Moderator: Michael Boland of The Kelsey Group

Speakers:

• Bob Armour of ShopLocal
• Scott Dunlap of NearbyNow
• Manish Patel of Where2GetIt
• Richard Rosen of FastCall411

On to the next session. Seth Godin struck a chord with many that were sitting in the audience for his presentation. So, now we will hear about Local Search. Definitely a hot topic, even for link builders as regional directories, search engines, and resource sites are up and coming in the search world.

Michael opens the session with a cordial welcome. This is the kickoff to the Kelsey Group track which is a showing of a growing partnership between them and SES. It’s a new format and they’re pretty geeked about it. Michael also gives an overview of local and how it is becoming fractioned between mobile, social media, etc. and how the consumers are changing the trends of this online form of media and marketing.

We will be looking at the basic & foundational basis of local search. Lots of statistics, but I can’t type that fast. We’ll be looking at the offline conversion process where online media is the starting point. How do you track those clicks to conversions? How do you more effectively lead consumers in the proper direction (or more specifically the way you want them to go)?

Richard Rosen is up first. He is the founder & CEO of FastCall411. A newer company that is online in beta. They are a local & local search application that focuses on local services where 100% of their conversion is offline. They integrate the connection of the phone call to local merchants. They are the first to fulfill the destination into a phone call.

Richard says the consumer expectation does not meet the current market reality. 250,000,000 calls per month take place that start online. Two out of 3 of these calls find merchants who are “not available.” Boy, I hate that. There is a disconnect between merchants who think that availability is important and the consumers’ expectations. The start of this is a better local search application.

He goes on to describe local search as frustrating (for sure!) and it is because of a lot of different factors including bad base data (old listings), not enough content generated by users such as reviews, difficult prospecting, poor match of leads with destinations, and others. The transformation that has to occur starts with identifying availability as part of a new approach to local search and connecting users with merchants.

Richard now does a demo where a recording says that a customer wants to be connected to a plumber in Los Angeles and then it sends simultaneous phone calls to 10 merchants an the first to push “1” will win the business. Ingenious!

Manish is up next. He is the CEO of Where2GetIt and they have been up for about 10 years in the local search realm. He wants to share his findings with us. Bring it!

They work for over 600 brands with 600,000 locations and 15,000 products. He points out that the internet started as consumers connecting with merchants, retailers, etc. Now, they want choices & control of the buying process. The internet gives consumers the ability to do this.

People are going to Google the most to find what they want. Surprise, surprise. But he also notes there are trends in where people are going to find things. They are looking at a variety of sites now including social media, vertical directories, retailer web sites, etc. We have to rethink where we want to be and how we want consumers to “consume our message.”

Next slide: getting found = retailer web site. Filtering functions are now being incorporated including handicapped accessibility, pharmacy hours, and brands offered.

Getting found = manufacturer’s web site. Can we buy directly from you? Is it sold locally?

On to the link aspect. Vertical search is on the up and up. CSE’s are another place where consumers are initiating purchases. Being here helps quite a bit.

Adidas has a MySpace page, Google partners with the car, facebook, iPod, Garmin… the list goes on to how marketing is proliferating and becoming more and more bi-directional.

Steps to better offline conversions

1. Get found.
2. Engage with relevant information – do our tools help our consumers?
3. Track results & optimize:
   1. #of driving directions
   2. Coupons downloaded
   3. Phone calls
   4. Click throughs

Additionally, put your hours on your site, review, coupons, mobile extensions, opt-in email lists or contact local dealer. You can track conversions with these. This is the holy grail of tracking for offline conversions.

Scott is up next from NearbyNow who has a new mobile product. He starts by asking how many have gotten their shopping done (pang of guilt).

NearbyNow is a search provider for shopping malls. 200 malls in 130+ cities. Shoppers can even put items on hold and pick them up later. I love this feature with Borders! Especially when shopping with my toddlers. Shoppers who use this make an average of 4.3 transactions per visit among other statistics.

Interesting notes:

1. Mall shoppers have a “high intent to buy”
2. Makes a geographic area 100% searchable
3. They focus on converting shoppers who research online, but purchase in-store.

The goal of this company is to move online conversion to offline. Mobile targeting is an example of the way that NearbyNow backed into new technology. You can be at the mall and find out what is on sale with the help of your sale. No more buying something that is 20% less two doors down! And it’s limited to 2 ads/ hour all in text messages so no application download is needed.

They used this to back into a combo with outdoor media, magazines, etc. You can text a message to NearbyNow and they will reply with places locally that provide that product. This helps you measure your conversion. Make it measurable (the new SEO mantra). Due to the data the crawlers were finding, they matched the Casio cameras that come in different colors with fashion accessories and they started selling even more. Quite intriguing and completely an example of how consumers drive the way businesses are viewing their products.

Last, but not least is Bob Armour from ShopLocal.  This has been around for about 7 years. They are the leader in multichannel marketing & shopping services. They help advertisers drive in-store sales using the Web. They do this in three ways.

1. The web has been more of a research tool than a shopping tool. 92% of us research online, while 95% of us go to the store to get it.
2. The internet is projected to grow. Onlne influened offline sales will grow to 1 Trillion by 2011. Woah.
3. Advertisers will follow the consumers. Consumers are much further along in using the Web than advertisers. Yep. I concur.

Their solutions include

1. Smart Circular
   1. Web version of what you find in your Sunday newspaper. Online ads are more interactive and more helpful to users.
   2. 53% of people who view this visit the store within a week; 95% within a month.
2. SmartMedia
   1. Local promotions delivered through rich media. Generally a banner ad that delivers locally based information to users.
   2. Now they are being pushed to use other formats such as widgets, mobile, RSS, embedded content, etc.
   3. Interaction time for users viewing these ads with localized content climbs from 10.7 seconds with standard rich media to 17 seconds.
3. On ShopLocal.com
   1. 56% of shoppers who use this go to the store to buy them
   2. Shoppers found new stores to purchase from that they normally would not visit.