Local Business Listings Heating Up: Google And Yelp And Why Not At & T, Verizon Or Sprint

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Local business listings have become more sophisticated during this year that seems

to show a convergence between the mobile industry and the search industry.

The local business (large or small) looking for ways to better use the Internet has finally been given the marketing tool they need. We certainly are not talking about the outdated hardcopy yellow pages, but the Local listings on search engines along with the mobile industry. I cannot tell you the number of times I wanted to send the yellow pages back to AT & T addressed to their President in the past 10 years. The fact that the silly hard copy still is around at no charge to the consumer is amazing! It works better as a doorstop than it does for the content. Creating advertising that happens to catch a small percentage of companies that actually benefit from the traditional hard copy yellow pages certainly has not convinced me that this method of local marketing is effective.

The very reason why the AT & T yellow pages or for that matter any hard copy yellow pages exist is the same reason why companies like AT & T would not even consider the acquisition of a company like Yelp. It would require a company like Google to take the initiative in the industry in order to raise awareness for these outdated companies like AT & T, Verizon and Sprint to even being thinking about what they missed. And, if they are not outdated in their thinking process they are outdated in their ability to adapt to the fast changing environment of the Internet's new media.

Recently I had a 20 year old ask me why there is a difference between "internet marketing" and "marketing". When I replied that "marketing" was considered to be the more traditional distribution, he promptly replied, "I see them both to be the same, the only way to reach me is on the web". Traditional and outdated companies like AT & T cannot possibly understand this type of thinking and would equally not be able to think about acquiring companies like Yelp, Angie's List and others.

Google attempting to acquire Yelp and the changes in the mobile and local listing industry over the past year has certainly caught our attention. We anticipate this to progress significantly in the next three years as this information process becomes the new way for local businesses to reach out to the local consumer. As more and more tools and resources are developed to help the local business owner to reach the local customer, attention will need to be paid to using local listings as part of any marketing and advertising strategy.

by: Kara Knapp

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