Geographic Marketing and Syndication Services for Multi-Location Businesses

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1 Geographic Marketing and Syndication Services for Multi-Location Businesses [Type text] A White Paper Written by Melih Oztalay, CEO Smartfinds and Internet Marketing Pioneer

2 Table of Contents Syndication Services... 3 Geographic Marketing Services... 4 Claim Your Listings... 4 Claim Your Marketing Tools... 5 Accuracy is Key... 5 Monitor Your Consumer Reviews... 6 Citations and Getting Found... 6 Assess Your Metrics... 7 About Smartfinds Internet Marketing

3 Geographic Marketing and Syndication Services for Multi-Location Businesses A White Paper written by Melih Oztalay, CEO Smartfinds and Internet Marketing Pioneer Geographic marketing has become a hot topic in the Internet marketing industry, and multilocation businesses are finding themselves confused about the various types of services that can help them tap into the local business marketing tools available. National multi-location companies are not typically equipped to manage the granular marketing process at the local store level and this too becomes a change to most marketing operations. Businesses may also wonder what a fair price is for outsourcing these types of services, and how to find truly experienced and reliable help. So, let's take a look at defining these business marketing tools, the fees involved, and the types of geographic marketing services available. Syndication Services Some geographic marketing services provide listing-only services. This type of program simply pushes your store information as data into business listing websites. The entire process is automated through programs known as API's. You will find these services provided by organizations that offer the syndication services at an economical price, typically under $100 per address per year. The reason for this low fee is that it is automated, although it does provide value in getting your store information correctly listed across business listing websites. The value of this service comes with the mass distribution of your store information across more than 200+ websites that include search engines, social communities, 411 websites, GPS websites and business directories. Of course this step may be unnecessary if the business is already listed, therefore running the risk of duplicate listings if old information and new information do not match up with the exact information. There are limitations as to what information can be submitted, typically the business name, address, phone number, business description, keywords and other text information. Steps not provided under Syndication Services involve manual marketing intervention. We will explore these services further within Geographic Marketing Services. 3

4 Geographic Marketing Services This type of service will allow you to use your local listing as a local business marketing tool to reach your local consumers (within a certain distance of your store s latitude and longitude or street address) through web searches and mobile searches. Because this service is a combination of automation, manual labor, and analysis, the fees are higher and range from onetime setups to ongoing monthly marketing management fees. Many businesses today are outsourcing their Geographic Marketing Services, but the important aspect of outsourcing is that you select a firm that understands marketing. Technology firms provide only limited syndication services. We are providing you with the following information, so that you can understand how Geographic Marketing is managed to gain the best results. 1. Claim your Listings. It is important to claim your listing at multiple local business listing websites and this needs to be done manually. If the geographic marketing service is only with Google, then you are missing out at a variety of other sources like Bing, Ask, City Search, Local.com, Yelp, Yahoo, Map Quest, Merchant Circle and many others. Consumers and mobile application developers will decide which website they will use for local business listing reviews and data. Google is not the powerhouse in this case. Claiming your listings is also important as a secure measure to protect your brand and ensure that the information is managed by you or someone you trust. If the listing is not claimed, it is an open source that can possibly be claimed (or hijacked) by someone other than you and cause frustration later when you need to correct the listings. 4

5 2. Claim your Marketing Tools. A good geographic marketing strategy involves updating your listing with your local business marketing information to include not only text copy for web searches and mobile searches, but categories, photos, coupons, videos, images, etc. Because this business marketing information changes throughout the year (particularly your coupons, offers, discounts and events) the monthly management service will help ensure everything is up-to-date at multiple locations. Keep in mind that while the text based information from syndication services helps you with search engines, you need visuals that will allow the local consumer to become interested in your local store and take action. 3. Accuracy is Key. Remember, the days of the Yellow Pages? If your store information was incorrect, there is a very good chance you would lose new customers. Claiming your local listings and ensuring the information is correct is the equivalent information that customers are referencing when they are searching on the web or mobile for your stores, products and services. Make sure the information is accurate and most important clean up mismatched data. Because local listing websites get their data from multiple sources, businesses are finding that there are multiple listings for a single address (or latitude and longitude) for a store. Deleting or merging these listings is an important process and if not done, can cause confusion for the search engines and directories. 5

6 4. Monitor your Consumer Reviews. Your customers have already been posting their reviews about your stores since 2007 at multiple local listing websites. Monitoring and subsequently managing these reviews at multiple local listing websites for local public relations is an important part of the geographic marketing process and one that will be new to most businesses. This is also included with most geographic marketing solutions within their monthly management fee. 5. Citations and Getting Found. Citations are also an important step in this process in order to have your listing ranked higher on web searches amongst the listings next to the map. This is not always included in the lowerpriced geographic marketing services and is an addition to be considered as this industry and online business marketing tools evolve and mature in the coming years. If you are familiar with the concept of inbound links to your website, then you will understand Citations. The primary difference is that instead of a link, Citations validate your business, address, phone and GPS information from other websites. It becomes particularly important 6

7 that information on other websites are accurate and match the information on the search engines. This includes information like categories too. Citations can be accomplished through two primary methods. The first is to use the Syndication Services we discussed earlier and the other is to include business information as part of your content marketing process. 6. Assess your Metrics. With any good marketing program, you should measure the impact of your efforts. Marketing experts know how to manage to the metrics and recognize how activities are impacting the metrics. This should be included in your monthly management services and an important element to ensure you are getting service from a provider that helps you to assess and understand the impact of your marketing activities. Measurements of your Geographic Marketing include the Analytics available through many of the websites, as well as, a ranking report by keyword and by store. Without proper measurement and the subsequent interpretation of the information for analysis, it will be impossible to know how well a particular store is performing and what action steps need to be taken to improve the results. 7

8 Future technologies will make local business listings more effective as a geographic marketing tool. Already, internet searches are able to provide nearby search results based on the user s specific IP address which is tied to their latitude and longitude location to find relevant local business results. In addition to location and GPS services, QR Codes, mobile applications, mobile coupons and other technologies will have to be managed for the local store to ensure they are most effectively used. Hopefully the above information has helped you at least categorize the different business marketing services between syndication services and full geographic marketing services. The benefits of the geographic marketing services are the most effective when combining syndication services and marketing services into a single solution to reach the local consumer. About Smartfinds Internet Marketing Certainly your time resources are limited and GEOGRAPHIC MARKETING SOLUTIONS are provided by SMARTFINDS INTERNET MARKETING to make your internal process easier. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast syndication services for mass business data distribution. For more information, visit our website at or contact us toll free at (866) You may also us at info@smartfindsmarketing.com 8