Nielsen: ‘Local Search’ Broader than ‘Google’

From The Local Onliner

A new survey of 2,000 consumers by Nielsen/Netratings for WebVisible found that 86 percent of those surveyed used the Internet to find a local business from which to shop, a dramatic rise from a similar survey from last year where it was 70 percent.

Most of the respondents — 74 percent – said they use a search engine when they are looking for a local retail or service business. For these consumers, local search isn’t just synonymous with search engines such as Google or Yahoo. It includes all the different flavors of local media, directories and city guides online. Sixty-five percent use Yellow Pages, 50 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 44 percent use local newspapers, 33 percent use white pages, 29 percent use TV and 18 percent use consumer review Websites.

Indeed, users have a hard time pinpointing the one source that triggered a “local search” buying decision. Traditionally, this has been an ace-in-the-hole for Yellow Pages, which are thought to be among the best media for getting consumers when they are actually ready to buy.

Carey Ransom, WebVisible VP of Sales and Marketing, says that the findings reinforce the idea that it is not a one player game for local advertisers. While search engines are very important in today’s market, traditional media “complements their core,” he says. “Their share is eroding, but they are still very valid players.”

Other revealing findings come of the study, which has not yet been posted by WebVisible. For instance, 67 percent would prefer using an Internet Yellow Pages over a print book, with most of these saying IYP is “much faster;” 63 percent saying the online listings are “more current;” and 45 percent citing the advantages of online search tools. But print is still considered to have a leg up when it comes to comprehensiveness. Just 27 percent felt that the online version is more comprehensive.

The survey also found a real discrepancy in local search use between downtown, urban and suburban use. Downtown areas saw the highest rate of growth as a local business finder, surging 88 percent over the last two years. Local use also surged for those with household incomes over $75K. Among those users, the rise in local online search coincided with a drop in telephone directory use, which fell by 62 percent.

Website quality also played a significant factor in attracting local commerce. Eighty-five percent of respondents agreed that the quality of a business owner’s website is an important factor in earning the consumer’s trust. Over 75 percent of respondents said they were more likely to make a purchase from “an unfamiliar business with a quality website,” than “a poor website from a known business.” The survey also found that favorable reviews in blogs play a key role in local purchase decisions – but only if the review comes from credible sources.

My Take

Consumers now expect that they can find answers - even local ones - on the Web. This article mentions that many prefer certain advantages of traditional media. Yet it does not mention the oldest - and most effective form of advertising: word-of-mouth.

This writer states that media users cannot determine the one key factor in triggering their buying decision. Yet other studies show that a word-of-mouth referral is the most trusted and most likely to result in a sale.

A model that leverages the best of the of the newest technologies along with the most effective form of sales leads; one taking an entirely different approach from 'search engine' marketing and broadcast advertising- that would be something. "Trusted local experts. Word of mouth referrals."^TM "Better than free."^TM

In development...

Friday October 12, 2007 - 08:00am (EDT)

$55 Million VC Funding for Local Search Company

October 9, 2007 Los Angeles Times: "Web companies eye market for local ads"

SAN FRANCISCO -- When it comes to finding local products and services, consumers are increasingly letting their fingers do the clicking.

Locally targeted search engines have replaced thick phone books as the starting point for millions of people seeking plumbers, personal injury lawyers or hair stylists. That trend is creating a big business opportunity for a slew of online players, including advertising start-ups, Internet giants and traditional yellow-pages publishers.

One Woodland Hills company, ReachLocal Inc., just landed $55.2 million in venture funding to bulk up as it tackles the local-search market.

Welcome to the next big front in the battle for online advertising dollars. Kelsey Group, a research firm based in Princeton, N.J., predicts that local search and Internet yellow-pages ad spending will grow to $4.9 billion in 2011 from $1.9 billion this year.

"It's a huge growth opportunity," said Warren Kay, Yahoo Inc.'s managing director of strategic alliances. "We are very interested in small businesses. They provide meaningful content consumers are looking for."

Search engines are investing in initiatives to create virtual neighborhoods where people can find detailed information on local businesses, including consumer reviews and such basics as the hours of operation.

Google Inc., for example, recently launched a pilot program to send contractors into local businesses to collect such information. ReachLocal is using some of the money it raised to take a similar approach, sending salespeople into small businesses across the country to offer to manage their search-engine advertising campaigns.

Those "feet on the street" efforts reflect how hard it is to reach the country's millions of small-business proprietors, who tend to rely on more traditional forms of advertising, and teach them about the benefits of online search, analysts say.

To wit: Businesses with fewer than 100 employees spent less than 5% of the nearly $72 billion spent on all forms of advertising in the U.S. in 2006, according to Borrell Associates Inc., a media research and consulting firm in Williamsburg, Va.

Companies such as ReachLocal, Irvine-based WebVisible Inc. and New York-based Yodle Inc. -- as well as the digital arms of huge directory publishers such as AT&T Inc. and R.H. Donnelley Corp. -- are preaching that the Internet can be the great equalizer for small merchants struggling to get noticed. They tout simple text ads alongside search results as one of the most effective strategies to land new customers.

Advertisers like search ads because they're highly targeted and shown to people who are actively looking to buy a particular product or service.

Major advertisers have seen the upside for some time and are increasing their spending on search ads. Revenue from search advertising in the first half of 2007 jumped nearly a third to $4.1 billion, representing 41% of all online ad spending, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said.

But because mounting an effective search marketing campaign is complicated, most small businesses have yet to experiment with it.

Some small businesses have mastered the science of rising to the top of search results without having to buy keywords by tweaking their websites and getting prominent ones to link to them. Others buy their own search-engine ads, but analysts say most either don't know how or can't spare the time.

That's where ReachLocal and its competitors come in. The services vary, but essentially small businesses hire these companies to buy keyword ads on major search engines such as those of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Corp. Some companies track the results for their clients through e-mails or phone calls. Now many of these companies are developing video and mobile technologies. And they are finding success.

Take Eddie Ugalde, 33, who runs an eco-friendly carpet cleaning business in Altadena. He started spending $1,000 a month with ReachLocal in March and got such a dramatic response from the search campaign that he moved Right Away Carpet Drycleaning out of his home, grew from two employees to 10 and bought a distribution business. He recently increased his monthly ad purchase to $1,500.

"It would have taken a real long time for word of mouth to give us the opportunity to be in the place we are today," Ugalde said.

To reach this largely untapped online market, the old-fashioned yellow-pages publishers have an edge because they already have relationships with small businesses around the country, said Matt Booth, a Kelsey Group senior vice president.

After a few fits and starts, these publishers increasingly are marketing search advertising to mom-and-pop operations.

"As online takes off, small businesses know that they need and want to be there," said Matt Crowley, chief marketing officer for AT&T subsidiary Yellowpages.com.

My Take
$55 Million? To pay commissions to sales reps? They must be very confident in their "feet on the street" approach. 'Sounds like a lot of overhead to me.

What about the existing, powerful network that already exists in every city and town? Happy customers are already spreading the good word about their trusted local businesses in grocery stores aisles, at school concerts and on the sideline of football and soccer games every day.

Why not leverage these relationships? Why leave them out of the equation?

Tags: localsearch

Tuesday October 9, 2007 - 04:50pm (EDT)

My Yellow Pages came today… a conversation with myself

My Take

“What the? Who threw a bag of trash onto the end of the driveway?,” I wondered. “The nerve!”

Upon closer inspection – it’s the new Yellow Pages. "Wonderful."

“Now what do I do with this klunky thing? Hmm, let’s see. Where did I put the old Yellow Pages? There they are! Right where I left them - the day of their unceremonious arrival.”

“‘Could it be I never even cracked the old volume? ‘Yep, sure enough. It’s never been opened.”

Guiltily I lug the 2006 tome to the garage and hoist it into the trash. Thud!

Replacing the lid, I think of the wasted advertising dollars spent by local small business owners. I picture the thousands of sales calls by smiling, suited Yellow Page sales reps and the reluctant checks handed over by struggling merchants.

Shouldn’t I have at least looked up a Chinese restaurant before discarding this? Would that have helped?

I console myself with the thought that I have patronized the trustworthy, local establishments. But now I use my cell phone speed dial to order pizza or call the dentist. Now I use Google to look up a number for placing my order of heating oil, doing product research or finding an infrequently used number. Usually I find new vendors through word-of-mouth referrals.

The Yellow Pages? They’re heading for the scrap heap of history – which is fitting since they have filled more than a few landfills themselves.

Tags: yellowpages, localsearch

Saturday October 6, 2007 - 07:23pm (EDT)

"My Take" on Web 3.0

Facebook | My take on web 3.0
A thought I'd shared on Facebook's "Web 3.0" Group:

James,

I think of it similarly. 'My Take' on the evolution of the Web - Web 1.0 and 2.0 were a "place" I go to:

Web 1.0:
1. see something
2. learn something
3. buy something / sell something

Web 2.0
1. connect with real world events or places
2. connect with someone or a group to forge a real relationship that can lead to or facilitate my real world relationships

I envision Web 3.0 to be where/when the Web comes to me and integrates with my real world and my real relationships and my real, local events to facilitate the things I normally do and the interactions that I normally have with the people in my real life.

Saturday October 6, 2007 - 06:07pm (EDT)

(Word of Mouth) "Marketing is Easy"

Excerpted from " Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog": MarketingProfs Conference Coverage: Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog

MarketingProfs Conference Coverage: Marketing Is Easy

Word-of-mouth guru Andy Sernovitz's presentation yesterday at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum was a double whammy: A high-energy, humorous speaker delivering insightful content.

Among the many ideas I took home with me is this simple framework. Andy explained there are three basic reasons why other people talk about your company:

• It's about YOU - they think your company is great (or not-so-great)
• It's about ME - it makes the talker feel good
• It's about US - it's about being part of a group

To maximize your advantage your company should simply be more remarkable. Employ tactics that make you more forward-able, more worth talking about.

To capitalize on ME, you should give folks whatever they need to make themselves feel smart or helpful when they offer advice to others.

And to leverage US, you could invite people to participate in group activities.

Word of Mouth Marketing Manifesto

1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
2. Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
3. Ethics and good service come first.
4. UR the UE: You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).
5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
7. Be interesting or be invisible.
8. If it's not worth talking about, it's not worth doing.
9. Make the story of your company a good one.
10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.
11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
12. Honest marketing makes more money.

My Take

If you are a local business that's been around a while, you are already doing at least some of these things - intentionally or unintentionally.

YouGottaCall.com will soon be able to power your company's word-of-mouth sales leads. Capture more of the leads that your customers WANT to give to you. Improve your customer relationships and benefit the community.

If you are interested in being a beta test site, let me know!

- - Tim

Friday October 5, 2007 - 11:51am (EDT)

Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool

Nielsen Global Survey - Press Release: Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool:

Traditional Media Advertising Still More Credible Worldwide Than Ads on Search Engines, Web Site Banners and Mobile Phones

New York, October 1, 2007 - Despite an ever-expanding array of advertising platforms and sources, consumers around the world still place their highest levels of trust in other consumers, according to a recent global Nielsen Internet survey.

Conducted twice-a-year among 26,486 internet users in 47 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East, Nielsen most recently surveyed consumers on their attitudes toward thirteen types of advertising - from conventional newspaper and television ads to branded web sites and consumer-generated content.

"Advertisers around the world are able to reach consumers across an increasingly diverse range of media platforms," said David McCallum, the global managing director for Nielsen's Customized Research Services. "Even so, the recommendation of someone else remains the most trusted sources of information when consumers decide which products and services to buy. And even though new media technologies are playing a role in ‘globalizing' society, many purchasing decisions are still based on firmly held national and cultural attitudes. Furthermore, given that nothing travels faster than bad news - with estimates that reports of bad experiences outnumber good service reports by as many as 5:1 - the importance of responsive, high quality customer service is yet again highlighted."

Wednesday October 3, 2007 - 06:26am (EDT)

Menu For Local Search Success

Excerpted from The Frager Factor - Local Search Poised For Marketing Success

"People in the US tend to spend 80 percent of their budgets within 50 miles of their homes, and the Kelsey Group thinks that bodes well for local advertising's $110 billion market to shift more into local search ads. Only about four percent of local ad dollars are currently being spent on local search advertising. The Kelsey Group expects that to grow, and fast. They forecast a 50 percent annual growth rate for local search spending.

"Enjoying that growth and more means facing down the yellow pages companies for the attention of local people seeking information. It's a challenge for Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, all highly desirous of more of the local search market.

"The yellow pages publishers have an advantage today. The Kelsey Group refers to local ad service selling as a "high-touch" occupation, and salespeople can be expensive."

My Take

In other words, with their current advantage, and assuming that the nature of local advertising stays static, the Yellow Pages will do just fine. Kind of like the 2007 New York Mets in August.

Nothing personal, Mets fans. But your team is a timely example of how rapid change can occur. And isn't everyone in agreement on rapid change in local search?

Monday October 1, 2007 - 08:46pm (EDT)