Island Pizza Beats Pizza Hut in SEM

The exact origins of the phrase "think global, act local" are some what obscure. What doesn't seem in doubt, is it didn't originally apply to marketing. Although, it has become one of the main tenets of online marketing. On the other hand, Fairfax Cone was definitely talking about marketing when he said "there is no such thing as a Mass Mind . . . good advertising is written always from one person to another".

Good search engine marketing applies those two marketing ideas.

I live in Courtenay, BC. It can best be described as a small local market. With a population of around 50,000 it is a typical North American small city. What is not typical is it is in the middle of a housing boom. Population is in the 'pizza eating' demographic is soaring.

What do these new residents do when they want a pizza? -- Google 'pizza Courtenay' of course. What do they find? -- Not Pizza Hut!!

Island Pizza is #1 for the search terms 'pizza Courtenay' on Google and #4 on Yahoo. It is #1 in Google local search. Their page is only moderately optimized yet it has no trouble having a better SERP than Pizza Hut, or any other of the large pizzeria chains. With one outlet world wide - they may not think globally but they do "act local" and market as if they were talking to a neighbour. For example, they are locate "NEXT TO SUPERSTORE" - the largest store in the area and a local landmark.

Pizza Hut has opted for global, mass market. It doesn't appear in the local search or the top 100 positions of the SERP for 'pizza Courtenay'. And, if you are thinking they are thinking this is only because Courtenay is such a small market - try searching for your own city. From Seattle to New York -- while they are in some local searches the SERP results are the same.

I am sure someone will search for 'pizza hut Courtenay'. But, this won't work either. The only way to find the location of the Pizza Hut in Courtenay is to go to the corprate site. Then it is possible - just barely - to find the location in the "Store Locator".

It doesn't have to be that way of course. Domino's pizza uses the local search results to display a link to their corprate site. Getting the "act local" part right. However, they failed on the "one person to another" test. Has no one heard of 'geocoding'? I am from CANADA - why did you send me to the US site. And, why, when I said I was from Canada, didn't you send me to your Canadian site?

As long corporations are using their web sites to "Act Global" instead of "Local" and address a "Mass Mind" instead of "from one person to another", small local businesses will be able to win the local SEM battle.