Why Rural Online Marketing Is Untapped

Why is it that you don’t find much information about rural online marketing? You can find tons on local marketing. Mobile marketing is all the rage. Video marketing is “the future.” Twitter is Da Bomb (NOTE to FBI: I am NOT a terrorist! – but you can have the TSA feel me up anyway).

So …

Rural Online Marketing. Why is it non-existent? Except in India?

I think I know. It has something to do with RRs trickle down theory, otherwise known as the Law of Supply and Demand. We’ll call it LSD.

Americans Are Young, Old, Hip, Urban, And Have Way Too Much Disposable Income

According UN population figures, 70% of India is rural. Only 18% of the United States population is rural. This data is taken from its 2010 report on populations.

Furthermore, as of February 2010, broadband Internet connections were available in only 60% of U.S. homes. That figure includes a low service provision to rural areas. Only 54% of rural households subscribe to broadband. And why is that?

That is partly because broadband is not as widely available in rural areas. The phone and cable companies that provide the bulk of broadband connections in the U.S. have been slower to build high-speed systems in places that are too sparsely populated to justify the costly network investments.

To add more statistics (or lies) to the pie, consider that the age group 55 and older has the lowest usage rate for broadband at 46%. And affluent homes are the highest number of broadband consumers.

When you consider that a high number of rural residents are 55 and older, on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, and live in areas where broadband Internet is not even offered, it seems that rural areas are left out on a limb. Internet marketing just isn’t a necessity for us rural folks, I guess.

You’d better think again.

Rural Small Businesses And The Reality Of Online Marketing

Rural small businesses actually have the most to gain from online marketing. I live in Adams County, Pennsylvania, the least populous county of the state, and I run an Internet marketing business with clients all over the world. Many of my neighbors use the Internet on a regular basis. The county is also one of the fastest growing areas of Pennsylvania – or was until a couple of years ago when fuel prices started rising – because Washington D.C. and Virginia commuters looking for real estate north of the Capitol have nowhere else to go. Carroll County, Maryland has a moratorium on new houses and from there south it is densely populated and land values are through the roof. A flood of new residents mandates small business owners a reason to find effective marketing strategies for our area.

Many businesses in this area of Pennsylvania attract customers from all over the area, and not just in the immediate vicinity. They have to by necessity. With new homes going up left and right, your small business can no longer rely on your customers knowing where you are. Word of mouth travels, but it only travels so far.

With mobile marketing on the rise (and Gettysburg and York being hotspots of tourism), businesses in South Central Pennsylvania need to do more to reach out to local clients. Restaurants can benefit from online marketing that finds passersby on the major highways passing through from Carlisle to Hanover and Harrisburg to Maryland. If traffic doesn’t move off these roads, they won’t find businesses lurking in the shadows. QR codes, Google Places, and mobile phone apps can go a long way to helping rural and small businesses attract urban travelers passing through their neck of the woods.

It is becoming increasingly more common that local residents – even in rural and small towns – are tossing the Yellow Pages and conducting searches for movie theaters, real estate, automobiles, restaurants, and even tractor sales online before they go anywhere else. You cannot leave your rural small business in the hands of fate in a high technology world where farmers are plowing and sowing with a mobile phone in one hand and an iPod in the other.

How Can Rural Small Businesses Move Into The 21st Century?

Demand is there despite statistics. When I started my Internet marketing and ghostwriting business in 2006, there was one other company in this area whose core business was providing website design and online marketing services to businesses outside of York and Harrisburg. Now, there are at least five others.

I decided at the time to take my business to a global level and that’s what I focused on for five years. Now that I’ve turned my attention once again to the local market, I’m finding that businesses from Hanover to Mechanicsburg and all points in between are hungry for online marketing services. The reason is real simple:

Online marketing is viewed as less expensive than traditional marketing
Small town businesses see the potential for business growth using the Internet
A practical mind will always look for the writing on the wall
Even rural small business owners realize that a website is a necessity in today’s high-technology fast-paced world
The rising cost of gasoline means business owners in the area expect customers to come to them, not the other way around

Most online marketing service providers live in the big city. They don’t think about the needs of rural businesses (I didn’t when I lived in Dallas, Texas). But that doesn’t mean those businesses don’t have needs.

When it comes to online marketing, the approach for rural businesses is not all that different than the approach used by urban businesses. In some cases, finding your market is easier. However, it can be more challenging as well. If you service several zip codes in a rural area, or more than one township or county, then geo-targeting is somewhat more slippery. It can, and should, be done, but you have to get creative.

It isn’t enough any more for rural small businesses to wait for cousin Bob to tell Aunt Sue to tell her friends at the bridge club about the new business he and his friend from the other county are starting next week. Word of mouth is one channel; the Internet is another. Rural online marketing is a channel that is yet untapped – but it won’t be forever.