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THERE'S NO POINT INVESTING IN A national marketing campaign if your goal is to reach local prospects. Fortunately, there are online advertising programs that include a geographic-targeting feature, allowing business owners to spend a lot less money communicating with the right audience.

* Community websites: Your first stop should be your own backyard. Is your company a member of the chamber of commerce or the local branch of an organization such as the American Bar Association or the American Marketing Association? Your membership may include a free link from their websites to yours, and some consumers use these organizations to find friendly neighborhood professionals.

Next, check out your local newspaper's website. Surf around to find a local business directory, and look for content areas where you can buy a link or banner ad or sponsor a how-to article. Remember to ask the newspaper's advertising department about special offline/online ad package deals.

* Internet Yellow Pages (IYP): You're probably familiar with the Yellow Pages book that's delivered to your door. If you buy a print ad, you could get a free listing on its website. Not a print advertiser? Not to worry--you can buy a basic listing for as little as $25 per month on Yahoo! (http://yp. yahoo.com), or pay on a per-click basis through Verizon's Super Pages.com or InfoSpace's Switchboard (www.switchboard.com). Typically, IYPs include a business listing under one or more cities, full contact information, an office location map and a link to your site. IYP users can find your business by searching by keyword, city or zip code, or by browsing category topics.

* Search engine advertising: Two search engine power-players, Google and Overture, now allow their pay-for-placement advertisers to bid on keywords in specified regions. Google Ad Words advertisers can select a campaign within their accounts and then click "Edit Settings" to change the locations where their ads will be displayed. You can select individual states, cities or both.

Overture has a separate program, Local Match, in which advertisers choose a geographic area for their ads to be seen (a 0.5- to 100-mile radius around your location). When Overture users type in a keyword, they're given the option of entering a city and state or ZIP code. Local Match advertisers' listings will then be displayed, which take users to a Yellow Pages-type page.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:25 AM