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Online marketing specialist ReachLocal announced that it has added a third-party campaign result measurement and multi-location alert and reporting capabilities to its total digital marketing system.
The features build on the solution’s already lead measurement and alert support that give local businesses transparency into return on investment (ROI) from all their online marketing sources, including organic content like search engine optimization (SEO), Web presence (listings) and social media marketing.
“Local businesses rely as much on word-of-mouth as they do on paid advertising. Social media is, if nothing else, the online manifestation of word-of-mouth marketing,” Brent Cohen, vice president of products at ReachLocal, told eWEEK. “As such, social media is tremendously important to the success of local businesses including SMBs. It’s always good to have a balanced mix of the channels you select for your online marketing dollars and social should definitely be a consideration.”
The new capabilities include all measurement and results being displayed in one dashboard, the ability to sort and filter measurement data by source (chat, calls, social, websites and other platforms), and one-to-one comparison of ReachLocal service results in comparison to other online marketing providers.
“We try to have an open dialogue with our clients to help them succeed. Our product development teams visit with clients regularly and monitor feedback and product usage stats to determine the future roadmap,” Cohen said. “Our clients care most about increasing their sales and getting the best ROI for their efforts. That means they want to do things efficiently.”
Companies with several locations can now organize and route alerts, leads and other information by geography, office or even employee, to help ensure that the right information is delivered to the appropriate recipient in a timely fashion.
“It’s important for SMBs to be wherever their customers are searching, surfing and socializing,” Cohen said. “We like to recommend that our clients have a good understanding of their customer base so that we can work with them to build a plan that will bring them the greatest success. As we analyze their marketing channels, we can adjust budgets to the channels that are bringing them the greatest leads and, ultimately, conversions.”
Multi-location support, set-up by ReachLocal marketing consultants, also allows local businesses to send email customized by location, route alerts, leads, call tracking and other notifications to specific locations or even people, filter notifications by date, and compare leads and trends across locations and learn from best practices.
Competitive measurement capabilities are available immediately to current ReachEdge users in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, however, multi-location support is only currently available in the United States.
“Mobile is getting really big,” Cohen noted. “On our system, 41 percent of all of our clicks today are coming from mobile or tablet–just two years ago that number was at 20 percent. This growth in two years means that any business that wants to compete in the digital marketing industry needs to be plugged into mobile in order to stay current with new scenarios that pop up. It’s also an opportunity for local businesses since many are not optimized for mobile. We can help them with that.”