We were consulting one of our station’s advertisers, a veterinarian, who proclaimed they had just made a considerable investment in SEO…Search Engine Optimization, to get them to or near the top of an online search.

We immediately went online and searched for veterinarians in that market. They were nowhere near the top of the search engine page despite their investment.

The veterinarian was both amazed and disappointed, responding with “We were near the top last week”!

There-in lies the problem. While she was paying to enter the race to the top, her competitors kept upping the ante to win that race…it’s a never-ending race to the top that can change at a moment’s notice.

The only way an advertiser can be assured they’ll be found online is when their prospects search for them by NAME!

But, the problem is even more complex than winning the SEO race to the top.

Internet Guru Seth Godin says, “it is better to be sought online than to be found”.

In other words, the business that has created a pre-need, pre-search brand and preference for their business will always win that race, in two ways:

1.)  They will be sought and subsequently found.

2.)  The best marketers will have built their brands before the search so that when their competitors are listed, their prospects will prefer to click on them.

3.)  Our local TOMA (Top-Of-Mind Awareness) studies consistently reveal:

A.)  Proactive broadcast media will always be more effective than reactive print or digital efforts in creating TOMA

B.)  Over 80% of the population in every market prefers to click on a site for a business they have heard of, rather than to go to a site of a business they are not familiar with.

Have your account executives been effective in helping advertisers understand why broadcast is the most powerful platform by which to create Top-Of-Mind Awareness and generate more web traffic?

If not, we should talk about initiating a TOMA survey in your market.

Roy Williams says, “I’ve long suggested that radio stations fund a TOMA study every two years. Few things are as valuable in the eyes of advertisers as these revealing market snapshots”.

Click here to arrange an online overview of how our TOMA Surveys and Training can help increase your local-direct sales.