"The secret is to know your customer. Segment your target as tightly as possible. Determine exactly who your customers are, both demographically and psychographically. Match your customer with your medium. Choose only those media that reach your potential customers, and no others. Reaching anyone else is waste." (Robert Grede, author of Naked Marketing, the Bare Essentials)

_________________________________________________

There are two distinct forms of advertising, the most familiar of which encompasses such media as television, radio, newspapers, flyers and other media which reach out to the general populace. This type of advertising either attempts to make people become interested in a particular product or service or tries to capture the attention of the minor percentage of people who are currently looking for that particular product or service.

The other form of advertising is aimed at people who are already interested in finding your particular product or service. This is called directional advertising. BCdex is a directional advertising medium. Everyone coming to BCdex is already interested in purchasing a particular product or service and the only decision they have to make is from whom they'll make that purchase.

_________________________________________________

We know that thousands of people are using the internet to find companies like yours but the question is, "How will they find YOU?"

People know WHAT they're looking for, but they don't always know WHO
It all starts with HOW people use the internet to find companies like yours. People use the major search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Ask Jeeves and so on. They don't always know the actual names of companies they're looking for but they DO know the type of product or service they're looking for and so that's the search request they make. In order to find the companies that do what they want they'll type in a search request like "BC construction," or "glass sheet Prince George," or "truss suppliers."

People don't necessarily get what they EXPECT from a search engine
What many people expect to find when they perform such a generic search is a listing of companies that match their search request. In a way, they get what they're looking for, but in another way they don't. If they're looking for companies who provide a specific type of product or service related to construction or landscaping they won't get a nice orderly listing of those companies from the major search engine. But what the search engines WILL give them is BCdex, the BC Construction and Landscaping Network. It's at BCdex where they'll find what they're looking for.

Is the internet a WASTE of time and money?
Many people believe that all they have to do is get their own web site and that people looking for what they do will find them using the search engines. This is just simply not the case with the vast majority of company web sites. You may have even talked to someone in a business who'd put up their own web site and had later said something like, "No, you don't get any business from the internet. It's a waste of time and money!" But the reason a company like that didn't get any business from their web site was because of their misconceptions concerning the internet.

The individual search engines operate in a number of different ways, using a variety of criterion in determining which sites they will carry and in what order of relevance they'll list those sites when people make a specific search request. Who they will carry and what criterion they use to establish relevance is information that is tightly and secretly held within the management of each search engine company. But as far as our guy in the company who didn't get any business from his web site is concerned, all he knows is that the internet didn't work for him and he doesn't care about all this junk on how search engines do or don't work.

Just HOW do people use search engines?
The stark reality is that people making a search request will very rarely look anywhere beyond the first 50 search results, most will stop looking after the first 20 and many will only look up to the first 10. Now, in many cases, the search engines have found and listed hundreds of thousands of web sites that match the search request. You can guess where the web site of our guy who never got any business from the internet was listed, if it was listed at all. And this situation is not at all unusual. Think about it. How could the search engines possibly list each one of the thousands of sites in the first 50 results?

How is BCdex any BETTER?
That's where BCdex comes in. BCdex IS listed in the first 50 results. As a matter of fact BCdex is usually listed in the first 10 results. And, as another matter of fact, BCdex is very often listed as the No. 1 result when people are searching for construction and landscaping related services in B.C. and for product suppliers and manufacturers worldwide. That's how people find out about BCdex and that's how people find out about companies listed on BCdex.

Then, people who need construction or landscaping services on a regular basis, like General Contractors, Property Managers, Building Owners and so on, will Bookmark our site. As a matter of fact much of the daily traffic to BCdex is from people who have Bookmarked our site and who use it to find the businesses they're going to use on upcoming projects.

Call us what you want, an online trade show, a giant construction and landscaping department store or whatever, every day hundreds of people come into BCdex shopping for the types of products and services offered by the businesses listed here. Whether you are here or not, these people are going to find what they're looking for and many will be making a purchase or entering into a contract with someone they find here.

Listing your company on BCdex is the only way you can MAKE SURE that you're going to be found and then considered by potential clients when they search for your type of product or service.

To find out how you can let people know about your company click HERE.

_______________________________________________________

 

Not Just Search Engines

When your company is listed on BCdex it's not just our excellent search engine placement that results in people finding your company. There are many "sister" sites that link to BCdex knowing this is the place to find what some of their visitors are looking for. This group of sister sites forms a web or a "network" that quickly directs people to the right sites to find what they need. Take a look at a graphic picture of that network right HERE. Type our URL, bcdex.com, in the Starting URL box and then press Graph it!.

When you're part of BCdex, you're part of that large network

_______________________________________________________

"In fact, all effective marketing has always been targeted….the primary target market for any business is its present or potentially-interested customer." Thomas A. Faulhaber, Editor - The Business Forum Online