The JKB Marketing Blog

I am located in our office in the Endless Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is most definitely a rural area. Hitwise has just released a report which will be of special interest to businesses located in rural areas.

According to the report, rural shoopers make up the largest online shopping segment:
Rural - 44% of all e-commerce traffic
Suburbanites - 24%
Small City - 16%
Urban - 15%

And here's the best news for local rural businesses: they favor visiting stores and brands which they are familiar with. Though they can choose to shop from any store in the world, they predominantly shop at those with a local presence.

As an example, 66% of the traffic to Dick's Clothing and Sporting Goods' website comes from rural shoppers.

Rural businesses will want to leverage this trend by promoting their sites through their offline marketing campaigns.

Interland recently conducted a survey of 530 small business leaders and found that a large percentage believed that their website helped their businesses gain a competitive advantage (77%), generate leads (81%), and lessened the effects of economic downturns (55%).

Retail companies, business service providers, personal service companies and non-profits were most successful at generating leads for their businesses.

The web has become a nearly universal tool for anyone researching a major (or even minor) purchase. A well-designed site gives you a fighting chance--and the numbers back it up.

And I wonder how many of those surveyed even HAVE a well-designed site...

The growing popularity of TiVo and Satellite Radio (XM and Sirius) each point to a growing trend: people are taking greater control over their own programming and are willing to pay a premium to get what THEY want.

It started years ago with Cable TV. At the time, the question was "Who would pay for something that they already got for free?"

Turns out, lots of people would.

And that trend has only increased. Tape recorders, VCRs and now cd and mp3 burners have all played a role. To cap it off, broadband access to the internet has allowed truly on-demand information and entertainment.

There is no going back.

And this is bad news for the large corporations who depend on mass marketing to cost effectively reach their audience. The old methods of advertising are becoming less and less relevant.

How long will it take these giant corporations to change their tactics? How much will they alienate their customer base by still trying to force advertising down their throats in a manner the market has rejected?

TiVo has begun to crumble under the pressurew from the top. It has gone from "TV Your Way" to "TV Our Way" as it tries to find ways to incorporate advertising into the areas where people are fast forwarding through the advertisements!

They are threatening a backlash, much like the RIAA has garnered by refusing to acknowledge that the old distribution methods had become obsolete. The entertainment companies can try to slow the change but they won't be able to reverse the course.

The consumer wields the ultimate power though they may not realize it.

Advertising shouldn't be intrusive. It should be there, easily accessible, for those who are interested. But how do you do that on a massive scale?

Luckily enough, that's not my problem. I am concerned with how smaller businesses can access their regional and/or niche market. It turns out that this is a great advantage for smaller businesses.

You're not trying to reach 100's of different market segments all across the country. You're trying to reach a market you should know intimitately. You know the hot buttons. You know when and where to reach them.

(If you don't, well you know what you need to get working on!)

In the end, the large national chains will find ways to get their message out to the masses. In the meantime, there is a great opportunity for smaller companies to carve out their niche and gain market share by reaching out to their customers in ways that aren't obtrusive.