Think senior citizens aren't using the Web to research and buy products? Tim Pelton did. Tim is a sales manager for Bedco Mobility, a company that sells and services products such as wheelchair stair lifts in the Baltimore/Washington DC corridor. For close to 100 years, Bedco advertised in local newspapers and yellow pages.
But calls and leads were dropping precipitously.
Bedco has a website, but never attempted online marketing because the thinking at the company was that senior citizens just plain weren't online. Wrong. The 70-75 year old age bracket is one of the fastest-growing segments of the online population, according to the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life. In 2005, 25 percent of them used the Internet. Last year, 45 percent went online. Older surfers use the Web primarily for searches for things such as health information, e-mail, and buying products.
Within four months of launching their first paid search ads last December, Bedco saw online leads more than double within a four month period. In fact, the Web is has gone from zero to the company's primary source of lead generation. We asked Tim to share his story.
Q: Was this your first foray into interactive marketing?
A: Yes, pretty much. We deal primarily with senior citizens because we handle handicapped equipment. A lot of our leads would come through our manufacturers, through newspaper advertising, yellow pages, that sort of thing. That seemed to be working for years and years after your regular markets would have switched over [to the Web]. I think we were probably about two years behind the curve. Maybe a year. We were missing a lot of business simply because more and more people were searching, certainly older people were figuring out how to search.
In the Baltimore region we have a local newspaper, so that was fine for advertising. Basically, people would see it. But as other family members started searching we were missing all those leads. Finally, the seniors themselves started searching and we were really missing. So we figured it was definitely past our time to have done this, but we didn't really know how to go about it.
A supplier connected Pelton with eZanga, which handles all the aspects of the campaign: keyword research, creative, bid management, dayparting and geo-targeting.
A: We cover Baltimore and Washington. It was cheaper to do search ads just here in Baltimore. So we were doing that just for economy, but I was getting lots of new leads. My business was back to what it was several years ago when we were basically the only ones around. There's a lot of people who do what we do now. At that point, we realized we should have targeted the DC area, so we started a new campaign for that region. We're really seeing results from it. It was fairly immediate and it's been very steady.
Q: What's your budget?
A: We do basically about $3 grand a month between the two programs, we split it between the Baltimore and DC areas. Then out of that we pay eZanga a commission, which I think is about $300. They eat it up, right to the penny. We don't go over, and we seem to go the full month so we don't have downtime. What they've been doing has been working. We've seen a definite increase and a steady increase since we started the campaign.
The metrics bear him out:
• Month two increased 38.7% over month one
• Month three increased 58.0% over month one
• Month four increased 135.5% over month one
Q: With this level of online success, are you still buying traditional advertising?
A: We're gradually turning it off. We're limiting most yellow pages ads. These are yearly contracts and we're and cutting them as they come up for renewal. We have ads in the "Baltimore Sun" and a weekly ad in the "Washington Post," which is very expensive. We're keeping those, and we're keeping a few line ads in the yellow pages, but basically we're getting rid of our display ads. We've been in the yellow pages for six or seven different areas like wheelchairs, medical supplies, that sort of thing. Now we're cutting those categories and basically trying to funnel more money into the internet.
Q: That's why traditional media are dying, right? Thousands and thousands of small companies like yours.
A: Yeah, it's true. We didn't think it was quite that pronounced until we started doing search ads and realized, "Oh, yeah." We're generating the same amount of leads as we did five or 10 years ago when we were really busy. For the last three or four years we've been less busy. So it's been pretty obvious that this is the way to go.
For small companies that are focused in a specific area of business, it doesn't matter who you think you're catering to. Internet presence is extremely important. If you don't have it, you're not going to get called. We were under the illusion that old people weren't shopping through the internet. And we were wrong.
Rebecca Lieb oversees Econsultancy's North American operations.
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6:46AM on 22nd July 2009
While it is true that online marketing is getting more popular every day, it would perhaps be too early to say that offline advertisement measures are becoming outdated. Your offline brand image has a lot to do with the ultimate success of you product. They generate at least half of the traffic that visits your product page. Even with senior citizens, most of the traffic to your page is there to find out more about your product. Your site may not be the first point of contact with your product. They may just be there to gather more information about something they have already heard about. Offline means of advertisement are important for generating this first point of contact, at the very least.
Learn more at www.aafter.com
11:11AM on 22nd July 2009
I completely agree with Erin, Its not that one can exist without the other. There is an interlink and we shouldnt just stop one medium just because we have success in another.
We need to spread the budget to cover all activites, but sometimes stopping certain medium might lead to negative effects on the brand as they are not getting the brand image. Still majority of the search and conversion in Online happen from the Brand terms, hence we try to always cover brand 100% and include other generic terms to address new opportunity.
1:30PM on 22nd July 2009
Tim:
Thanks so much for those kind words... I somewhat agree that advertising budgets need to be spread out, but I also believe that the lions share of the budget needs to go to the most successful advertising verticle for each campaign. The best part of our SEM program is we are held to a higher standard and must prove results which are 100% trackable... We have the technology and skills to help everyone with their campaign... Feel free to email me for more inof at ...
Dan Zitofsky
3:13PM on 22nd July 2009
Small companies are having a tough time in these days of crisis.
12:01AM on 23rd July 2009
We are a yacht builder and market largely to the 50+ age bracket. Though I am very much a digital marketer, I still find that I cannot escape traditional marketing for this age bracket as they simply prefer to look through magazines and glossy brochures. I think as the younger baby boomers come through, how have a slightly better handle on technology the share of marketing spend on digital and SEM will increase.
10:36AM on 23rd July 2009
Good point Brent, but in 20 years time all the people in the 50year old age group would be targeted online. Times change, and in 20 years time the current 30year olds will be looking online.
12:25PM on 23rd July 2009
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I'm 83 years old. About two years ago I was living by myself in an apartment. My daughter said if I wanted to stay there living alone we have to make it safe for you. She looked around a few stores but it was hard to found the right equipment for me. Like safety rail for the toilet, bath tub rail, and a walker with a seat. So she looked on line and found everything. It all came in a few days from www.Wendyswalkers.com. She said it was much easer to shop on line than in the stores.
5:17PM on 27th July 2009
I also think it's too early to simply wnrite off offline advertising. Still, online advertising is extremely potent. Besides the things mentioned in the article, small businesses can easily make a short video to put on YouTube, Veoh, AdWido, and so on, to share with people in hopes that they'll share with others as well. A good video will quickly spread across the Internet and get the exposure the small business needs. Again, although this may be relatively cost-effective and easy, it still does not fully replace offline marketing options.
9:49PM on 19th August 2009
I appreciate everyone's comments about online and offline advertising... Even though people believe they cant escape offline advertising, its proven that online advertising is where you need to put the lion share of your budget... We are held to a higher standard and essentially it only cost you money out of your budget when someone is searching for you... How many people look at a magazine with no interest and you have to pay for that... With online advertising, we know how to block your ad from the window shoppers and can geo target the campaign to the areas people are converting for you, thereby utilizing your budget more effectively than anywhere else... Please feel free to call or email me if you have any interest in advertising online... My email is and my direct lin eis 888-439-2642 X 7101...