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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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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A new partnership between Devon Security and Berry Network, Inc. is particularly important to Devcon’s massive nationwide expansion efforts.   By leveraging Berry Network’s strength and expertise in local search advertising, the new alliance will help Devon Security build brand awareness and increase advertising presence in new market areas.    “We chose to partner with Berry Network because of the strategic value they bring to the table,” said Kristin Clark, Devcon Security’s Vice President of Marketing. “The team at Berry Network excels at implementing our advertising programs, but more importantly, they’re willing to develop and explore unconventional strategies to help us achieve our goals.”   “Devcon is a perfect fit for our agency,” according to Sherri Kavanaugh, Berry Network’s Vice President of Client Strategy.  “We’re at our best when we’re working with clients that desire a true strategic partner. Devcon is strong, expanding rapidly and there are lots of opportunities for us to utilize our expertise, tools and proprietary technology to support and accelerate their growth.”   About Devcon: Devcon Security is one of the fastest growing security companies in the nation. Founded in 2004, the Devcon brand is composed of local security companies rooted in the security business since 1968. Devcon is run by a management team with more than 100 years of security experience and employs nearly 1100 people in offices across the nation. Utilizing state-of-the-art equipment, Devcon maintains two monitoring centers and offers superior customer service. The company offers residential home security systems, as well as small and large business security solutions – including commercial alarms and video surveillance systems. Devcon is proud to be among a small percentage of security companies to have a 5-Diamond certification from the Central Station Alarm Association.

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Why do some BtoB companies excel at content based, social media marketing while others falter? Based on my experience, and observing how other companies have used content based marketing, I think the biggest reason is company buy-in.  With traditional marketing, the marketing team creates the message, branding, ad content, sales collateral, and the like. They control the message and push it out through the regular channels.  The rest of the company sits back and lets marketing do their thing. With traditional marketing, the biggest challenge is getting the funds needed to carry out the marketing plan. The challenges with content based marketing are decidedly different. Sure, the budget issue is still there, but the biggest hurdle is developing a steady stream of relevant content that resonates with clients and prospects. With content based marketing, you need to go beyond blogging about your newest product enhancement; you have to do more than talk about yourself. Let’s face it, most BtoB companies are not that interesting. You can quickly bore your clients and prospects, and when that happens they will tune you out. How do you not fall into the trap of only talking about yourself and being boring? The marketing department can only do so much. While marketing must take the lead and pave the way, the subject matter experts within the organization must be willing to share their knowledge, experience, and time. They must get in the game. They must blog, tweet, engage on your company’s Facebook page, help write white papers, and the like. They may not realize it, but most companies have numerous subject matter experts that have unique stories, insight, and experience that clients and prospects would love to learn from. They have knowledge and experience that if shared, would truly help their clients and prospects. They could contribute to building the reputation of the company, and help them stand out from the competition. They should not only help create the content, but share it through their own social channels, spreading the message far beyond where marketing can take it on their own. Leaving content based marketing to a couple of people in the marketing department to do it on their own isn’t enough; it doesn’t work. So why do companies struggle with this? The reasons vary. For some, it is a time and resource issue. For others, it is because they don’t understand the power of content based marketing.  Maybe marketing needs to do a better job at selling the concept. For others, it is because they don’t have an appreciation for the knowledge and insight they have. They don’t think anyone would be interested in what they have to say. The company buy-in issue goes beyond just content creation. It extends to how the sales organization will use the content.  Will they see the value in it and use it to nurture their prospects? For companies that excel at content based marketing, the answer is yes. Has your company engaged in content based, social media marketing ?  Did you get company buy-in or is the marketing department doing it on their own? Please share your comments.

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I am a big fan of Facebook Pages. I have spent a lot of time reading, blogging, and educating myself about using Facebook Pages as a marketing tool; just look at my last few blog posts. I think Facebook Pages are a powerful way for businesses to connect with their customers. Even so, I am a realist. I know that given the media attention Facebook is getting these days, that there are a lot of misconceptions about Facebook Pages. While I encourage all marketers to embrace the use of Facebook Pages, those of us who have been through the learning curve have a responsibility to cut through the hype and inform those that are new to Facebook marketing about the realities of the medium.  With that said, below are three hard truths about Facebook marketing.   1. Facebook Pages won’t drive instant sales Marketers that build Facebook Pages looking for instant sales are going to be disappointed. Why? Because Facebook Pages are not intended to target the ready-to-buy consumer. While a very small percentage of users may be ready to buy while browsing Facebook, the vast majority won’t. So why have a business page? Because it gives you the opportunity to engage in relationship marketing and build and maintain a loyal customer following over time.  It lets you stay engaged with the not-ready-to buy market, which in most cases will be significantly larger than the “ready-to-buy” market.  It’s all about awareness and making sure that when your customers are ready to buy, your business is top of mind.   2. Cultivating Likes is hard work I have spoken to numerous marketers who build Facebook Pages. Many of them find themselves frustrated over the number of people that have Liked their page. With all the hype surrounding Facebook, many marketers have fallen prey to the “build it and they will come” mentality. The same thing happened with the dot com frenzy back in the early 90’s.  Building your Likes is not a one-time event, it is an on-going task that requires a significant amount of work.  It involves integrating Facebook into your entire marketing mix and promote your page from other channels; including every print ad, direct mail piece, collateral, press release, website, company newsletter, in-store signage, and so on. More important is the need to continually come up with interesting content that resonates with your audience and gets them engaged, which is sometimes easier said than done.   3. Few people will visit your Wall after they have Liked your Page This one hurts, especially after having spent so much time customizing your Page with carefully chosen graphics, apps, pictures, video and the like. The reality is most of your fans will see your updates in their Newsfeed, not your Wall. This does not mean that all of the work you put into building the perfect Page was for naught. First time visitors will surely explore your Page, and making a good first impression is key to turning visits into Likes on Facebook. It means that when writing updates, you need to write for the Newsfeed, not the Wall. You need to make it easy for people to interact with your brand. Avoid posts that say things like “click on our coupon app to get today’s special offer.” This is of little use to fans reading your newsfeed. It is fine if you want to reference another part of your page in your Wall posts, but remember to write for the Newsfeed and not the Wall. Include photos, videos, polls and questions to draw your audience in. Do you have any advice to share with someone new to Facebook marketing? Please share your thoughts below.

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