As we gear up for our LEADING IN LOCAL: SMB Digital Marketing conference, there’s a lot to look forward to. Local Market Launch, a startup that helps companies manage the online presence of local stores, just announced a suite of channel partner solutions that the company claims will make it easier for partners to deliver business listings management services to their SMB clients. Local Market Launch is set to exhibit its full suite of business listings management solutions for SMB channel partners for the first time at our conference next week.

These enhancements are being released at a time where Local Market Launch has been gaining traction with the market — 1000 percent growth in the number of locations being managed. As a result, their staff has nearly doubled.

Bryan Coryat, founder and CEO of Local Market Launch, had this to say in their press release:

“We have always had a parallel focus on delivering a solution that helps SMBs get found everywhere their customers are searching, while also making it easy for our channel partners to manage their clients’ business listings across all relevant digital channels. The enhanced services we are rolling out address both of these goals. They also offer our channel partners the flexibility to creatively integrate these new solutions within their unique SMB platforms.”

In addition to Local Market Launch’s product exhibition, 50 plus industry leaders will grace the stage at LEADING IN LOCAL: SMB Digital Marketing Sept. 22-24 in New Orleans. We’re looking forward to a great show. Don’t miss out on all the excitement in local media.

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National brands, franchises and multi-location outlets often lose business by only providing standard name/address/phone number information, instead of focusing more on discovery search, says Local Market Launch CMO Gideon Rubin. “Name, address, phone information only represents 15 percent of searches. If you know ?Subway,? you can look it up,? he says.

But the real market opportunity is in the discovery market, which constitutes 85 percent of searches. ?What we do is add keywords and categories that increases the likelihood of showing up in non-branded searches,? he says. ?We?ll add the name of the sandwich or other menu details. That creates additional revenues for merchants. It is a really large opportunity.?

Listings, LAT/long information, pictures and reviews are other key data points that national brands must keep up to date across all the search engines, adds Rubin.

Local Market Launch primarily works with digital agencies and certified marketing reps that have national brand accounts. It wins accounts after finding missing information for national brands during search audits of local locations. It all comes down to ?completing the process of delivering products,? Rubin says.

The company also does a lot of work helping large, multi-location businesses claim listings. Many have locations that never show up, says Rubin. LML will work on them individually, adding them to sites such as Yelp, Bing and Google.

LML has just raised a new $1 million round led by former ValueClick execs Jim Zarley and Steve Umberger, adds Rubin. The revenue will help fund the Santa Barbara company?s expansion effort.

Rubin is speaking on search issues, along with LocalVox CEO Trevor Sumner and YP VP Chuck Lee at LIL: The National Impact May 7-9 in Atlanta. Register here

The post Local Market Launch's Push on Discovery for National Brands, Local Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

National brands, franchises and multi-location outlets often lose business by only providing standard name/address/phone number information, instead of focusing more on discovery search, says Local Market Launch CMO Gideon Rubin. “Name, address, phone information only represents 15 percent of searches. If you know ‘Subway,’ you can look it up,” he says.

But the real market opportunity is in the discovery market, which constitutes 85 percent of searches. “What we do is add keywords and categories that increases the likelihood of showing up in non-branded searches,” he says. “We’ll add the name of the sandwich or other menu details. That creates additional revenues for merchants. It is a really large opportunity.”

Listings, LAT/long information, pictures and reviews are other key data points that national brands must keep up to date across all the search engines, adds Rubin.

Local Market Launch primarily works with digital agencies and certified marketing reps that have national brand accounts. It wins accounts after finding missing information for national brands during search audits of local locations. It all comes down to “completing the process of delivering products,” Rubin says.

The company also does a lot of work helping large, multi-location businesses claim listings. Many have locations that never show up, says Rubin. LML will work on them individually, adding them to sites such as Yelp, Bing and Google.

LML has just raised a new $1 million round led by former ValueClick execs Jim Zarley and Steve Umberger, adds Rubin. The revenue will help fund the Santa Barbara company’s expansion effort.

Rubin is speaking on search issues, along with LocalVox CEO Trevor Sumner and YP VP Chuck Lee at LIL: The National Impact May 7-9 in Atlanta. Register here

The post Local Market Launch’s Push on Discovery for National Brands, Local Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Local search has taken off in multiple directions, driving commerce and engagement for merchants via enhances listings, maps, video, and even store inventory. At BIA/Kelsey‘s Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media Conference held this week in San Francisco, a panel of experts in the local search area were brought together to discuss the cutting edge in search issues and techniques.

As always with local search, content was a hot topic. “I love when people say content is hard because really it is so easy” says Will Scott, CEO of Search Influence. Getting SMB’s to put all of their content online is often a struggle but social media is a great way to get content out there, according to Scott. Azim Tejani, Chief Revenue Officer of YaSabe, discussed how they “encourage users and others to answer questions that come from the community.” By commenting they access content that is “not very social.”

When it comes to the future of local search, tackling the international market is where GoDaddy is headed according to Raj Nijjer, Sr. Director, Product Management. “It is a huge opportunity and a huge market”. Gideon Rubin, CMO Local Market Launch sees things a little differently. He is looking back to the fundamentals. “We still need to participate in the fundamental activities, the market is still small so we still need to participate in the fundamentals.”

The post At Leading in Local: ILM 2013: The New Local Search appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

We have taken a drawing of the many entrants for our Yelp headquarters “PreCon” tour at Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media on Dec. 10, and we have a lucky group of winners. The new Yelp building is the renovation of the old PacBell building. It is really beautiful. Thanks for all the entrants.

More conference-related stuff: On Monday night, our friends at Local Market Launch have a fabulous wine tasting featuring vintages from their home base in Santa Barbara (think of the movie, “Sideways”). It is an elegant way to network with your industry colleagues. Please email Hannah.Anderson@localmarketlaunch.com to request your invitation.

See you in San Francisco?

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