian restaurant in your immediate vicinity seems interesting. With one click you can check their website. But it is obviously not optimized for your smartphone and you can’t find the menu or any pictures of the restaurant or the served food. Facebook only shows you a very pixelated and too large background image of the company page. Different logos are used on different channels. You will find an listing on Google Maps, but there is a different address than on Yelp. On TripAdvisor you’ll find a two-out-of-five star rating and the comment “Weak staff image, loveless food”. Would you visit such a restaurant?