BCLocalBiz's hyper-local directory strategy that takes on Canadian IYP's
Separate but equal: Without an IYP affiliate or sales packages that include print, the newest initiative from Black Press Digital has sold 115 accounts in its first quarter. At this rate the directory will bill more than $200,000 in its first year.
Summary: BCLocalBiz.com, launched in 2010, is designed to compete directly with IYP’s in its local markets. Naidu's team started with a database from Axiom, loaded into eDirectory software. The software mapping was enhanced to identify hyper-local neighborhoods and communities, allowing a user to refine their search. A home page widget also promotes featured listings, and with 115 sales in the first quarter, the strategy looks like a home run.
Site: BCLocalBiz.com
Media type: Directory Pure Play
Owner: Black Press, owner of newspapers and pureplay sites in Canada and U.S.
Key executive: Jason Naidu, Project Manager New Media, Black Press Digital
Challenge: To build a pure play local business directory to compete successfully with IYP companies.
Strategy: Black Press Digital has a reputation for advocating not only hybrid online initiatives at it's newspaper sites, but also pure-plays with separate teams and objectives. BCLocalBiz.com launched as a pilot in April is designed to compete directly with IYP’s in its local markets. Naidu's team started with a database from Axiom, loaded into eDirectory software. The software mapping was enhanced to identify hyper-local neighborhoods and communities, allowing a user to refine their search. Based on “polygon” data representing the geographical area for each location type, an algorithm used during preprocessing determined whether a business listing was located within one of these locations and then tags the listing with the relevant information to then be able to deliver highly localized search results.
The strategy focused on a few key competitive components:
• Local focus. Larger national or regional advertisers are not allowed to buy up multiple locations on BCLocalBiz.com, so each advertiser competes online only with local businesses in their city or community for top spots. Multiple market buys are policed by the local sales representatives, who are allowed to make an exception for service-based businesses. In addition the neighborhood search capability captures key location search terms unavailable at the larger IYP level.
• Pureplay mentality. “Advertisers are losing trust in the (IYP) companies that continue to push their print product,” Naidu says. Since some competing IYP companies do not allow advertisers to buy on online without some form of print commitment, this has become a competitive advantage for the new site. While BCLocalBiz is promoted on newspaper sites, the directory listings are not packaged with newspaper buys and use a separate team of telemarketers who do not sell newspaper products, sites or services.
• Lower-Price points. There are three levels of pricing: free, basic and premium, with a much lower price structure than large IYP's. Businesses who claim a listing for free are able to manage their listing information (Name, Address, Phone, Single Category); see number of views on BCLocalbiz.com and reply to user-submitted reviews. Then there are two paid tiers, $49 and $69 a month, much less than competiting IYP companies. In way of comparision, a $69 a month premium listing includes an SEO friendly web page, detailed write up, up to ten photos, embedded video, map and driving directions. Most IPY’s charge $150 to $300 for basic listings with a url email and tag line. Premium listing are typically in the $500 a month range.
Naidu says that for many small local businesses the extra reach of a larger IYP directory is not worth the extra expense. Some are not destination businesses people are willing to travel past other locations to reach, and for others ten to 20 new customers from search per month meets their business model. Finally, without the ability to test ROI in advance, high prices are out-of-range for part of the small business market.
• SE0. Many of the businesses reached by BCLocalBiz's telemarketers still do not have a SEO strategy for their web site, so the neighborhood search is an important component as is the abilty to rank in organic searches for the name of their own business. Telemarketers check to see if the business is on the first few pages of Google and advise advertisers of opportunities to improve results. Advertisers are also notified about reviews so they can respond directly to problems, building their online brand and reputation.
• Home page widgets.*** One of the most compelling features of the directory is a widget on each page of their community newspaper sites (see example to the right) that promotes offers by advertisers. Premium advertisers fill in their offer, which then rotates through the widget. Clicks on this widget account for an astonishing 25% of traffic to the directory, and provide a value proposition that IYP's do not have.
Results: Clearly traditional IYP's do not have a monopoly on search traffic. From April 12 to 30, in pilot mode, the site had 1500 visitors. By May 30, the number rose to 16,000 and by the end of June the site had 67,000 pageviews with 23,000 visitors. 6,000 visits came from clicks on the promotion widgets, 15,000 from organic searches and 2000 from direct traffic.
By the end of the first three months, more than 300 businesses had registered and claimed a free listing on their own. The telemarketing team has sold 115 paid advertisers, of which 110 are premium accounts. While advertisers claimed and up-dated the free listings, there have been no self-serve upsells. “We've found that most users are registering and updating their listing, then tend to call in and speak to one of our reps asking for help with how to best enhance their listing content.”
3600 users have registered on BCLocalbiz.com (including the business owner accounts) which allows them to
Save listings/promotions in their own "Biz List" ( or Phonebook), rate and review businesses.
At the rate of 115 upsells per quarter, the directory is on track to earn $200,000 in revenues its first year.
Lessons learned:
• Capitalize on front end traffic that other competing directories don't have by promoting featured listings on the home page. "Leveraging readership of our community news sites has generated significant traffic...Advertizers have expressed the exceptional value received by exposing their promotions (and businesses) via a promotional widget appearing on each community news site."
• Use turnkey software but invest in a few key competitive features. "By developing our own new service (rather than affiliating with existing IYP) we have the ability to respond to the immediate needs and ideas of the local SMB, as well as the relevancy (context and geography) demands of the local user, without being restricted to maintaining the terms of a legacy client base."
• Even with IYP's in the market place many SMB's do not yet understand the value of having a web presence and how to show up in search results. This broad market of smaller businesses is still largely untapped.
• Low prices and realistic expectations. "Our sales approach includes removing bloated expectations to determine what actual ROI the advertiser is looking for, what they could manage, and how we can deliver on that, rather than competing directly with promises made by larger IYPs."
The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and MediaExecsTech, developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine, to showcases perspectives from around the world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.
Keywords
bclocalbiz, black press, Jason Naidu, directory, british columbia
