“Go Local!” has long been the rallying cry in the whole foods movement (buying most edibles from regional growers, or The 100-Mile Radius Rule among food advocates) and in energy conservation green movements (thinking globally and acting locally).

Given gasoline prices and transportation costs, combined with buyer behaviors that favor local sources, it should be no surprise that buyer, wholesaler and retailer advertising is focusing on regional/local media as well.

Buyers seeking merchandise supply sources are as influenced by local or regional warehouses for faster and less costly shipments, as they are by opportunities to target specific regions with styles and features favored by local potential customers.

At the retail level, jewelry, handbag and accessories purchasers may favor online sources; but apparel and footwear buyers are concerned about sizing and fit. (So notes an eBay product analyst to explain more auction activity on fashion accessories.) Thus, sales of some categories of apparel and footwear may rely more on search marketing that links up potential customers with local offline sellers, in order to complete the conversion-to-sale equation. This same drill-down to link up local buyers with local retailers has long been needed in big-ticket categories, such as automotive sales.

According to Sterling Market Intelligence, marketers increasingly use online advertising to drive local offline sales, using search ad and online display advertising to help buyers find products more easily within their region. This drive to localize closes the marketing circuit on national brands available at the local level. As Greg Sterling noted in a recent Tech Trends NewsFactor article, the classic example in this use of online advertising is to drive a viewer of a national Honda auto ad through narrower gates, to a specific area dealer or local distributor. This drill down activity has been missing from national brand online advertisers who were largely disconnected from local dealers; while the local dealers traditionally relied on local offline advertising to close the sale.

 Not Dead Yet: Local Media Properties

It’s no news that newspapers, radio and TV stations, cable companies and yellow pages directory publishers are losing market share to online advertising and search marketing opportunities. Ad watchers predict demise of all the above traditional advertising channels – or at the least fatal revenue declines compared to online search ad and display ad marketing – by the year 2011. However, local media properties are not sporting “The End Is Near” sandwich boards.

What is newsworthy is the willingness by local media properties to link up with so-called Internet Pure Play companies to provide localized online search advertising. Also, local media venues appear to be investing more in teams of specialized online sales representatives, rather than assign traditional print or TV time sales reps to sell their online advertising offerings.

Examples of Local Media Strikes Back:

 ·        Rather than sell out to Google, which coveted its local business and retail assets, Yellow Pages converted hundreds of metropolitan directories to dual access: traditional print and online-accessible YellowPages.com. The local directory/database publisher then inked media selling contracts with former bidder Google, and Yahoo! and Microsoft. (Nothing like covering all bases.)

·        A vertical example is Business.com’s acquisition by R. H. Donnelly – a publisher of local business directories – narrowing the gap between online and offline advertising opportunities for business professional services.

·        In traditionally local ad categories, according to recent research conducted by local media research firm Borrell Associates, the key advertising segments for 2008 will be automotive, employment, real estate and health-related services.

Local Ad Growth Predicted

All the signs point to local ad growth. E-marketer projected U.S. local online advertising to increase to $7.8 Billion within the next three years. The Kelsey Group combined local search and online “classified” advertising (the categories cited above of autos, employment, real estate) to project increases to over $30 Billion by 2010. Local media researcher Borrell Associates saw more modest increases in local search advertising to $5 Billion in 2008. But that represents a doubling of what Borrell tracks as current local search ad spending; and it still points the ad compass to local advertising.

Local media channels are highly motivated these days. The Big G, Google, has announced in bits and pieces its intent to become an ad broker beyond Internet ad media.  Google is most likely to go after traditional media buying and selling for the lucrative and local auto ad market first. A good marketing strategy argues drilling down to local access, whether the sale is closed online or offline.