Webtown Taps Turpin as CEO

Springdale startup company, Webtown Media, recently named its CEO, Terry Turpin.

Turpin is the former chief operating officer of Saatchi & Saatchi X, the global in-store marketing firm that does a significant book of business with many suppliers to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Turpin said Webtown’s core business is to drive traffic to the Web sites of small business clients.

Simply put, Webtown knows what key words consumers use to do Internet searches and the company “buys” the right to use those words with search engines like Google or Yahoo. Then for a fee, the company will help clients incorporate some of those key search terms into their Web marketing. The service is localized because search engines can decipher IP addresses and know where people are searching from.

For instance, Turpin said about 27,000 people in the Tulsa area searched for a dentist in September.

“When you start capturing that traffic, that’s different than people driving by a billboard or hearing a radio spot,” he said. “It’s like someone raising their hand and saying ‘I’m looking for that.'”

Webtown has representatives selling its services in 25 markets, mostly in the southeast, he said.

“I think the down economy is helping us on two fronts: it’s really making small business owners think before they spend marketing dollars, and good people are looking for jobs,” Turpin said.

Webtown’s service plans start at $300 per month with guarantees of 50 visitors per month.