Local Search Is About Products Too, Not Just Restaurants And Plumbers

Excerpts from: Greg Sterling's
Local Search Is About Products Too, Not Just Restaurants And Plumbers

Often when people discuss local search they're referring to finding restaurants or plumbers. But the concept of "local search" should include goods and product purchases as well.

Whenever I discuss products and retail as part of the definition of local search people are often a little skeptical. Yet again and again studies show that consumers are using the Internet to do research before buying locally in stores. This is especially true for "considered purchases" (bigger ticket items), but it's generally true for products across the board.

The Internet has not emerged predominantly as a transactions platform, as many had predicted several years ago, but instead as a marketing platform driving offline transactions.

Jupiter and Forrester Research-- have more recently come around and said that the growth of online commerce is "flattening," while the Internet's influence on offline consumer purchases continues to grow almost unabated.

Here's what Jupiter's most recent e-commerce forecast had to say: Despite the slowing of growth in online buying, web influenced off-line sales will grow at a slightly faster pace over the next five years, reinforcing the vast advertising and marketing value retailer websites present.

To look out into the future a couple of years, the three most interesting trends in "online shopping" are local, social and mobile:

• Local: as in "Where can I buy it today?"
  
• Social: as in "Can anybody recommend a . . ."
  
• Mobile: as in "How much does it cost somewhere else?" or "These guys don't have it, where can I go to find it right now?"

Many other studies, including a recent one from Yahoo and comScore, have similarly documented the Internet's (and search's) impact on offline transactions. While conventional comparison engines leave "money on the table" by failing to capture or extract value from this dominant consumer behavior pattern, Internet-influenced local shopping has its challenges as well.

The "inventory infrastructure" is developing but has yet to be fully built out. Sites like ShopLocal, Krillion and NearbyNow, among others, are working diligently on this challenge. Once substantially accomplished, that inventory information will transfer into mobile with relative ease.

Another challenge is tracking: showing the online-offline connection. Right now offline conversion tracking is limited to after-the-fact consumer surveys, coupon redemption and phone tracking, as a kind of proxy for purchase intent. Phone tracking arguably doesn't work well for products because people many not call stores in the way they call service businesses (e.g., doctors, plumbers) for appointments.

My Take

The online shopping/overnight delivery model has revolutionized the retail industry for some products and services. But the big dollar items in our household budget can't be ordered on a Web site or delivered in a brown truck.

How do I make those big buying decisions? How do I find just the right local business? Probably the same way you do. And it is a process that's remained unchanged since the first word of mouth referral occured with the words, "You gotta call _____________."

Now, how will this process be facilitated by the Web?

Tags: localsearch

Wednesday September 19, 2007 - pm (EDT)

YouGottaCall.com Selects Foresite Technologies

YouGottaCall.com, LLC is excited to announce our selection of Foresite Technologies of East Hartford, CT as its software development vendor. Foresite has begun a five phase development plan to build YouGottaCall.com's database application and Web portal with a target date for beta release in early 2008.

This Web-based program will be an innovation in the rapidly emerging local Web, providing a unique benefit to businesses, consumers and local communities. The YouGottaCall.com co-founders Wayne Feigenbaum, Bill Hoff and Tim Tracey made their selection official at Mondays Kickoff Development meeting.

"We are excited that YouGottaCall has chosen ForeSite to partner with them on the creation of their web community. We firmly believe that the use of the web is moving in the direction of viral community building and fully expect this to be a huge success for YouGottaCall," says Michael Giuffrida, Foresites President/CEO.

"We are satisfied that Foresite is a good fit for our needs both from a creative and a technical standpoint," said Tracey. "We have confidence in their ability to deliver based on their track record, their affiliations and their involvement with the local business community."

Bill Hoff, Wayne Feigenbaum, Ben Sweet (Foresite Technologies), Tim Tracey

Tags: localsearch, socialsearch

Wednesday September 19, 2007 - 01:01pm (EDT)

Google's Local Biz Referral Program

Excerpt: Himmelstein on G’s Local Biz Referral Program « Screenwerk

Marty Himmelstein is a local search expert who founded Long Hill Consulting.

Google’s recently announced Business Referral Program, where it pays individuals to submit information about local businesses, is important less for what it is than what it will be. It is a signpost not only of Google’s intent, but of their understanding of how the Internet will develop.

For while Google doesn’t make trends, they do have a keen eye for discerning them. Their patient execution of a plan based on their reading of the road ahead is nowhere more apparent than in local search. These trends have been remarked upon before, and at least some of Google’s advantage is that while others watch Google, Google’s attention is straight ahead. These trends include:

• Decentralized collection of business content, from the edges in
  
  The centralized collection of business information was an artifact of the organization of the telephone network. This was fine for YP Publishers but less than ideal for either businesses or consumers. ... the Internet has made the contrivance of centralized content collection unnecessary.
  
  
• The importance of community and neighborhood to local search: The fundamental role of a community in local search is to establish an environment of trust so that users can rely on the information they obtain from the system. Businesses exist in a network of customers, suppliers, municipal agencies, local media, hobbyists, and others with either a professional or avocational interest in establishing the trustworthiness of local information.
  
  
  
• Completeness is key: One of the fundamental tenets of local search is for it to be useful it must be complete – if there is a shop on Main Street it will be in the database. Completeness is necessary to gain the trust of the two most important local search constituencies – consumers and local businesses. Google has built its dominance by layering advertising on top of the best natural search results in the business. They will tenaciously adhere to the same philosophy in local search.

Some Google competitors might take comfort in the apparently haphazard and unfinished feel of various Google offerings. A more appropriate response would be alarm. Google’s fledgling projects are part of an encompassing architecture measured not in a year or two but five or more.

Consider that the results of a typical Internet Yellow Pages search have barely improved in the last ten years.) It is inevitable that the Internet will displace other mediums as the starting point of practically all local advertising – including advertising destined for print, television and radio.

It will also take time for Google and others to demonstrate the value of local search in a way that makes sense to Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), and other actors in the local search community. There’s still a lot of spadework to be done, and combined with the sheer size of the local search market, the extended adolescence of Google Base, Google Coop, the Business Referral Program, and other projects is closer to necessity than profligacy. The current value of the content in Google Base is of no consequence. Its function is to help Google build the next generation of Google Base, when content will matter.

Google’s ability to monetize local search doesn’t require they “own” business data and keep it behind a walled garden.

Google could easily decide the effort to build a direct relationship with businesses is more of a burden than an opportunity. They could leave that job to others, opting rather to provide tools and incentives that ensure the road for content between businesses and Google is easy to traverse.

My Take

The key to success in the local search market will be tapping into "community knowledge".

Getting small businesses involved in their Web presence is another. Most are too busy or too intimidated to create and manage their own Web presence and search optimization

Is Google's approach the best way to tap community knowledge and gain participation? Are they using the "wiki" way?

Tuesday September 11, 2007 - 11:52am (EDT)

We're in business!

We are pleased to announce that YouGottaCall.com, LLC is now incorporated and is officially in business. Our corporate members are Wayne Feigenbaum, Bill Hoff and me (Tim Tracey).

The step of forming a corporation is the result of our combined research, planning and dreaming over the past two years. It is also an expression of our commitment to create an entirely new medium for local business advertising that benefits the consumer, the business owner and the community.

TEAM MEMBERS

Please meet our co-founders:

Wayne Feigenbaum

Wayne has been a business founder and owner for over 20 years. His Fortune 500 background was the foundation for his success in the commercial printing industry.

As President of Preferred Printing Services, Inc, he has in-depth knowledge of managing growth through aggressive sales, strategic planning and acquisitions. Preferred Printing was recognized by Inc Magazine as one of the 500 fastest growing privately held companies in America. Strong client and vendor relationships have been the hallmark of Wayne’s businesses.

Wayne graduated from the University of Maine with a Bachelors degree in Marketing.

Bill Hoff

Bill has over 20 years experience in operations management and business ownership. He has used his rare balance of entrepreneurship and analytical skills to grow consumer products ventures in the bottled water and beverage markets.

As Operations Director at Preferred Printing, Bill has overseen the logistical and financial aspects of the business in its growth and acquisition phase.

After earning his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Duke University Bill received his Masters in Business Administration concentrating in operations from Carnegie Mellon University.

Tim Tracey

Tim manages sales and marketing for the Pinnacle Network of Simsbury, CT. He has over 20 years experience in the sales and marketing of software and financial services.

His sales experience highlighted the value of referring relationships which resulted in highly qualified sales leads. Through his management of Internet based, lead generation and database marketing campaigns, Tim conceived of leveraging technological tools to facilitate and incentivize ‘word of mouth’, spurring the concept for a local business-to-consumer and B-to-B lead referral engine - YouGottaCall.com.

Tim earned his Bachelors in Marketing from Boston College, graduating from its School of Management (now the Carroll SOM) and its Honors Program.

Tags: localsearch, socialsearch, wordofmouth, affiliatemarketing, offline/online

Saturday September 8, 2007 - 06:29pm (EDT)

TIME Magazine on Facebook and social networks

Why Facebook Is the Future - TIME By LEV GROSSMAN

• Whereas Google is a brilliant technological hack, Facebook is primarily a feat of social engineering.
• Yahoo! offered a billion for Facebook last year and was rebuffed.
• It's a website, but in a sense, it's another version of the Internet itself: a Net within the Net, one that's everything the larger Net is not.
• People tend to use their real names on Facebook. They also declare their sex, age, whereabouts, romantic status and institutional affiliations. Identity is not a performance or a toy on Facebook; it is a fixed and orderly fact.
• Facebook's fastest-growing demographic consists of people 35 or older
• Facebook is structured around an opt-in philosophy; people have to consent to have contact with or even see others on the network.
• Facebook has taken steps this year to expand its functionality by allowing outside developers to create applications that integrate with its pages, which brings with it expanded opportunities for abuse. But it has also hung on doggedly to its core insight: that the most important function of a social network is connecting people and that its second most important function is keeping them apart.

My Take

Facebook would likely be interested in an avenue for expanding its penetration into the 30-50 something market - particularly if that avenue came part and parcel with a unique and viral entre into the $65+ billion local advertising market - with positive cash flow from the get go.

Any such application developer would do well to consider integration with Facebook as a key business requirement.

Saturday September 8, 2007 - 03:42pm (EDT)

Adotas » Brand Ads Steer Clear Of Social Sites

Adotas Brand Ads Steer Clear Of Social Sites

Written on September 4th 2007 Author by Editor |

In a report put out by IDC called, “Social Networking Services in the US - Popular, Yes, But How to Monetize Them?”, the firm projected that social networking ad revenues in the US would hit $1 billion in 2007, an increase of over 50% from 2006’s $400 million.

Only advertising seems to make social networks attractive to major media firms and portals; whereas e-commerce and subscriptions did not substantially contribute to the revenue accumulated by social networks according to emarketer.

IDC program director Karsten Weide was quoted in a statement to say, “Social networks cannot guarantee a brand-safe environment. Advertisers don’t want to see their ads displayed alongside illicit content, for example. The dilemma for social networks is if they start to control what content users can post, they will lose popularity, which is what attracted advertisers in the first place.”

The reported summarized that for as popular as social networks may be, there is the potential that they may not see big scale brand advertising because of these issues.

My Take

It will definitely take some creative thinking to monetize social networks...

Any ideas????

Tuesday September 4, 2007 - 03:13pm (EDT)

Online classified ads take $3.1Billion from newspapers

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/09/online-classifi.html

"The Washington Post has an interesting story today about the online classified advertising market which recorded $3.1 Billion in sales in 2006, while newspaper classifieds have dropped by about $3B in the last five years.

"... The chart on the left, courtesy of The Washington Post, shows just how dramatic the shift has been, and will continue to be...

"Billions of dollars from small advertisers -Consider that Google generated over $10 Billion in online ad revenues last year, while Yahoo, Microsoft, and others raked in another $10B or more. The vast majority of this revenue came from small advertisers, not the Fortune 500.

"... Most of Google's billions in revenue comes from small advertisers paying 50 cents to $5 per click for a text ad.

"The Next Big Thing - Online classified ads, local search, and mobile search are huge markets, with no dominant leader, and lots of opportunity for innovation. New business models will emerge and a new set of leaders will reap billions in profits...pennies at a time."

My Take

The stats cited by Mr. Dodge tell the recent history. His observation that there is no dominant leader in the huge market for local search (into which I lump mobile search and classified ads) points toward the next revolution in advertising.

Sunday September 2, 2007 - 10:02am (EDT)