This is the second part of the business section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.
With this year’s launch of iGuide, we have started providing a solution for local search. We need to make this more than a business advertising vehicle. We need to make it an indispensable place to connect with businesses and organizations throughout the community.
This is an important example of how we can develop content (and revenue opportunities) based on evergreen use, rather than focusing on our current model in both print and broadcast of selling slots on a particular day or a particular time. Starting with the database already loaded into the iGuide, we need to expand the iGuide and build an audience for it through aggressive promotion on several fronts:
- We need to compile more information about community organizations in addition to businesses, ranging from service groups to neighborhood associations to congregations to social service agencies to arts organizations. This needs to be a guide to the community, not just the businesses.
- We need to promote the iGuide aggressively with businesses to add themselves if they aren’t already in it, to provide free minimal upgrades that will provide more information for users (and, if the enhanced free listing delivers results, give us a better shot at paid upgrades) or to add paid profiles with more options for helping businesses.
- We need to promote to businesses the possibilities for the iGuide in the rapid-growth areas of email opt-in offers and video advertising as well as mobile opportunities, virtual reality tours, coupons, calendars, gift certificates and opportunities to place orders, make registrations, shop directly online and set up online gift registries.
- We need to promote the iGuide aggressively to consumers, as a place to find solutions for needs throughout the community and as a place to share your opinions and experiences with businesses and organizations in the community.
We need to offer a range of services that are a no-brainer, whether the business already has a web site or not. We need to offer more functionality than many small-business web sites, and a stronger local audience than the sites of national businesses doing business locally. For those without a web site, we can become the de facto web site. Even those with a web site should start steering customers to the iGuide because we will offer more functionality.
For the foreseeable future, an important part of the directory must be stories of recovery from the flood. These stories can be featured prominently on the pages of businesses and other organizations that are rebuilding and relocating or those that are assisting in rebuilding efforts. Once an organization has registered and provided recovery information, we should ask how often it should be prompted to update its recovery efforts, so we can send out emails, text messages, RSS feeds or whatever the organization prefers to remind them to update.
We should encourage users to turn the directory into an interactive, updated online journal of recovery efforts. On the landing page for the directory, the newest updates should be featured, along with links to our news content about businesses’ flood recovery efforts. For instance, every business in Czech Village should include a link to the It Takes a Village interactive graphic on recovery of businesses in that district devastated by flooding.
Whatever level of engagement a business chooses, we need to offer the business promotional material, such as signs in the business encouraging customers to enter comments on the site. They would receive periodic emails reminding them to update listings with current offerings and seasonal specials.
We need to understand (and make businesses understand) from the outset that this is not simply an advertising vehicle, but a community information and service vehicle. Integrity is as important as in a news product. Businesses that advertise will not be able to opt out of user reviews, but can set up alerts so they can see new reviews immediately and respond if they are negative.
At the same time, this will be an important and versatile advertising vehicle and we need to encourage the full range of possibilities. We should encourage video advertising by offering to produce videos for clients who don’t have their own videos and encourage them to ask their vendors and parent companies for informational, instructional and promotional videos, animations, etc. We also could produce steerable virtual-reality tours of a showroom, operating room, etc. for business customers.
We need to encourage development of entries for non-profits and community organizations. For worship centers, we should invite them to post weekly podcasts or videos of the sermon, music or entire service as well as a steerable virtual-reality tour of the sanctuary. While the whole community directory will be one massive, searchable product, parts of it will be offered as specialized directories: worship, restaurants, entertainment, health services, automotive services, etc.
Continue reading the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection with C3’s business services: Communication and marketing.
[…] Newspapers and televisions make their money by selling mass audience to advertisers. The more people we gather to our audience, the more we can charge for ads. That model has served our business and community well for a long time. But it isn’t the most effective approach for the digital marketplace. The Complete Community Connection calls for a new revenue approach, where we provide new services for business customers, including direct sales and local search. […]
LikeLike
[…] yes, as I described in the local search section of the C3 Blueprint, I think that entries in a robust business directory can become the de […]
LikeLike
[…] relationship. We become the local search solution, providing answers for consumers looking to meet specific […]
LikeLike
[…] services (local search, direct sales, communication […]
LikeLike
[…] services (local search, direct sales, communication […]
LikeLike
[…] services (local search, direct sales, communication […]
LikeLike
[…] that news media companies have barely started to explore the revenue possibilities of direct sales, local search and other possibilities I explored in explaining the revenue approach of my Blueprint for the […]
LikeLike
[…] Local search. Some news organizations are making headway here. But every community news organization should offer a directory that offers businesses without websites (amazingly, still a lot of businesses) a de facto website with a multi-faceted entry in your directory, offering photos, videos, coupons, menus, maps, user reviews, reservations, direct-sales and archival content about the business. Even for many businesses with websites, this can offer a better place to showcase their products and services, and a place that will show up higher in search results. That’s the key to mastering local search. Don’t think of it as taking on Google, though you will develop a place where some people will turn first when they are searching for local answers and businesses. But if you do it right, your listings will also show up high when people search in Google or other search engines. […]
LikeLike
[…] noted before that news organizations need to develop multimedia directories of community businesses and organizations, a place for the community to come for information and a place for businesses and organizations to […]
LikeLike
[…] Local search. […]
LikeLike
[…] some of the revenue sources I have encouraged news organizations to explore, such as databases, local search, direct sales and commissioned obituaries and other life […]
LikeLike
[…] noted before that news organizations need to develop multimedia directories of community businesses and organizations, a place for the community to come for information and a place for businesses and organizations to […]
LikeLike
[…] noted six years ago the opportunity that local search presents for news organizations. If you develop an effective local search vehicle, archives can be […]
LikeLike
[…] noted before that news organizations need to develop multimedia directories of community businesses and organizations, a place for the community to come for information and a place for businesses and organizations to […]
LikeLike
[…] actually, but some clichés don’t update). I think local transaction-focused advertising and local search (which should go together) still hold potential, though giants such as Google and Amazon have […]
LikeLike