Google Contest for Local College Students

Google just put out an online marketing contest for college students and their profs. Pick a local business, get $200.00 in local AdWords advertising, and work with a local business to create an effective online and offline marketing strategy. It’s pretty slick and worth looking at if any Minnesota readers here are applicable.

In addition, Google has enhanced their pay-per-click advertising platform for local targeting. If you’re a regional chain business, it allows you to easily showcase ads to consumers in your area, and to not showcase ads to consumers who are not in your area.

This option has always been there in a way, but excluding areas streamline the process. The above example is to exclude ads within Minnesota geographical areas, although the same is applied nationwide. If you sell products and ship only to states west of the Mississippi River, you can easily disallow ads that would also be shown east of the river.

Go (MN) College!