Yodle, a leader in local online marketing, announced results from its first “Small Business and Online Reviews Survey.” The study polled 300 U.S. small business owners across a large array of industries for their opinions of online reviews.

The survey asks SMB owners if they think online reviews are important, the extent to which they ask for and get reviews, if they monitor for and respond to reviews, and whether they think reviews are fair.

Survey highlights include:

— 50% of respondents think that it’s important or very important for their business to receive positive online reviews.

— 55% of SMB owners don’t receive any online reviews, while one in five (19%) attract between one and five reviews per month. Despite the low number of reviews small businesses are receiving, only 13% of owners ask their customers to post reviews.

— 68% of SMB owners don’t spend any time monitoring online reviews. Most of the remaining SMB owners (29%) spend just one to five hours per month on this activity.

— Only 20% of survey respondents respond to online reviews written about their business. Of those that do respond, more than 3 in 4 generally respond to all reviews.

— Only 14% of survey respondents post customers’ reviews to their websites. The remaining SMB owners that have received reviews and have a website (37%) do not post this content.

— 61% of SMB owners think that review sites favor businesses that pay to advertise with them, while only 10% don’t believe that to be the case. Half of SMB owners believe small businesses are more unfairly impacted by negative reviews than larger business; only 20% disagree.

— More than four in 10 survey respondents (43%) believe that online reviews are unfair because they do not verify that people who leave reviews are actual customers. A similar number, 41%, are “Not sure” if they’re unfair.

BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™ shows SMB advertisers are increasing their engagement with consumer reviews. Currently, 65% of SMBs surveyed monitor comments about their business, with another 15% planning to do so in the next year. Among those that do monitor reviews, 56% use a free or Do-It-Yourself service. Of those that do spend money on review monitoring, half spend between $25 and $100 per month.

While there’s no clear cut answer to whether or not online review sites being fair to SMBs, these statistics speak for themselves. Regardless, review sites are here to stay and force businesses to surrender their power to the consumer. They must rethink how they treat their customers.

For more information about Yodle’s Small Business and online review study please read the press release.

The post Yodle Releases First Ever “Small Business and Online Reviews Survey” Results appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Yodle, a leader in local online marketing, announced results from its first “Small Business and Online Reviews Survey.” The study polled 300 U.S. small business owners across a large array of industries for their opinions of online reviews.

The survey asks SMB owners if they think online reviews are important, the extent to which they ask for and get reviews, if they monitor for and respond to reviews, and whether they think reviews are fair.

Survey highlights include:

— 50% of respondents think that it’s important or very important for their business to receive positive online reviews.

— 55% of SMB owners don’t receive any online reviews, while one in five (19%) attract between one and five reviews per month. Despite the low number of reviews small businesses are receiving, only 13% of owners ask their customers to post reviews.

— 68% of SMB owners don’t spend any time monitoring online reviews. Most of the remaining SMB owners (29%) spend just one to five hours per month on this activity.

— Only 20% of survey respondents respond to online reviews written about their business. Of those that do respond, more than 3 in 4 generally respond to all reviews.

— Only 14% of survey respondents post customers’ reviews to their websites. The remaining SMB owners that have received reviews and have a website (37%) do not post this content.

— 61% of SMB owners think that review sites favor businesses that pay to advertise with them, while only 10% don’t believe that to be the case. Half of SMB owners believe small businesses are more unfairly impacted by negative reviews than larger business; only 20% disagree.

— More than four in 10 survey respondents (43%) believe that online reviews are unfair because they do not verify that people who leave reviews are actual customers. A similar number, 41%, are “Not sure” if they’re unfair.

BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor? shows SMB advertisers are increasing their engagement with consumer reviews. Currently, 65% of SMBs surveyed monitor comments about their business, with another 15% planning to do so in the next year. Among those that do monitor reviews, 56% use a free or Do-It-Yourself service. Of those that do spend money on review monitoring, half spend between $25 and $100 per month.

While there’s no clear cut answer to whether or not online review sites being fair to SMBs, these statistics speak for themselves. Regardless, review sites are here to stay and force businesses to surrender their power to the consumer. They must rethink how they treat their customers.

For more information about Yodle’s Small Business and online review study please read the press release.

The post Yodle Releases First Ever "Small Business and Online Reviews Survey" Results appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

As local businesses increasingly transition their advertising dollars online, they expect agencies and publishers to furnish them with simple, consolidated solutions supported by tangible, trackable ROI. MerchEngines built its white-label “relationship generation” system to enable online marketing providers to do just that for their SMB clients.

In a crowded online marketplace, where bigger firms such as ReachLocal, Yodle and WebVisible also compete to service SMB agents, MerchEngines’ value proposition is the comprehensiveness of the toolkit that publishers can implement and local merchants can benefit from.

There are eight key features in the suite, including a “SocialStream” layer that tracks activity across four prominent social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Buzz).

PPC search campaign management is fundamental to online search offerings, and MerchEngines is no different, supplying a single interface to customize, amend and track campaigns across multiple search engines. Tied to both SEM and social is CallAnalytics, the branded service that allows SMBs to establish call-tracking numbers and monitor traffic from both search and social.

Also of note is OneList, which disseminates a local merchant’s listing across more than 40 business directories (Yelp, Superpages.com and many more). The eight-tool portfolio is encompassed in a single online dashboard that agencies and publishers can conveniently access to monitor and change campaigns.

MerchEngines was founded in 2005 by longtime Internet executive Andy Steuer. In 2009 it sold to Hostopia, the Web site hosting unit of Deluxe Corp.

The post MerchEngines Unveils 8-Tool SMB Marketing Platform appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.