An experience I had this weekend got me thinking about the importance of local Internet marketing.

Saturday, I wanted to take my car somewhere to have a new stereo put in. Work Media is based in Nashville, but I live in a little town called Dickson. There is no big chain store to have such a service performed. So I did an online search for a car stereo retailer/installer in Dickson. I found two results. According to information I found, one of the businesses had a web site and a MySpace page. The other dealer had nothing other than an address in Google Local. Intuitively, you might think that I would automatically gravitate toward the business with the web site. But that was not the case.

When I tried to visit the business’ web site, it appeared that the domain name had expired and had been purchased by someone who put up a generic web page with car stereo-related links. When I went to the business’ MySpace page, I found a couple of quotes that said something about wanting my money. There was little information about the business. I was very turned off by what I saw on the MySpace page. It made me think that the business was only out to get my money and didn’t really care about taking care of its customers. I decided to visit the other business. Even though it didn’t have any kind of Web presence, in my opinion, that was better than the other business which had a presence that I found very displeasing.

My point in relaying this story is that you can do more damage with bad online marketing than you can with no marketing at all. If you have a web site, you should inspect every word on every page to make sure you are getting the right message across. Does your marketing copy emphasize that you really care about your customers? Or does it relay the idea that you only care about extracting money from the pockets of your customers?

Now, in the name of open disclosure, I should point out that I actually ended up going to the business that I had decided not to. It seems the other business either was in business no longer or was in some location impossible to find. So I guess the point there is that it doesn’t matter what kind of marketing you do if you’re not open for business to start with. By the way, I found the business to be just fine, but their poor online marketing almost cost them a sale.

A well-orchestrated local search campaign can do wonders for your business…if you do it right. For help implementing a local search component to your online marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.