Today’s Internet Yellow Pages Blogosphere Posts July 23, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Lind in Internet Yellowpages.Tags: citysearch, google maps, iphone, mobile applications
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New Citysearch + Google Maps
The Kelsey Group posted news today from Citysearch. iPhone has a new web browsing tool called Mapmash that combines Google Maps and the business profiles found on Citysearch.
The tool can be found at: http://mapmash.googlepages.com/citysearch.htm
It works much the same as many IYPs in that you type in a location, a category, and narrow down to the type of service you are looking for. You will then see a map with location points, which click through directly to the Citysearch business profile.
This service would only work for paid advertisers on Citysearch as free listings do not utilize the business profile.
Yellowpages.com Speech Recognition
MacRumors posted news that AT&T is testing the first speech recognition application on the iPhone. For example, on Yellowpages.com, you would say the city and state and the category of service you are looking for to retrieve your results instead of typing it in. It is definitely a great feature that would get you faster results. The only drawback is that you still need to hit navigational buttons so it is not completely hands free. Though it’s a great start!
New Advertising Products Available on Citysearch and DexKnows July 22, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Lind in Internet Yellowpages.Tags: citysearch, dexknows, local search advertising
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New Products and State Advertising Options on Dexknows.com
Dex has recently unveiled new advertising options for 14 states in the Eastern and Midwestern US, including Nevada, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, South Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania.
The following new products are now available for ALL 28 states: Enhanced Package and Starter Package.
The Starter Package includes
- Placement above basic alphabetical listings
- A business profile that includes: website link, email link, tag line, and business description
- A replica of your Yellow Pages print ad
Enhanced Package includes
- Placement above Starter Package listings
- A business profile that includes: website link, email link, tag line, and business description
- A replica of your Yellow Pages print ad
The following products are available for the original 14 states (highlighted in Yellow): Priority Placement, Featured advertiser, enhanced package (new), starter package (new), trademark logo and video.
Priority Listing on Citysearch
Priority Listings appear in the first listing under a category search. The listing includes 1 category, a logo (this is the only product with a logo on the main listings results page), tagline, and URL.
There is only one PL available per category, and the product was just opened up to the Restaurants, Bars & Clubs, Hotels, Shopping, Spa & Beauty, Movies, and Events categories.
Social Technographics People Classifier July 22, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Lind in Uncategorized.Tags: groundswell, Interactive Marketing, social technologies
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I have been reading Groundswell by Forrester Research (Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff). In this book, they define 6 levels of online consumer groups according to their activity on the internet:
- Creators – create blog postings, videos, etc
- Critics – comment on the writings/postings of others in the form of writing reviews or editing articles on Wikipedia
- Collectors – utilize RSS feeds, add tags to photos or websites they find
- Joiners - connect with other people via Facebook or other social networks
- Spectators – these people do not contribute, but they read ratings and reviews, listen to podcasts, watch videos, etc.
- Inactives – no participation with social technologies
For example, in the example from Amazon, they have 2 visible types of contributors: creators and critics. Creators are able to write reviews and the critics can rate how useful the review was. Amazon sorts the reviews by the comment that was rated the most helpful.
Consumers can Adapt their Social Technographic Behavior for each Buying Stage and Situation
In Groundswell, they describe how a company should build a social technographic profile of their clients before developing a social marketing strategy.
I think it’s important to do the research specific to your own products and services rather than using a general guide for a specific age group or gender.
Looking at my own behavior online, there are times when I am a creator and times when I am just a spectator. It depends on the subject and the type of people who are already Creating on the site.
If I am researching the best Christmas present for my nephew, for example, I am more likely to be a spectator or a collector. I will read the reviews of certain toys on Target and Toys R Us, save the best products to my favorites, and go back to make the final decision later. You want to know what others are saying, but you don’t have the experience yet to really contribute to the conversation. However, if you are a frequent user of the product, you may be more likely to write reviews or add to another person’s review.
Of course there may be products out there where the average consumer would need to ask a lot of questions, find out who else is buying the product, and why they should buy it. instead of talking to a sales person, they want to hear from others and get specific answers to their questions.
Therefore, in setting up a social marketing tool on your website, I think it’s important to know what activity level your current customers are and what level your potential customers are, and allow them to interact with each other if your goal is to create new business.
Do you know the social profile of your customers? How would you utilize this information to develop a new social marketing strategy?
How Airlines can Increase Customer Happiness and Stay in Business July 17, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Lind in Uncategorized.add a comment
This may sound crazy, but I think the answer to the airline crisis is to follow the advertising model of Nascar.
My husband travels frequently and he is always happy to talk about the types of jets from the Northwest fleet that he’s flown on: whether it’s a Boeing 727, an Airbus, or a DC-9 (oh yea, I looked those up!).
So what if Northwest created an interactive website that profiled the planes and the pilots that fly them? And allowed sponsors to put their logo on the planes?
Here is how the plan would work:
Pilots: Show us pictures of the pilots, how many seasons they’ve had, interesting statistics like how many miles they go a day and how many places they have flown to (like the “where I’ve been” application on Facebook), and details for the ladies like are they single. Image the teenagers and kids looking at these pages with admiration!
Planes: Show us the funniest moments on the plane, special features of the plane, the crew, and where it’s going next. Allow travelers to find the plane they traveled on and enter their own stories or upload a video.
Sponsors: Advertisers could offer free samples, ask travelers to fill out surveys, have them try out your product, etc. You have people engaged, just sitting in a seat for hours, why not!
Benefits:
- Northwest can generate revenue from the advertisers to balance out what they are losing on fuel costs
- Travelers will be excited to see who their pilot is, the plane number, and main sponsor of the plane
Possible problems are obviously security concerns. We would also need to know how often planes are repainted.
Better Ways to Search July 9, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Lind in Interactive Marketing Website Reviews.Tags: ecommerce, emarketing, search engine marketing
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In response to Seth Godin’s blog yesterday “Let me see,” in which he created a list of ways marketers could make the consumer’s life easier – not necessarily good for the company – I would like to expand his list to ways search engines could make search easier and more productive for searchers:
- Show ecommerce websites by the number of people who purchased products and let me sort by number of returns, frequency of customer visits, and standard shipping rates.
- Let consumers rate 1-5 stars next to the search results for how closely the site/landing page matches with common search terms. Filter out sites with many 1 ratings.
- Let me sort websites that advertise the least/most.
- I want to know how highly the company is ranked within their industry amongst industry leaders (bloggers, commentators, etc.).
- I want to know what price points their products are at – should I expect high quality at a low price, low quality at a low price, etc.
- I want to be able to sort the websites by informational content, transactional pages, and navigational pages (pages that simply link to other pages) results.
- Establish relationships with sites that allow me to compare products and only allow these quality sites to place sponsored links.
- Sort websites by the number of friends they have on Facebook or similar social media sites.
- Show me how many informational webinars are sponsored by the company and their next event.
Is your website currently set up to help move us in this direction?
