Small Business Commando News

Google Maps Puts Local Search Industry On Notice:

This hilarious (photoshopped) images of Steven Cobert putting the Internet Yellow Pages on notice was done to illustrate a blog post by Evan Roberts at the MarketingShift blog.

Evan’s point is that user reviews will make Google Maps even more important to local internet and make the IYPs obsolete.

While that’s a bit premature, it is important to see Google improving their local initiatives.

If Google is able to capture local advertising dollars (and I’m helping them do just that), they will continue to make inroads.

There is growing interest in mobile advertising, but my pragmatic side keeps wondering . . .

1. It seems to me that most mobile search will be extremely local in nature AND heavily skewed toward travel / dining / entertainment / retail categories.

2. Having spent the best years of my life in local advertising, I find many of those categories among the most difficult to sell directive advertising to.

Some of this is because of the low transaction value (ie. coffee and bagels)

Some of this is because of off-site decision making. (ie. hotel / motel / rental car decisions are not made by the dude behind the desk)

3. However, because cell phones and cars go together, the automotive categories should be likely candidates to advertise. We’ve found automotive service businesses are very interested in local online / mobile advertising.

I think the reasons for this are two-fold. The results for automotive advertisers are outstanding. And, the decision makers are easy to reach.

It will be interesting to see how this all develops.

In Matt Boland’s Column at the Kelsey Group Blog, he discusses the NY Times article on iPhone’s potential effect on local search.

This is so overwhelmingly clear to me that local search and mobile search are going to be a major driver of local business information.

Of course, in 1999, I sat with Naveen Jain, who was the founder of InfoSpace discussing the multitude of devices that the Internet would become available on.

While our business relationship was less than optimal, I must give the man his due.  He was (and perhaps still is) a visionary in the eventual pervasiveness of information.

This is far bigger than the iPhone.  Given it’s price point, limited network and the few hundred million perfectly good cellphones in use, the iPhone isn’t the driver it’s mp3 playing cousin was.

Let this be a warning to publishers of local information.  Mobile search marketing makes little economic sense today.

Is there anyone who doesn’t think that mobile will be more important five years from now than it is today?

Well, that’s your answer. 

The question is who will be profiting from bringing buyers and sellers together on the mobile platform.  I think that local information publishers are in the cat bird’s seat (whatever that means) to have the most impact.

People talk about video, but how many small businesses are actually using it in their marketing?

In my experience, not very many.

Here’s an example of a video we produced for a local chiropractor. We have a local videographer go shoot a short (about 1 minute) video.

We load it onto 35 different video sharing sites and tag the video with his key words and phrases so that it will be seen.

Result: in less than a week, it’s been viewed OVER 200 times across the various video sharing channels.

You can be sure that targeted video that is intelligently distributed is highly effective in local online marketing.

Several publishers are waking up to the video movement, but it is still in its infancy among small local businesses

This is a classic example of demand outpacing supply. Those companies who regularly post video have an unbelievable advantage over those who do not.