local media insider

Learning from ReachLocal: The future of customer reporting

Posted

I was surprised to learn that McClatchy has partnered with ReachLocal to resell SEM in one of its markets. It turns out that the pesky competitor is also an inspiration.  They do two things really well: SEM and campaign reporting. 

McClatchy gets the chance to offer these services while learning from a competitor. 

But what's even more interesting than the strange bedfellows  is the future of the dashboard, where ReachLocal is leading the race to build a customer facing dashboard that merchants like to use, and McClatchy has jumped into the race with it's new dashboard  devleoped  in conjunction with TruMeasure.

That future is mobile and it's coming soon. Here's sneak peek at ReachLocal's newest mobile dashboard for advertisers:

The  mobile app (iPhone and Android) gives real-time notifications that let merchants watch and manage leads "on the go." They can listen to recorded calls coming into their office, follow-up on leads more quickly, and optimize ad budgets based on performance. 

The closest version to this for other media are a few steps away from this kind of slick visual packaging, but making progress. One is a "leads" dashboard created by ClickFuel. Since Click Fuel represents so many different companies, it has to integrate an enormous number of third party platforms, and is taking a long time to get all of them into the system. And, of course, it doesn't have this kind of  swanky mobile version, but it's on the right track. 

The McClatchy Company's ImpresLOCAL also has a lead-based dashboard; this one created in conjunction with Trumeasure.  Their goal is to create a "best of breed" service, and extend sales of results-based campaigns deeper into the SMB market.

This is a trend to watch as digital services agencies evolve, and right now in this area, the company to catch is still...Reach Local.