ILM East: National Advertisers and Local Search

Executives from two well-known brands talked about how they are attacking local, social and mobile in the panel, National Advertisers and Local Search.

Moderator Andrew Shotland walked the two marketing execs through a series of questions aimed at understanding how these companies are using new media options to support their brands and drive leads.

The panelists are:

Elnora Palms, director, local search initiative, U-Haul

Matthew Marko, marketing process manager, Progressive Insurance

Both companies work with large networks of dealers or independent agents, which means accurate data about their locations is a constant challenge.

Here are a few highlights from the dialogue:

How should vendors approach you?

Elnora Palms: “Come prepared. Have an understanding of what we are trying to accomplish. Know we are more than moving trucks. That allows us to say this is a business that seriously wants to partner because they have done the legwork.”

This year, where are you prioritizing your online marketing efforts?

EP: “We manage data in-house. We have centralized all listing and data management. Once data is clean, then we are in a position to look at ad words, getting ourselves out there, but accurately. That was the objective this year. Now partnering to make sure we are managing where we are listed. Our objective this year is a good selection of partners.”

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ILM East: Is Hyperlocal Now Hyper-Relevant?

A powerful panel of local media players talked this morning about the challenges of doing hyperlocal effectively and profitably on “The New Wave of ‘Hyper-Relevant’ Media.” Hyperlocal has long been a vexing challenge, for publishers, from a content creation standpoint as well as making money.

One panelist compared it to mobile, an opportunity filled with anticipation and promise, but that always seemed to be a year away. Finally, mobile is living up to its promise. So when will hyperlocal follow suit?

Here are some panel highlights:

David Haupt, Director, Local Revenue, Examiner.com

Haupt describes Examiner.com as the biggest network of citizen journalists. The business started with a national focus, moving increasingly to local, both in terms of content and revenues. The site began with celebrity and nationally focused examiners and has moved down the line to “backyard poultry examiners.”

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Guarantee at Center of New Dex Strategy

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Following a discussion of its 2010 full-year results, Dex One’s leadership team outlined a new strategy today that it says will restore the company to positive revenue growth by the second half of 2012, with print stabilizing to single-digit declines.

One of the key elements will be the Dex Guaranteed Actions, a performance-based model tested beginning last year in Phoenix and recently launched in Seattle and Minneapolis, with a gradual rollout in other markets. The program essentially guarantees advertisers a predetermined number of business leads.

Dex leaders say the program succeeded in changing the sales conversation from price to performance, and is seen as a key element in the company’s efforts to stability print revenue declines from their current high double digits to mid-single digits within two years.

CEO Alfred Mockett and his team outlined a number of key objectives and supporting initiatives, among them:

* The company projects it will move from 10 percent digital to 30 percent digital revenues by 2012.

* DexOne is planning to convert its 2.2 million free business listings into paid. Mockett describes free listings as an “historical anachronism.” Converting to paid will generate revenues and also direct more leads to paid advertisers, Mockett said.

* The company is investing in its sales force, arming it with iPads and launching the Dex One Sales Academy to improve both initial and ongoing sales training.

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