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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The answser to the question above depends on whether you are trying to find a business, sign up for offers, or wanting to be found. When someone asks my opinion on location services, that’s the question I must ask first before I can respond. The value of location services isn’t something that can be addressed at face value. The answer comes after you break down location services based on three basic needs of the user. In the first need, you are searching for a business or offer, the second involves opting-in to local offers based on your profile, and the third is being found with pushed offers and messages based on your physical, geo-location.  1. Searching for Local Businesses Naturally, Google comes to mind when conducting a local business search. In fact, according to Google, “20 percent of all search queries are local in nature." So, it’s no surprise that the search giant is concentrating on improving relevant results for local search queries. Google’s Places, now launching through a phased-in approach, combines local and organic listings intended to cluster search results around specific locations so users can more easily make comparisons on the information they are seeking. Google also uses business reviews from Yelp, Foursquare, and other location review sites to enhance information on the sites in Google Places. Other major players are bolstering their local capabilities as well – just look at Bing Maps, Yahoo! Local, CitySearch and MapQuest. Each has contributed to the local search year-over-year growth increase, as reported in a recent study from comScore and TMP Directional Marketing. I won’t go into each of those here, but if you haven’t looked at them lately, it’s worth checking them out.   Yellow Pages directories have also found a way to bump up their presence to stay relevant in a marketplace shifting more toward digital media. Usage of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), for instance, as a primary source for local information is up from 21 percent market share in 2009 to 22 percent in 2010  according to the comScore study. That may not seem like much of an upward trend but with all the new services, platforms and devices on the market today, any growth or market share increase is commendable. And, don’t forget about print Yellow Pages (PYP), in fact, PYP ranks second behind search engines as the most-used secondary source for finding local business information.   Yes, social media platforms are jumping on the proverbial wagon too. Microsoft and Facebook have joined forces in an agreement that combines Facebook's "like" function with results from Bing. When Facebook users search for something on Bing, such as a company or product, they will get results that includes “Like” tags by their friends. Bing searchers will be able to see what businesses and products their friends recommend. Just ask any business owner you know, one referral from a friend is worth many multiples of an ad impression.   Twitter recently announced it has enhanced its ability to help users find businesses and products with an advertising model that places ads inside the Tweet streams of users. Twitter’s ad platform was first launched in April based on subjects in the users Tweets. For instance, if you searched on Tweets about Disney, you could receive ads by Disney served up on the side of your page as a “promoted Tweet.”  But with the new enhancement, beginning November 2, ads are not only inserted into the users Tweet stream, they are served up based on the people, companies and products that the user follows. I refer to these ads as de-facto search results. Twitter is also launching its new program in a controlled release. And let’s not forget about LinkedIn. Earlier this year, the service added the ability for members to follow companies more easily on the site. Some 30 million LinkedIn users are now following over 1 million companies to find out about company updates, job openings and promotions. 2. Opting-in to Local Offers Based on Profile You all know how ads are served up based on your member profile … Facebook, Amazon, eBay, they all do it. They serve up ads based on your likes, gender, purchase history, and demographics stored in your profile. However, what seems to be gaining steam nowadays are e-couponing services offered by services such as Groupon, LivingSocial, TownHog and HomeRun. Consumers are catching on and signing up to receive these “deals” pushed to them from businesses within their local area.   One of the newest buzz makers is Facebook Deals. Facebook Deals, lets local businesses offer discounts and deals to people who check-in using Facebook Places (discussed below) on their mobile phone. Basically, the feature gives Facebook users incentives to embrace Facebook Places and share it with friends. Facebook Deals also empowers businesses on Facebook with a valuable lead-generation and loyalty marketing tool.   3. Being Found for Offers Using Location-based Services Smartphones allow users to find locations or businesses while on the go. The reverse of that—being found based on your GPS coordinates—is where businesses are getting excited. Knowing where you are at any given moment allows a business to push a message or offer to you when you check in or are simply within proximity of the business. The hope too is that you will share your location with your friends and contacts. The down side, according to a Pew Internet Study, is that today “only 4% of Americans use these location-based services” such as Foursquare or Gowalla to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. And, “on any given day only 1% will be ‘checking in.” I, on the other hand, believe that location-based services will grow at an unexpected and rapid rate over the next few years, exceeding predictions by most analysts.  We’ll see if I am right. One of the newest players in location-based services, and certainly the most significant, is Facebook Places (Anything is significant when you’re talking about 500 million users!). Launched in June, Facebook Places lets users "check in" on their mobile phones so friends know where they're hanging out and what they're doing. Facebook is also taking Places a step further with a feature that lets businesses “claim” a location or place, much like individuals have been able to do since earlier this year. And, yes, Twitter says it is considering altering its Twitter Places location-tagging function for use by businesses. So, are location services the new social movement? Like I said ... it depends. Where are you?    

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In my last blog post I wrote about why I thought 2011 would be the year mobile marketing went mainstream. After finishing the post, I found myself thinking about how to define mobile marketing and how you would categorize the many forms of mobile marketing. After reading many definitions of what mobile marketing is, I found this definition from The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), which defines mobile marketing as “a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.” What makes mobile marketing unique is the engagement factor. The MMA defines engagement to mean, “to start relationships, acquire, generate activity, stimulate social interaction with organization and community members, [and] be present at time of consumers expressed need.” It is this engagement factor that makes mobile marketing so attractive. Engagement in the mobile word can take place in serveral ways, such as a consumer by opting into a text messaging, viewing a mobile website, or accessing an application. Here is a synopsis of the major forms of mobile marketing. SMS (short message service): Also known as ‘texting’, advertisers can send relevant marketing messages (coupons and sales offers) directly into the hands of consumers via of text messages. MMS messages are limited to 160 characters in length. SMS is the oldest, yet still most popular form of mobile marketing. MMS (multi-media message service): Similar to SMS, but with the addition of multimedia content such as pictures, video, and audio. Mobile Websites/Landing Pages: Have you ever tried to look at a standard website on a mobile screen? It’s not pretty. A mobile website is a website or page specifically designed for the small screens of mobile devices. Queries to a website include the type of browser being used, and when a request comes from a mobile browser is made, it is redirected to the mobile version for a significantly better user experience. A quality mobile website is quickly becoming a “must have” for many businesses. They also serve as the foundation that makes many of the remaining mobile marketing opportunities possible. Mobile Paid Search: Mobile paid search works in a similar way to traditional paid search. Image and text ads are displayed in search engine results and the advertiser pays when an ad is clicked. Google AdWords has made it easy to opt-in to mobile search by simply checking a box to enable your ads to be shown on mobile devices. However, most mobile marketers suggest creating a separate, stand-alone mobile search campaign. This is because people search differently on mobile devices. Mobile users tend to use shorter search terms, and a majority of mobile searches are local in nature. A separate mobile paid search program will also provide better reporting on the effectiveness of your program. Mobile Banner Ads: Like standard banner ads for desktop web pages, but smaller to fit on mobile screens and run on the mobile websites. In some cases, animated mobile web ad banners may be available used to convey a richer experience. Paid Mobile Local Search Directories: There are a host of local search directories such as YP.com, Superpages.com, CityGrid, and Yelp. While a paid listing on their standard internet directories will appear in mobile search results. many offer mobile specific ad units (banners) that provide advertiser’s prominent top of page placement for increased exposure. QR Codes (quick-response barcodes): Similar to barcodes, QR codes allow customers to quickly learn more about a product or business. Users that scan a QR code with a mobile device are linked to digital content (special offers, brochures event information) on the web. Mobile Navigation/Location-Based Marketing: Delivers multi-media advertising directly to the user of a mobile device based upon their current location via GPS technology. Mobile Applications: Software that runs on a mobile device and performs certain tasks for the user. Since the introduction of the iPhone and the Apple App Store, thousands of companies have developed their own custom application to interact with their customers. With mobile marketing in its infancy, this list will undoubtedly expand over time. With mobile it is best to take a crawl, walk, run approach. Start small (SMS messaging, mobile websites) and then expand into other areas as you build your knowledge and confidence. Ask yourself “what am I trying to accomplish with mobile marketing and who am I trying to reach? But don’t wait too long, because the mobile marketing train is leaving the station.

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