Do small companies innovate enough when it comes to online media and the wealth of new technologies available to them? I recently asked myself this question while talking to my Dad in Florida about my new job. We were talking about online advertising and the possibility of running a small search campaign to advertise a new less-evasive knee surgery that he recently learned. He was completely unaware of the fact that for very little investment on MSN (disclosure: I work for Microsoft), Yahoo or the Other Guy he could run a Zip Code targeted search-term campaign.
It comes as quite a surprise to me that most local physicians on the ground are not utilizing the natural democracy of the web to their favor and buying up more search terms. Every year more and more people search and find medical information online. In fact, ”Harris Interactive, a national polling firm, found last month that 150 million people this year sought online health information.*” That is a staggering number of people searching for solutions to their medical issues and certainly a great target-pool for new business.
As my Dad and I talked further about acquisitions and costs to him, we reasoned that with one patient a month coming from CPC and a medium sized budget of 10k he could essentially make a profit. This was really unscientific reasoning but when you sit down and really look at the numbers, I am positive they would still end up well in the black. We spoke further and he was not totally ready to make the dive but in a few months I imagine he will be back with his partners asking more questions.
I am still left to wonder, when will small businesses exploit local search for its natural strengths?
Interesting reads pertaining to this posts found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/fashion/10Skin.html?ex=1208491200&en=867d0d88185b59b0&ei=5070&emc=eta1
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_tumor10.129bd70.html
