7 Ways To Connect Locally With Your Customers (Part VII)

This is the final installment of our & part series on how to connect locally with your customers. You might want to print all 7 parts out and post them into your marketing planner as "low cost tools to use" to improve revenue.

Ask.com

How it works: Ask.com's sponsored advertising program is more like placing an ad in a newspaper than in a phone book.

Choose a title--"Buy bowling today!"--including a short description of what you are selling and a link to your Web site.

The best keywords go to the highest bidders. Ask.com also tracks the leads that come from its site, so you know what you're paying for.

Run your ad for as long as you like (turning it off and on at will) and change keywords on the fly--all in real time. Ask.com also syndicates the ads throughout other sites in its network.

For more information go to www.ask.com

Here's what it costs: The base for any ad is 5 cents per click.

The higher the demand for your selected keywords, the more you will pay per click. The network average is about 20 cents per click.

Good luck and good hunting.