Local listing management is one of the hottest topics within Internet marketing; yet it confuses and overwhelms many business owners. In this blog, we’ll help clear up the confusion and provide some useful tips to help business owners make informed decisions to harness the power of Local Listing Management. Why are Local Listings so important? There are more people conducting online searches for local businesses than ever before. In fact, the Kelsey Group has identified 70% of US households now use the internet when shopping locally for products and services. It’s never been more important to ensure your business is accurately listed in as many online directories as possible. Supplying information about your business to these touch points, or local listings, is crucial to your business being found in an online search by a potential customer.  Establishing and maintaining a strong local listing presence helps businesses rank higher in organic results when potential customers search for your business. Plus, local listings are more important to consumers than you might think. Research by comScore has identified online searchers find local and organic results to be 7 times more relevant and 8 times more trustworthy than paid results!   Why do businesses outsource the management of their Local Listings? It takes a substantial commitment of time, manpower and dedication in order for a business to manage its own local listings. There are literally hundreds of digital touch points and online directories, but some companies like to manage the process internally. The basic steps of the process are outlined below:   Claim listings at multiple local listing websites – such as Google, Yahoo Bing, Ask, CitySearch, etc. Update listings with your business marketing information – and include text for web and mobile searches, as well as categories, photos, coupons, videos, images, etc.  Clean-up inconsistent data – Since local listing websites obtain data from multiple sources there could be multiple listings for a single business address. Delete or merge any duplicate listings to avoid confusion. Monitor consumer reviews – on all local listing websites. Monitoring, managing and responding to reviews is an important process and doing so will help you retain and acquire new customers.   How can Berry Network help? We know businesses often spend countless hours researching, distributing and manually updating their business listings – only to achieve lackluster results. That’s why Berry Network has introduced a new Local Listing Management (LLM) solution. Our experts will manage your local listings and do all the work for you! Berry Network has developed a one-stop identity management service for local businesses, which provides access to virtually all of the search sites consumers use to find information. Our LLM solutions are bundled into easy-to-use packages that include a combination of claiming services, list distribution, monitoring services, updating services, content enhancement development and reporting. You pick the package that best fits your needs and your budget and we’ll deliver results.   Local Listing Management is critical step to ensure your business information is listed correctly in search results so customers can find accurate information about your business when they’re searching.  At its core, our Local Listing Management solution provides a single point of entry for the creation and distribution of enhanced business profiles that are distributed to all major outlets, including: Google, Yahoo, Bing Data Providers – Localeze, Infogroup, Acxiom Online Yellow Pages – Superpages, YP.com, Yellowbook Social networks – Yelp, Foursquare, Facebook Portals and guides – AOL, Mapquest, Cityearch Cell phones and mobile apps – Blackberry, iPhone, Android 411 directory assistance GPS navigation and telematic services – OnStar What should you do? Local listings are far too valuable to be ignored, so don’t leave them to chance. Simply decide if you want to invest the time and resources to manage the process in-house or utilize Berry Network’s LLM solution. Remember, the goal is to accurately list your business, monitor your presence and enhance your online profile! To get more information about Local Listings Management, please contact Berry Network today at 800-366-1264. 

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We all know internet search engines are designed to help people find exactly what they are looking for, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes action that takes place in order for a website to achieve a high search engine ranking. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that makes a website more easily found through various search engines, by building links to the website and using strategic keywords that people use when searching. Search engines results are influenced by the number and quality of links pointing to a site; the more links to the site, the higher it ranks and the more visible it is to users. For businesses that want an online presence, building links to its website is crucial for success. Improves Visibility and Quality of Website Traffic A strong SEO strategy can help bring direct traffic to a business website as well as enhance the site’s search engine rankings. And because search engines try to deliver the most precise results possible, smart SEO can help businesses increase traffic quality – not just quantity. A major benefit of high visibility in the Search Engine Results Page is that clients receive ongoing and free traffic to their website. High search engine rankings are assets that can provide a return in the form of new customers for years to come. Local businesses that need targeted campaigns can gain visibility in the markets they serve and get top exposure in the map section of major search engine providers. Consider this: Google estimates that 14 billion searches are performed on their site every month. Some estimates state that 99% of search engine-based clicks to sites come from the first ten results (first page), and 97% come from the first three results. This means if a business is not on the first page, it only has a 1% chance of being seen! Achieve Success with Berry Network’s SEO Solution Berry Network’s SEO solution will make your business as visible and prominent as possible on search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing to make your website easier to find by consumers and help you generate more business. We will optimize your website and your local place pages with content and links, and use a broad set of SEO tools to help your business appear above the competition. Our team of experts will create articles and blog posts linked back to your website to build unique and meaningful content so that your website is appealing and relevant to search engines.  Our highly efficient process utilizes the optimal mix of technology and personal account management to drive results. We offer fully transparent reporting which shows the exact work being done on your campaign to improve your visibility and prominence. For more information about how Berry Network can help your business achieve SEO success, contact us at www.berrynetwork.com or at (800) 366-1264.

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It’s an understatement to say that raising funds for your hospital foundation is a challenge, particularly in a tough economy. Having an online presence, however, can be an effective solution. Online marketing is quick, flexible, and a cost-effective means of soliciting and promoting your foundation initiatives. Still, challenges remain on knowing how to promote your foundation online, finding tools to use for capturing donations, and discovering which best practices are actually best for you. Following are some thoughts you should consider. Defining Your Target Before you begin mapping out an online strategy, you need to be clear on your objectives. Whether you are seeking donations to grow a specialty line or raising funds to hold a community event, your tactics will be different. Maybe you are looking to help support an affiliated cause such as breast cancer research – your online approach will be different yet again. By having specific objectives, you’ll know when and if you are reaching them. Growing a Specialty Line Suppose your objective is to raise money to expand your hospital’s cardiac care unit. An online blog is an excellent starting point. Blogs allow you to post case studies about local patients (with their permission, of course) that have received heart surgery and that are thankful for the technology and care they received from your hospital and staff. Another option is to have a cardiac surgeon post commentary about surgical procedures and the need for continued advancements in technology. You will likely be surprised about the level of community engagement the blog generates.   Your PR manager could also join in by posting on your hospital’s Twitter and Facebook site about the need for expanded cardiac care and the benefits it could bring to your community. Tapping into these forms of online social media provides the local community the ability to join discussions and ask questions in an open, friendly environment. Social media also provides users with the means of remaining anonymous if they so choose. Social Media widgets (mini Web applications) are available for plugging into your blog or Website for collecting donations. For instance, www.GoFundMe.com provides a free donation widget that you can download from their Website. The widget connects directly to e-commerce programs, such as PayPal, to give you instant and secure access to every donation you receive. Funding a Community Event From women’s health seminars, to dinner galas and children’s helmet safety programs, increasing donor income through fund-raising events is one of the most widely-used forms of foundation marketing. So, how do you get the word out about your event through online channels? If you have looked into online banner advertising in the past but thought against it due to suggestions of low “click-through” rates, you should reconsider. Online banner advertising has made significant advancements over recent years with hyper-local and user-centric targeting capabilities across large distribution networks. Most of these advertising networks can zero in on users based upon previous online history (behavioral targeting), page content (contextual targeting), and user location (geo-targeting). For instance, these capabilities would allow an advertiser to promote a bike riding event to those in its local community who are visiting a healthcare Website, and who have also visited an Alzheimer’s-related Website within the past 30 days. Some online banner programs also allow targeting by age and income demographics. If you need further evidence that online banner advertising is still viable, consider the fact that according to investment firm ThinkEquity, U.S. online ad spending is expected to reach $37.5 billion this year, up 18% over last year. Supporting a Cause  Another big question is “what marketing vehicle should I use to promote our foundation’s cause? While it’s true that mail-acquired donations is the leading medium for promoting gift-giving, you may be surprised to learn that online-acquired donors tend to give much larger gifts and give more in total revenue each year than mail-acquired donors. Whether you are seeking funds to directly support AIDS research or looking to promote your pediatric department with portions of the donations going to the Children’s Miracle Network, online marketing is a must for promoting healthcare causes. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is another very effective method of online marketing, particularly due to the nature of search – where online users are seeking relevant information, rather than having the information broadcast or pushed to them. Google Ad Words is the leader in SEM advertising. It allows users to promote local gift-giving through the purchase (bid) of keywords. For example, a hospital foundation for children’s research in Des Moines may want to bid on keywords that include cancer, oncology, children, pediatric, pediatrics, foundation, research and giving. When the user searches on any of these words and specifies Des Moines or Iowa, the foundation ad will appear in the search results. The higher the advertiser bids, the higher its ad will appear in the search results. Performance-based SEM programs are also available whereby advertisers only pay for ads clicked by the user. There are many ways to use online advertising to promote your healthcare foundation. Taking advantage of blogs, banner ads, social media, and search engine marketing is a great place to start. So, if you haven’t looked into online advertising lately, now is the time to look again. About the Author: Mark Williams is a Senior Media Strategist at Berry Network. Berry Network provides advertising solutions to national and local advertisers through a variety of print and online media. Berry Network is also the preferred advertising vendor for Novation member organizations. If you have questions or comments about this article or would like more information about online advertising solutions, please contact Berry Network, Healthcare Marketing, at 1-800-366-1264, or visit www.berrynetwork.com.

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