I actually thought I had missread the story when I received the alert in my email this morning. I was skimming stories at the airport headed to Silicon Valley, and when I mentioned it in passing to a steely eyed VC type today he leapt gazelle like to his Blackberry and indeed confirmed that the mighty Idearc had filled for chapter 11. I’m a huge audio book fan, I get to fly a lot and I fill in the spots where my laptop is out of juice with the spoken word. When the narrator starts a section with “Chapter Eleven” a shiver runs down my spine. I wish the good folks at Idearc nothing but the very best, they are a very smart hard working bunch and we are already working with them successfully on several projects. I look forwards to them emerging stronger moving forwards.

What this story, and the pending possible restructuring of several other Yellow Pages giants, points to is the perfect storm of bad news which has swamped the decks of many fine companies. The economy is famously bad, sales are down, the Yellow Page print product has been hemorrhaging cash for years and the increasing stampede of local advertisers from print yellow pages to online offerings which generate track-able local results is becoming overwhelming.

Newspapers have been beset by many of the same issues, my own local Metro the mighty Boston Globe may stop publishing in the near future. Both the Yellow Pages and newspapers have been unable to completely replace the revenue lost from the high priced print products sold by humans on a face to face basis with much lower cost online products sold online or over the phone.

In the old days the purveyors of print ad products never had to prove that their products delivered value for money….over a hundred years or so they emerged as part of the landscape…a must have for any local business. Indeed in many, perhaps all cases the “dead tree products” proved highly effective as a way to deliver customers to advertisers. There is an advertising truism that “half of all advertising is wasted…the problem is nobody can tell which half.” Since the late 90’s print advertising products have been pecked away at by the pure play verticals. When was the last time you sold an exercise bike, bought a car or found a soul mate through a print product? Of course it still happens but it happens less often than it used to.

Even given those changes some sections have remained robust print advertisers. However increasingly local advertisers have an alternative to print products across all segments; they can count the clicks and measure the calls generated by their online advertising and those ad products don’t have to be bought on an annual basis.

Here at eLocal we see the impact of these changes every day. Our advertisers are looking to get on the front page of search results and they count every click, lead and call which we generate. They rightly hold us to a very high “what have you done for me lately” standard. If we aren’t effective we apply more effort to get them to where they need to be. The print equivalent would be a yellow pages company delivering more and more books, burying entire city blocks in paper, until each advertiser was satisfied with their results. It’s a tough standard and we are happy to deliver against it every day.

You can read the entire story here.

Reports out of the Newspaper Association of America’s annual convention this week focused on the perceived drama between newspaper publishers and Google. Observers have been fixed on the rifts between the search firm and newspaper publishers, which some say suffer because of search engine-facilitated distribution of their content. However, the NAA itself at the San Diego event promoted search engine marketing as a potential revenue stream for its member publishers.

During a presentation Monday, the NAA’s SVP Business Development Randy Bennett, along with VP Advertising Mort Goldstrom, suggested a variety of ways newspaper firms can enhance their digital ad offerings. Among their recommendations: search engine marketing services.

Read the complete article here

Over the last couple months we have heard many different ideas on how Twitter can successfully monetize their surge in popularity, growing user base, and overall traffic. The ideas range from charging for an account, charging for premium accounts, simply adding AdSense, and the list goes on. What we haven’t heard is how Twitter could add local search into their business model, monetize it successfully, and create more user generated content.
When you think about it almost everything that is on Twitter is inherently local. The simple question “What are you doing?” implies that because, unless you are at home watching TV, you are doing something that is local, whether that is local to you or to someone else. The obvious example of this is when you go out to a restaurant and write about that on Twitter, whether you say “Going out to [insert name here] with @stevemcstud” or “Just had a great dinner with @stevemcstud at [insert name here]“. If you simply perform a search on Twitter for “restaurant in”, the point being to see how many people tweet “I am going to restaurant in [insert city]” or “Anybody know of a good restaurant in [insert city name]?” you can see that with just that one phrasing there are tons of results of people talking about local restaurants.

Read This Article in it’s entirety here

“It is easier to sell them what they want…then to make them want what you are selling…”

Imagine this scenario:

You are working the counter at a convenience store and a client walks up and asks for a Coke.

“I understand that you would like a Coke, but how about a nice Sprite?”

NO thanks just a Coke please…

“I certainly understand your need for a refreshing drink, but how about if I take 20% off the price of the Sprite?”

NO thanks just a Coke please…

“The citrus flavor of a Sprite would be more thirst quenching wouldn’t you agree?”

NO thanks just a Coke…

OR

I would like a Coke please…

“One Coke coming up…here you go…”

Every person has a personal desire or want that they have already bought off on and are fully prepared to invest in.  They will take immediate action if they believe that your product or service will provide and/or add leverage to their ability to acquire their need.

Their WANT will usually stem from the need to fulfill one of the innate instincts:

• Personal Security
• Self Esteem
• Sex Relations
• Personal Relations
• Financial Security

Each prospect’s WANT will need to be identified, and then attached to the action potential of your product or service to tap into this natural state of urgent action. So therefore let me pose a powerful supposition:

What if you could read minds?

I mean what if you could actually know what each prospect’s personal need or desire was?  How would that affect your presentation?  Pay attention to the difference in these two leads:

Bob is an owner of a Tire Shop and spends $400 per month on advertising.
Bob is an owner of a Tire Shop and spends $400 per month on advertising
He is afraid of losing and not being good enough
Having more than enough money is his primary concern
He has trust issues with fast talkers
He wants organized plans that are backed with case studies to feel safe

Which lead would you prefer to have more of?  How would the additional information change the style of your presentation?  Would you change your rate of talk speed?  Would you suddenly find yourself quoting more statistics or bringing up support material for your cause?  How would your product or service help his business win, or safely bring more money to save?

If you could provide this information satisfactorily then he would lurch to buy from you.  He has already purchased these concepts.  There is no need to sell him what he already wants.  You simply need to demonstrate that you have his deepest desires ready and waiting.

Each one of us has primary personality profiles.  These are like an emotional thumb print. It has been described many times using all different types of labels:

Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatics
Type A, B, C, D personalities
Red, Blue, Green, Yellow

The list goes on.  So it doesn’t really matter what you call them, just bear in mind that each of us has a merge of several of these distinct emotional patterns and typically one dominant psychological accent.  These accents have base desires and you can read them through language, rate of speech speed, posture and general physical attributes.

Once you know these by heart and can both read and speak the various languages, you will not only be able to accurately identify their base needs, but you will better proffer trust and be able to create much more powerful discovery experiences.  Friends confide in friends and when you speak the matching language of another human they simply feel more comfortable opening up.

Type 1:  The controller
Base Need:  To Win-Control-To Conquer
Language pattern:  Power words, Contest, Get on with it, I’m in charge, Dominant
Language inflection: Strong, Clear, Interrupts, Repeats, Curt when agitated
Posture attributes:  Statement cars, Studies that art of war in all activities

Type 2:  The artist
Base Need:  To play-create-imagine have fun
Language pattern:  Playful Words, Game, Slang, It’s all good, Dude where’s my car
Language inflection: Joker, Cheerful, Fast Talker, Forgetful, Sensitive
Posture attributes:  Flashy or Original Cars, Studies social style and events, Flakey, Chameleon

Type 3:  The organizer
Base Need:  To have order-to prosper social trust through systems and process
Language pattern:  Process words, Flow Chart, Program, Case Studies, Meticulous
Language inflection: Precise, Clear, High Vocabulary, Slower rate of speech speed, Intense Listener
Posture attributes:  Sensible Cars, Studies that art of economics in all life patterns

Type 4:  The healer
Base Need:  To love and be loved
Language pattern:  Sensitive Words, Love One Another, I’ll help, I’m not in charge, Submissive
Language inflection: Mild, Helpful, Never Interrupts, Apologizes, Heals Quickly and Forgiving
Posture attributes:  Non-Descript cars, Studies that purpose driven activities

Your two step process towards effective mind reading is actually quite simple:

Step 1: Use your power of observation to determine the personality profile and match their speech and posture patterns to develop and prosper trust for honest intimate discovery sharing

Step 2: Dig into Discovery and identify the actual primary instinct that is most important to them as well as their primary WANT.  Sell to this WANT and instinct.  Translate your presentation to draw a clear picture. Paint the scenario plainly so that your Prospect can easily see that your product and/or service will deliver to their main WANT.

This is just a snap shot of the primary emotional patterns of the people in our community.  There is a great book I read a long time ago called:  Personalities Plus…It was a quick read and goes into depth on how to communicate to and relate with each type.  If you know that people are different in their base needs you will sense their needs more quickly in your meeting and you will find that they will share with you.  Once you have identified who they are and what they really want then you will be able to add real momentum to your sales process.

Read their minds…sell them what they want and you will sell more often!

There were many sessions of note but I though this post about the local session given by Chris LaSala from Google was particularly interesting. The ideas he addresses are fascinating and exciting. He outline a world where you will be able to search for local information and not only find basic information like addresses and phone numbers, but local content even down to information about availability of inventory in your local shops. It’s a great idea and one that has been tried by several companies in recent years. The problem that those folks ran into and Google discusses here is that small business don’t have the time in there day to get this stuff done and do the million other things they have to do. The information that Google wants is out there but it’s not online and getting it online is going to take time.

This is a problem that we have been working with for a couple of years now. We make sure that as much information about our customers as we can manage get put in the right places online and we work to ensure that information gets found by people searching for the goods and services offered by our customers. We don’t as yet have a way to publish what the current stock levels but we are looking at adding more and more of this kind of information.

The ideal world Google is discussing in this article isn’t here quite yet…but we are helping to build it one local business at a time

Google Cozies Up To SMBs For Digital Content

by Laurie Sullivan,

Imagine searching on Google for rare coins or Topps baseball cards. Aside from listing the brick-and-mortar address, directions and phone number, the search query might return the suggested retail price and the quantity in stock at each local store.

That’s the picture Chris LaSala painted this week at The Kelsey Group conference in Los Angeles. The Google director of local marketers and strategic partner development said the biggest problem the search engine faces in reaching that goal is the lack of digital content serving local markets. “There’s a vast array of content specific to local markets, but the majority isn’t available in digital form, so getting access to it isn’t easy,” he said.

Small and medium businesses (SMB) have been reluctant to give Google access to digital content that is specific to local markets. Basically, it’s because they don’t have the time to turn hard copies into bits and bytes. “Getting the SMB to give us access is something we need to get better at,” he said. “We aren’t even close to where we need to be.”

LaSala estimates that Google has indexed about 10% of the available digital content geared toward local markets. “If you look at Main Street USA–the barber, the church, the synagogue and the sports shop–you might get the hours of service and address,” he said. “But wouldn’t it be great if you find out if you could get an Alex Rodriguez rookie card? If you knew it was in the shop and the costs, you could go down to the store and buy it. This is just an example of where we are today.”

LaSala admits that Google hasn’t done as good a job in serving the SMB market as it would like. Many of Google’s products don’t meet their needs. Citing a Webvisibility study, he said 40% of SMBs go to the Internet first when they look for local data, yet less than half spend less than 10% for online ads.

Aside from getting SMBs to provide more content in digital format, the biggest challenge has been to support them as advertisers. He suspects that while the features in AdWords drive success, they also hinder success, too.

While the AdWords’ platform lets businesses choose a host of advertising options, SMBs don’t have time to pick keywords, design ads, decide on budgets for cost-per-click (CPC) campaigns, and pick sites they want to advertise on. “It’s all these things the SMB doesn’t have time to do,” LaSala said.

LaSala admits there’s a gap between the design of the platform and the ability for them to carry out the campaign. Improving the gap might mean making Google Maps more intuitive or offering bundled services.

There are plans to roll out new bundled services and APIs for SMBs that should align better with the philosophies of smaller companies, LaSala said. The sales force has seen a makeover, too, because Google has learned that selling into the SMB requires specific talents to understand the market.

“We’ve retrenched with a smaller group of partners,” LaSala said. “Google’s not immune to pressures of effectively using the resources on our team, so we narrowed the scope to the partners that we think log the highest opportunities.”

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=102383

We work with thousands of local companies making sure they are clearly incredibly focused on maximizing their limited marketing budgets. Our typical customers are very sensitive to both the cost of marketing and the value they get from it. As the yellow pages collect dust at the back of closets local businesses still need to reach out to people looking for all over the nation our low cost high impact package which gets our customers new business through search. We do one thing really well. We get small business to the top of the search results for search terms they care about for a low monthly fee. It may not be as cool as TV advertising and it certainly doesn’t have the tradition that print advertising has, but it works and it’s affordable for most businesses.

How important is it that local businesses get to the front of search?….well there are several things driving this issue. First is behavior, people online search in a particular way. In search they go to the front page and typically select from the results displayed on that page. Very few ever look further than the first page…if you aren’t on that page then the chances are that online is not going to generate many customers for you. How big is the opportunity? Let’s look at the numbers: There is certainly a lot of search traffic going on. Reports differ but typically US search volume is in the 15-20 billion per month range and depending on whose numbers you believe anything up to 40% of those have some level of local interest. That’s a lot of search, lots of people looking for goods and services.

However if you take the number of people looking for things and divide that huge number by the number of locations and activities people are searching there may only be a few hundred people searching for any service or product in any location in any month. The good news is that those people are highly focused on finding what they are looking for and typically close to a buying decision and those intensely valuable searches are going to be spread between the companies on the front page of search.

In an economy headed for nuclear winter with local businesses looking to squeeze the last drop of value out of their marketing dollars our low cost high impact search visibility package is a great fit. We will focus on making our product the richest deepest most effective way for local businesses to get customers, it’s all we do and it’s what we do best.

Only the local interactive segment will show growth throughout the forecast period. All other local media will experience marginal to rapid declines in the next 18 to 36 months, says the report. A small number of traditional media will rebound with a revived economy beginning in 2011, though most traditional media will continue to decline at a slower pace.

According to the forecast, the interactive segment (mobile, Internet Yellow Pages, local search, online verticals and classifieds, voice search, e-mail marketing and other interactive revenues generated by traditional media players) will grow from $14 billion in 2008 to $32.1 billion in 2013. The traditional segment (newspapers, direct mail, television, radio, print Yellow Pages, non-digital out of home, cable TV and magazines) will decrease from $141.3 billion in 2008 to $112.4 billion in 2013.

Tom Buono, president and CEO, BIA Advisory Services, says…

“As the shift to online accelerates, and the demand for accountability metrics grows, there is an increased urgency for traditional media companies to develop and embrace new business models that incorporate digital strategies… to drive business…”

Neal Polachek, CEO, The Kelsey Group, concludes …

“the share shift… could actually be more pronounced… successful integration will require considerable attention to business models, product innovation and sales channel evolution.”

Now, you know if you have a Facebook account that they ask a lot of questions; they want to know who you are so that they can drive targeted advertising/marketing to your page and to that of your friends who they assume share some of the same interests, and well, let’s face it, buying patterns.  Facebook strategically places seemingly non-intrusive ads on your “wall.”   The ads are simply an image and some text .. I almost didn’t realize that they were ads! Isn’t that part of the power of subliminal marketing strategy used by so many companies to lure consumers in to purchasing ..

Take a beautiful young lady , who is in the “marrying age” and “in a serious relationship”, what type of ads do you think appear on her page .. Diamond ads, no pressure here.  … My husband, a Kiwi, has a Quantas ad and well, me, I am a little disappointed with the ad that appears on my home page;  Belisi Skin Tightener. I knew I should have had Aaron touch up that photo, but none the less, they “knew” that she was young and maybe knew that I wasn’t quite so young.

Targeted, focused advertising .. seems national advertisers have caught the Facebook Advertising bug, but isn’t there an opportunity for small businesses who rely on local exposure, local customers, and local dollars.  Yes, the answer is yes.  Facebook’s ad bidding tools allow businesses to narrowly target consumers by using the IP address and a member’s profile information (and their friends’ profile information as well) to determine a user’s location, interest, age, employment and even favorite television show.   This is targeted, focused marketing at its best.  Much better than other traditional advertising because you not only know who sees your ad, but who clicks on it and how/when it converts.  This is a great opportunity for local businesses to spend their dwindling advertising budget on a very focused audience at an affordable price.  eLocal Listing includes “social marketing aspects” in our product offerings and is currently offering Social Advertising to its Corporate Strategic Alliance Partners, as well as local business reviews.

I will write more about advertising on Facebook in another post, but for now I have to get online and buy that skin tightener I saw on my Profile.

Given the ubiquity of a desktop computer these days, we generally know where we have parked them and head there first.  And with the ease of internet search, particularly when you start with a Google and Yahoo search bar, it just seems so much easier and immediate in finding the right local retailer or service provider you may need.  With the power of local search, consumers are increasingly relying on a search engine to navigate them to the right listing, or business web site.  And as broadband goes mainstream, fewer people are simply NOT using printed books when searching for products, and services anymore; the immediacy of search and ease of use, increasingly dictate an online search first before we hunt for the YP.

So as a small business why not put your efforts and marketing dollars where consumers are actually searching?  On the web and in the main two or three search engines!

Whether the American economy is good or bad, small business drives our overall macro economy and hiring opportunities.  As we navigate through a treacherous 2009 business climate, we still find in our call center that many small businesses either do not have a good website, or worse still they have no website at all!  We know that small business owners are among the busiest people, and adding search marketing and web site development to their list of  post 5’oclock chores just is not going to happen.   Some claim they do not have the time, finances, technical wherewithal, or marketing smarts to
develop a good website. In a tough economic climate like 09, small business owners simply cannot afford to take up the challenge of find more potential customers.  Local consumers are continually searching the internet looking for products and services and a small business owner needs to know about that intent and business opportunity. And rightly or wrongly, they often judge whether or not to do business with your company on the basis of your website or search presence.

So how does the harried, small business owner get that web site or search presence?   One of the least expensive ways, is to simply create through a service like eLocal Listing,  a one page website that is great fodder for the search engines. We call these one pager business descriptions, a Profile, or a micro site. The search engines love them and in just a matter of minutes, we can usually get a small business owner fully fleshed out for the search engines for something under a hundred dollars a month.  It does not have to cost thousands to develop a website, but you do indeed need a presence to be found in today’s online world.  A fully developed Profile with the right keywords pushed to the right search engines is one way that a local business can compete with mature websites and larger companies on an equal footing.

A Profile when done right is more than a simple website, it’s your online Listing.  An eLocal Profile is more than a simple ‘brochure’ website.  It has the right keywords, basic business description, hours, credit cards, service areas, and details about the company that would be helpful to a consumer searching for goods and services.  And since the web is such an interactive visual, we will often include a video with the company’s name and phone number featured in it.  Our Profile is engaging and entertaining and pushed to several video destination sites, like YouTube.  By getting the Profiles featured in the search engines and destination sites, we build a great presence for a business in its proper business category and locality.  By engaging site visitors and driving the phone or foot traffic to the local business, we give the owner a real chance at converting the searching consumer into a real business opportunity. In this business climate, driving traffic to your business phone, doorway or website makes good sense, especially when you can do it for less than a hundred dollars a month.

So while the print listing may not yet be dead;  in a tough economic cycle, an inexpensive eLocal Profile, or perhaps a more detailed web site is the right choice to make to get your shot at the local business opportunities that come by way of search.

How much dust is on your Yellow Page book?  Got your specs handy?

It is a new online business directory for Genesee County. Every service, retail and expert in Genesee County gets a free basic listing.  We encourage you to use it to find local goods and services.

For business owners and managers, each get free and alphabetized listing in the directory.  For a fee, your business can get an enhanced listing which includes more information about your firm, but that’s not the coolest part of this directory. By enhancing your listing using our directory you also greatly improve your chances of being spotted in the major search engines at or near the top of the search results. That’ll give a significant boost to phone leads coming your way and we can track those leads for you too.

Our first two enhanced listings have been posted:

Diegelman’s Plumbing

Fastec Automotive – (this one includes an online video)

But here’s a key point about the directory: eLocal Listing powers the directory and each listing is automatically optimized for local search.

As most business owners now recognize, hardly anybody uses the Yellow Pages these days. When people with online access want to find a business, they go to Google or Yahoo.  If your business isn’t part of the top search results, it’s almost as if your business doesn’t even exist.

eLocal Listing specializes in helping businesses get found on the Web. They’ve been helping thousands of businesses for a number of years, they are the leading such firm in the world helping small businesses in America get found online.  We’re proud they picked The Batavian to launch their new directory product with.

So when you buy an enhanced listing on The Batavian, you’re not just buying an ad on The Batavian, you’re helping improve your business’s search ranking in Google and Yahoo!

The standard package is $49 to set up and then $59 per month.  Businesses can add a “trackable” phone number — what that means is, we’ll be able to deliver a monthly report showing you how many times you’re phone rang because of the service.  We’ll also show you how you are ranked in Google Maps and the Yahoo Local Showcase, it’s impressive to watch The Batavian’s customer gain that improved visibility.

We also can offer a limited number of upgraded packages that add more features to help your business be among the best ranked in Google and Yahoo.

These packages are $79 set up and $89 per month.  In this package, we create a short 18-20 second video in about 150 categories like plumbing, car detailing, spas, law, hair salons, the Main Street businesses of America.

And as long as we’re talking about their advertising, please find a comprehensive display advertising media kit at www.batavian.com/mediakit.com .

If you want to get your local business showing well in the major search engines start by advertising on TheBatavian.com.

Have any questions, contact:  Howard@theBatavian.com