«Return to Blog List Wanted: A Plumber Who Wants to Grow His Local Business

To prove that local businesses can grow their business through blogging, we’re looking for a plumber who wants to serve as our “test subject” in a public experiment, which we’re calling “The Plumbing Project.” We’ll set him (or her) up with a blog and provide free consulting services for a year. And of course, we’ll monitor how things are going and let people know about it here on EvoBloggito and on Twitter (and that kind of exposure can’t hurt your business, either). If you’re not a plumber, but know one who you think should be blogging, please point them here.

Here’s what the plumber gets, absolutely free:

1. Professionally designed WordPress blog with appropriate plugins to assist with search engine optimization, visitor engagement, etc.
2. Google Analytics account to track blog visitors.
3. Twitter account to help with business and blog promotion.
4. Training, coaching, advice, and assistance for 1 year.
5. Webhosting for the blog for 1 year (after which we’ll charge our normal annual webhosting fee of $125 if you want the blog to remain on our servers; otherwise, we’ll move it somewhere else for free).
6. More business!

This is not a free ride (the person we’re looking for knows that nothing worthwhile is)! We’ll do everything in our power to help you be successful, but ultimately it depends on you. You’ll have some things to learn and some work to do, but if you do it right, it’ll be fun. Here are the selection criteria:

1. You do not already have a business blog.
2. Your business must be in northern New Mexico (would like to conduct some training face-to-face).
3. Your business must be full-time.
4. You must be 18 years old or older.
5. You must agree to follow our advice on blogging and online promotion (we promise not to advise anything painful).
6. You must currently rely on Yellow Pages advertising and other traditional local marketing techniques (radio, newspaper ads, etc.) to reach your customers and prospects with your message.
7. You must be willing to write; you do NOT have to be a great writer.
8. You should have some opinions about your business and how it benefits your customers (a business blog is not the place to express political opinions).
9. You must care about your customers and prospects.
10. You must have a reasonable comfort level with computers (you have to own one!) and the internet.

Also, we’re not absolutely dead-set on the local business person being a plumber (although, if not, we’ll need to change the name of the project). It could be any local business person whose business serves a local area, as opposed to a national or multi-state market. The reason we think a plumber would be a great test subject is that most people, including most plumbers, wouldn’t expect a plumber to blog. However, if you own a produce store or bicycle shop that caters to local customers, make your case: we’ll consider it.

Write us using the application form below, the email link in the right column, or send a letter via snail mail (see our contact page) and convince us that you are the plumber (or other local business person) we’re looking for.

Here’s My Convincing Case for Helping Me Grow My Local Business

The “convincing case” deadline is July 7, 2009. Evo reserves the right to reject any application.

Sorry, deadline has past: no takers.

Tags: Blogging, Local Search