In the Search Engine Internet world, a person searching for a particular product is doing the work for the marketer. No longer does the company have to segment the population and place specific ads for that particular demographic to find. Rather, the entire population is self-selecting. In other words, they choose what they want to see. They open a search engine, type in exactly the product they are looking for, and go directly to where they can obtain it.

Here’s an example: Suppose you want to advertise your business in the newspaper. The first thing is you select which newspaper to print the ad in. Right there you just segmented the population. By choosing the Chicago Tribune instead of a local newspaper, you have segmented the population by geographic location. Next you decide on the font, layout, and pictures that are appropriate for your audience. Here you just achieved the second step of targeting, customizing the marketing to your particular market segment. This entire process took a lot of thought and you had to outweigh the costs and benefits of each decision. With the Internet and our search engine, it is possible to market your product to a wider segment, at a lower cost, and for a prolonged period of time. So, instead of placing that newspaper ad, you submit your restaurant into our search engine. By doing so, you just broadened your market segment to the entire world! Someone from California could access the internet, and if they happen to be visiting your local area, they would be able to use Ylunch to look up a restaurant when they are hungry. To get that person’s targeted money, your business would have had to use paper advertising in that person’s particular part of town in California. Here is where the cost savings come in. You are paying far less for a marketing medium that reaches thousands of more people! Also, advertising in newspapers lasts for short periods of time, where having a place on the web is ongoing.