Advertising services across Virginia

The market's people

Statewide numbers first; the 9 metro pages linked below carry the same breakdown for each market. The biggest of them, Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC, holds 1.79 million residents.

The median household in Virginia earns $93,170 a year, 15 percent above the national figure (the US median is $80,734). Home values tell their own story; here the median is $383,700, 15 percent above the national figure.

Owner-occupied housing 67.3%, 2 points above the US share, which is the figure home-service advertisers should watch. A labor force of 4,468,236 carries an unemployment rate of 4.3%, about the same as the US share. The median resident is 39 years old, about the same as the national median. A four-year degree or more: 42.2%, 6 points above the US share.

Against its largest metro, the median income is 13 percent higher than the Virginia Beach metro figure, the median home value is 13 percent higher than the Virginia Beach metro figure, and the number of businesses per resident is 9 percent denser than the Virginia Beach metro figure; see the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC page for the full figures.

The local business base

County Business Patterns counts 210,842 employer establishments in Virginia. Density runs 24.2 businesses for every 1,000 residents, 3 percent below the national figure. The most numerous category on this page is restaurants at 15,936. Of those, 10,249 are home-services contractors (plumbing and HVAC, electrical, roofing, concrete, specialty trades and landscaping), a 4.9% share of the business base, about the same as the US share.

Index: local share of all establishments divided by the US share; above 1 means the trade is more common here than nationally.

Virginia is dense with specialty trade contractors, road and paving contractors, automobile dealers and beauty salons compared with the US pattern. At the top of that list, specialty trade contractors number 1,527, 1.4 times the US share. Where the base is lighter: general freight trucking and concrete contractors. With 2,174 locations, general freight trucking sit at about 74% of the national share. Roughly where the national mix would put them: plumbing and HVAC contractors, roofing contractors and electrical contractors.

On a per-capita basis restaurants come first at 183.1 per 100,000, ahead of physicians' offices and personal care services. By raw count the largest categories here are restaurants (15,936), physicians' offices (5,133) and personal care services (4,756). Taken as groups, the strongest relative to the US mix are automotive businesses (about the same as the national share) and the weakest are trucking, storage, real estate and road construction (about the same as).

What this means for advertising here

Many competitors in specialty trade contractors, road and paving contractors and automobile dealers means the auction is expensive and the map pack is crowded; the winners are the profiles with the freshest reviews and the pages that answer the search precisely. With general freight trucking and concrete contractors in short supply, the map pack often has room; a complete listing and a handful of recent reviews can put a business in it. With a median age about the same as the national median, the classic path of search, reviews and a phone call still carries most of the business. Income 15 percent above the national figure means larger average jobs; the pitch should match, with premium options shown plainly.