Local Online Marketing

Will Google Places make Yellow Pages Obsolete?

December 12, 2011 by Kenny Leave a Comment

Phone books have become a nuisance to many consumers as they pile up on the driveway or by the front door. They fill the trash can (oops, I mean recycling bin), they waste paper, ink or toner, gas(from delivery), and time…yet some businesses continue to advertise.

Local Marketing Online is now more important than ever but the place to do it has changed.

National Yellow Pages and Consumer Choice Opt-Out Site

Some phone books added an online version which may be more beneficial than the printed versions. However, in 2011 Google decided to place more relevance on local searches and they did a big push for Google Places.

Google Places was formerly known as Google Local. I personally do not know why the name change but a good reason would be, people searching for a local business are searching for a place, not just information.

This makes appearing high in the search rankings even more important because someone looking for a Place instead of basic information, is ready to spend. The decision to spend has already been made and now they are looking for a place to spend it!

Local listings attract people with high buyer intent.

Think about it…

If someone types Italian Food Recipes into Google they are probably looking for free online recipes, Youtube videos, or cookbooks. The search results will show traditional websites, videos, and maybe a Facebook Fan Page of Italian Food Recipes.

If someone types Italian Restaurant into Google they are looking for a Place to eat Italian food…tonight or soon.

If someone types in 2004 Ford Explorer they may be looking at a vehicle they already found, they are researching, or even looking for pictures.

If someone types in Ford Dealership they are looking for a Place to visit because they may be ready to buy a car. They already researched vehicles and now it is time to test drive or buy.

When typing the local types of searches you are not likely to see any yellow pages listings. The online version of the phone book may be of some use because they do get some visitors but nowhere near what Google gets.

Google owns the #1 and #2 search engines in the world, Google and Youtube.

If you are tracking your phone book ads and they are making a profit you should continue using them.

If you want the most local exposure you can get learn about or hire someone to do your Google Places Marketing.

Can You Supercharge Online Reviews?

December 7, 2011 by Kenny Leave a Comment

Prior to reading this article you should read about levels 1-7 for this to be effective for you.

Online Reviews 1-7

Think about how difficult it is to get a happy customer to write a review.

An unhappy customer will rent a computer at Kinkos, create an online account, and search for a place or two to write a bad review but WOW is it challenging to get a customer to write a review after a good experience.

What are the possible roadblocks to get reviews?

Customer forgets.
They don’t want to take the time to do so.
They feel like you have not earned it.
They are intimidated by the internet or technology.
They are in fear of their privacy because they do not quite understand online review sites.

A follow up communication about their purchase can lead to a better experience for the customer and inspire them to write a review. This is a good time for you to ask them and even send them a direct link to make it easy for them.

The only roadblock we have not covered with the follow up is intimidation and fear. You can implement a system that helps to overcome this which is something we have done with our clients…for their customers.

A powerful system for overcoming all the potential roadblocks is to attract internet savvy customers and offer them all methods for reviewing you.

Put a QR code on the front door.
Have a Facebook Fan Page with links to review sites
Put review links on the home page of your website

Consider the possibilities of attracting internet savvy customers and what that can mean for your business.

With all else being equal would you rather have a new happy customer that has 3,000 friends on Facebook or 50 friends on Facebook?

Would you rather have a happy customer that has their own blog with 450 followers of people with similar interests or someone that does not know what a blog is?

Would you rather have a customer that can click on their mouse and tell 250 people in your area that your business is great?

The only question left is how to attract the internet savvy customer.

Use internet marketing, of course.

Is it possible that an online savvy customer has a higher value to you because of their reach with a click of a button. Compare this to the technophobe that is jump-up-and-down happy with your service, and they tell 2 people about it at lunch next week.

In the future or even now you may see companies host a customer appreciation day and show their customers how to have fun on Facebook or write online reviews about companies they frequent. Companies will hire a professional to come in and teach their customers the value of Social Networks and writing online reviews so they can help their friends navigate the good and bad companies.

The event will be positioned as a customer appreciation event but it will also serve as a method for increasing the customer value of your existing customers by increasing their reach…so they can tell everone how great you are.

A level 8 review may be the customer that has written reviews on several companies over a period of months and now they write a review about your company. That is completely natural, it demonstrates that this is a person that is contributing to that online community, and they are probably writing a legitimate review.

Do not be surprised if reviews from regular reviewers have more relevance when it comes to the review sites.

Online Reviews are the New Black – How to Get Online Reviews

December 7, 2011 by Kenny Leave a Comment

If a testimonial, a referral, and your best sales person could procreate they would have an online review.

Reviews are that important.

How you get those reviews can help you or destroy your online exposure.

The frustration of trying to get your customers to go online and comment about your business has led some owners to seek outside assistance. Some companies have taken it to far.

Lifestyle Lift will pay $300,000 in penalties to the NY state Attorney General. Company Busted For Fake Reviews

Other tactics that may be ethical but can still get you flagged include:

Writing reviews on behalf of customers and having them sign it, then posting it.
Posting reviews on behalf of customers from one account.
Posting from different accounts but only 1 IP address.
Paying a company that has IP addresses in several locations to post on behalf of your customers.

The serious business owner that wants to capitalize using online reviews and also wants to avoid big mistakes should start with the video series below then read on.
If you find yourself in a position to question whether your online review methods are going to work long-term, think like a consumer.

If your life was on the line and you had to find the right Doctor and you were reading the reviews, what would you want?

You would want every review to have been written by a customer/patient that was so happy they were inspired enough to take the time to go online, log in to their own account, and write a review from their own home with their own IP address. No trickery, no extra push from the Doctor.

Understand that Google thinks like the consumer and does everything they can to fight the unethical people and the businesses collecting real reviews get caught in the middle.

The highest level of reviews (Level 7) are the reviews that your customers write by going online, logging into their own accounts, and posting reviews, spread out over a period of time. This is totally natural and that is one way to think like Google…as Google tries to think like the consumer.

This may be frustrating again to most business owners because it sounds like the answer is to DO NOTHING and hope for the reviews to flow.
Not so…

You can still ask for reviews or encourage reviews and feedback from your customers on specific review sites. You can make it easy for them by providing them a direct link or a QR code that takes them directly to the page where they can leave a review.

Businesses that collect the most reviews are the businesses that have it as part of the system, sales cycle, or follow up.

There may be a Level 8 and at the very least, even more power to your Online Review System.

Level 8 – More Powerful Online Reviews??

Business Owners Going Loco Because of Local Switch

July 7, 2011 by Kenny Leave a Comment

Business owners everywhere were shocked at the site of the new Google search results…it was missing something!

How about 7 websites that used to appear on the first page of Google no longer exist. At least it seems like they don’t exist because 91% of people searching online never get to page 2 when ready to make a purchase.

These 7 disappearing websites were [Read more…]

Reputation Managment v Local Online Marketing

June 15, 2011 by Kenny Leave a Comment

Local businesses have realized that their online reputation matters and it can have a major impact on their Local Online Marketing.

Online Reviews are prominently displayed on most major websites and on all local directories. Just look at the screenshot below.

Notice the reviews in a different color(to make them stand out). They redirect the viewer back to a page with nothing but reviews about the local business.

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations but…
unfortunately it takes 1 unhappy customer to write 1 review and 100 happy customers to write 1 review. For this reason, you need to have a Review System or Reputation Management System in place.

As if these reviews did not already play a big role…now the explosive growth of smartphones allows your customers to write a review about your business before they walk out the front door.

In addition…100 Million people per month access Facebook from their smartphones. Guess what many of them are doing?

They are talking about their experience at a business just like yours.

In addition…

Social Media influences your Search Engine Optimization for organic search.

Each one of these influences the other and in the center of all of it is profits.

The power now lies in the hands of the consumer. It used to be that businesses had easy access to a list of leads…now customers have easy access to a list of businesses and they can read what people are saying about them and they can ask their friends if they have anything to say about them and they will often decide to do business with you or someone else based on that reputation…that they can access in 2 minutes using their smartphone.

Which of these do you believe to be the most relevant to your business? comment below.