A versatile program for any website that has local traffic in Canada and definitely one program to look for. Currently the program is invite only, so if you are interested in joining - send me your website via my comments and I will forward directly to the affiliate manager.

For full program details - please visit Affiliates.YellowPages.ca.

You can see an working example at CanadaEast.com.

Here are some examples of the types of search bricks you can select - note I will only display bricks that fit within my blog. The affiliate program contains all the major search brick sizes including; 234×60, 728×90, 468×60, 180×150, 300×250, 336×228, 250×250 and 300×140.

180×150 - English YellowPages.ca Search Brick

300×250 - English YellowPages.ca and Canada411.ca Search Brick

336×228 French PagesJaunes.ca Search Brick

250×250 French PagesJaunes.ca and Canada411.ca Search Brick

The interview was on such subjects as the local search space in Canada, the impact of social networking, my thoughts on local search in the US and Europe and more.

If you are interested in reading this interview please visit the posting, Local Search - Canadian Style.

In discussions with small business owners, when asked, what method of tracking do you use to measure your new sales, the most common response is “I ask my consumers where they heard about me”. Usually the second part of the conversation goes this way - “word of mouth is my best form of advertising” and “I tried many forms of advertising, none have worked for me”.

For this particular post I want to focus on two areas:

1) How word-of-mouth (WOM) needs support
2) How to leverage in-store questions and online traffic

Word-Of-Mouth

I am a very strong believer in WOM and the incredible growth it can generate. That being said, WOM often takes more credit away from supporting advertising vehicles, giving the impression to a SME that their advertising is not working.

A typical conversation with a new customer may go like this:

Bus Owner: Thanks for coming in. How did you happen to hear about our store?
Customer: A friend recommended you
Bus Owner: That’s great, if you liked the service today, please tell your friends

The above dialogue is good, however, what if the conversation was slightly changed:

Bus Owner: Thanks for coming in. Can I ask you two questions about how you come to our store today?
Customer: Sure
Bus Owner: How did you hear about out store?
Customer: From a friend
Bus Owner: Thanks, how did you get our address?
Customer: From your website? From my friend? From the Yellow Pages?
Bus Owner: That’s great, if you liked the service today, please tell your friends about us and have them visit my website, Yellow Pages ad, etc. for my store details.

Of course the exact questions can be changed and tailored, but the main point is that in most cases WOM is supported by another medium that connects the buyer and the seller. People will refer people they like to people they trust, however, those same people will usually not know all the details about your business. WOM can accelerate your sales when you have a support mechanism behind it and you incorporate it into your WOM strategy.

In-Store Questions and Online Traffic

Continuing with the example above and examining customers who indicated they used the Internet to find your address, we need to examine our web analytics. The first question I usually get is, should I ask customers how they found me on the web? I advise against asking any questions about how people found you on the web. The reason is that there is a lot of confusion among web users - so the typical response is Google - even if they used MSN, Yahoo or something else. This gives the illusion that all web traffic is generated from Google - which is not the case. As a business owner, if you have a good analytics package - all you need to know from your customers is whether they saw your website. Once you have a in-store count you can cross-reference this with your web analytics to find out what is and is not working online.

As a side-note I want to share a quick story. I helped a auto dealer in Calgary with their tracking and customer acquisition strategies. Calgary has two major newspaper dailies - the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun. We started by creating a baseline, by spending one month asking customers how they came to stop by the dealership. Of the two newspaper dailies what we found was that 25% came from paper 1 and 15% came from paper 2. Here is where it gets interesting - this particular dealership had not advertised in paper 2 for a couple of years, yet 15% of new customers said they found the dealership there. Here is my take on this non-scientific survey - when asked, some customers will simply answer what comes to their mind first as opposed to what is actual. Not because they are dishonest, just that they most likely don’t care and will answer to shut you up. The same thing is happening on the web - I bet I could take 10 people who use Yahoo Search as their primary engine and half of them, when asked quickly, would probably say Google. My point is that only relying on asking people how they found you on the web can be misleading, whereas this potential misleading information does not exist with web analytics.

Here are some stats from my mom’s business, The Bra Lady. What we have learned over the past 4-years of tracking results is that WOM is by far her #1 way of generating new business with the Internet as her primary support mechanism to WOM. What we have also found is that many people are referred to her business, but use search engines and directories to find her web address. Probably 80% of her new clients indicate that Internet played a role. NOTE: this may be high and in her particular situation makes a lot of sense - because she is a home based business. However, when I worked with Auto Dealers - this number was about the same and dentists were up there as well.

On a monthly basis we compare the number of referrals who indicate the Internet was a source of them finding her to her actual analytics - we use Google Analytics to understand better exactly how these people ending up finding her.

Here is the aggregate view:

In the above you will notice that the top three referrers of traffic are Google, YellowPages.ca, and Direct. Examining just the top three referrers, typically I would examine further both the traffic from YellowPages.ca and Google.

For Google:

What I notice is the majority of keywords from Google are good quality. You will notice that keyword #20 - the one that references ebay is not considered a good keyword, however, this is the nature of search engines. It is important when examining search engine traffic to look at the keywords to get a accurate picture. The conclusion is that Google is generating good traffic.

For YellowPages.ca:

What I notice is that the top referring URL from yellowpages.ca is the merchant page that was built for her business by YPG - this is good - it supports the decision to have the website URL located on this page. If I continue to examine further I see that users were searching using keywords we anticipated and specifically in Calgary. What I like about directory traffic is that people don’t surf directories. They go there for a purpose - usually to find something in particular - so the traffic generated here is high-quality.

For Direct:
This is pretty self-explanatory.

You will notice that we are also showing other top referrers in Facebook and CalgaryPlus.ca. I did a posting back in July of this year - Facebook - Can Local Business Florish in Social Networking? and its potential impact on local business - watch for this. For those of you interested - here is an article I posted back in 2005 on the strength of media companies and front-page placement - Power of Front Page Placement.

In conclusion - I would challenge any SME to dig a little deeper in 2008 in terms of their tracking and understanding of customers. Also I would encourage you to not presuppose answers as to where online traffic might come from. In Canada - we are continually bombarded with US news and information about the Internet, which sometimes gives us a US perspective on traffic as opposed to a CDN perspective on traffic. Build your measurement criteria, find the tools to track and examine them monthly - this will generate great results for your business in 2008.

Lastly I had to reduce the images to fit within my blog post - so for a real comparison, please click on the images to load the full page.

YellowPages.ca has recently launched a new look merchant page - see screenshot below from Martin Grove Volkswagen in Toronto.

Here is a screen shot of the same company on Google Maps

Here is a screen shot from Yahoo Local

So how does SMS work? I will use the example of Yellow Pages Canada SMS using a cell phone:

1) First - you will want to go to your messages area on your cell phone (all manufacturers are a little different) but typically they have a message area with an option that indicated “Create Message”

2) In the “Create Message” area, make sure you select “Message” - some phones will give you the option of creating a voice mail, email, etc.

3) In the “Message” area, enter the following - taxi, toronto

4) After you enter your search query, typically in the bottom right or left corner you will see “Send To” - select that

5) Enter 935569 (YELLOW)

6) You will instantly get a response, via text, open up the response. For the search taxi, toronto - I received 9 found businesses - it will then list the names, via number, with the company names beside them.

7) When you find a business that you want to get more information on hit “Reply” (sometimes found within options) and type in the number of the business. This will send a reply back to the SMS service asking for more information on the business that is related to the number that you selected.

8.) The information that you get back from the system is the company name along with the phone number and address (if applicable, for example a search for a retail location will give you an address, some searches like taxis may not return an address).

9) Finally, complete your transaction by selecting Call - it will pre-populate the number for you so that you don’t have to dial-in.

SMS is a great service that can save you time and if you are roaming - usually text messaging is quite a bit more cost-effective than calling 411 or making a call back to the office. Remember there is a charge for SMS - for example, I pay 10 cents per message, but some plans offer unlimited text messaging - just check your carrier first so that you understand what you will be charged for this service.

Yellow Pages SMS:
935569 (YELLOW) for English
528637 (JAUNES) for French

Enter keyword or category followed by a comma and the location (city or postal code). You can also perform a reverse look-up by texting a business phone number.

Search examples:

* taxi, toronto
* pizza, M5V2T6
* pizza, M5V
* tow truck, vancouver
* 416-412-5999
* 4164125999

Finally - if you prefer to get your weather updates via SMS - check out the service from The Weather Network, however, they charge you a premium of 15 cents over your regular SMS charges.

Here are some screen shots of what this looks like. I used my mom’s business in Calgary called TheBraLady.ca. Here are the steps of how I got these screen shots:

First visit yellowpages.ca and do a search for bras in calgary. This actually loads a full page of results, but I captured just the result listing. As you can see, from the listing level you can add to facebook.

If you click on the company name this loads the merchant page for TheBraLady.ca. As you can see from the following screen shot there are two locations where you can “add to facebook” including the logo in the top right hand corner. Sorry for the small size - click on the link above to see the live version.

This is what it looks like inside of facebook.

As far as I know this is one of the first times that a company has allowed every single business in a country the ability to brand itself inside facebook - if you know of another integration - please send me a comment.

From a user perspective this is a great way to share a meeting location since all the merchant pages on yellowpages.ca have a map - when an address is available. From a small business perspective - this is a great opportunity to brand yourself within facebook.

Imagine - you set up a small business profile in facebook and invite your customers to connect to you. Why would they do that - because you are going to send out messages, promotions, coupons, etc. You use the add to facebook functionality to continue to update your friend list of these promotions. There is very little investment to make this happen and you potentially create a great viral tool.

If I had a small business - I would definitely take advantage of the many opportunities that could come from this integration. But that is just me - I tend to think a little differently.

Although mobile search is not main stream yet, I think this is definitely one mode of search that has potential to expand and will become important for any local businesses to ensure they have placement within these mediums. There are 2 major barriers that I see to the mass adoption of mobile search in Canada:

1) Cell Phone Data Plans - in Canada we are not in a fortunate position with our cell phone carries in terms of competition. Meaning that as of this blog posting there are no unlimited data plans available, like our US counterparts or in Asia. This is a major barrier to the adoption of local search, but as the cell carries start to open up their data streams, I see growth.

2) User Interfaces - if you have ever tried to use a cell phone to surf the web, you have probably been frustrated by the experience. Although the interfaces today are much better than previous - I would still say that there is a long way to go yet. As a side note, I have had the opportunity to view and play with the Apple iPhone - very nice.

On the user interface front, I wanted to share with you the local search interface from the Nokia Mobile Search Platform. Nokia has signed a number of deals with local providers around the world to include in this application - in Canada, Yellow Pages Group is the partner using data from yellowpages.ca.

The Yellowpages.ca local search plug-in enables you to find local businesses and services from your Nokia mobile phone. You can search by business name, business type, or location. As well as a company’s address and phone number, you can get useful additional information and detailed color maps showing you how to find them.

Another platform that is working checking is the Yahoo Canada Mobile Platform. If you visit their site and enter your cell phone number, it will text you a link to install the application. This platform consists of a lot of different features - of interest for local business is their local search platform - btw, the data for this platform is provided by yellowpages.ca as well.

Above are just two examples of good user interfaces that are taking the right steps to bring local mobile search into the mainstream. As I play with more, I will blog about them as well.

So I did a test this evening and here is how the process works:

Step #1 - Visit YellowPages.ca and do a search query. I happen to look for a dentist in Calgary.

Step #2 - Locate the business of your choice that you want to add and select the “Save and Share”. In this case, I selected my dentist - Optimum Dentistry.

Step #3 - This launches a window where you select how you want to “Save and Share”. In this case, I selected Social Bookmarks and then Selected Facebook.

Step #4 - The listing is added to your facebook profile.

What I like about this service is that it is a simple way to share businesses in Canada with friends and family on facebook. For example, if you are planning a night out - you can add the link to facebook - share it with your friends to view the map and or driving directions for your business. A good example of a IYP leveraging social marketing to promote its customers.

To start with, load your MSN Messenger and click on the Yellow Pages Tab on the left hand side,

Then select the tab to the right called IM Search, which brings you to the following screen:

Now we is a detailed description of the service, but if you want to start to get information from the bot, just click on the Add Me button,

At this point - it asks you whether you wish to start a conversation with imlocal@msn.com - since this is an automated bot, you can safely start a conversation. At this point, it takes you to the messenger window where you can start your conversation. When you first launch the service it basically sits there until you give it a command. You can type a variety of things, I will choose Dentist.

You will notice that because this is the first time I have used the bot - it also asked me for my postal code. I selected a random postal code and you can see that the bot is now going to get me information on dentists closest to that postal code.

Looking at the screen above, the bot has given me the 8 closest dentists to the postal code that I selected. From here I have the option to type "m" or " more" to see more results or simply type in a number to select a particular dentist and get more information.

I opted to select more information on dentist #8. The bot gives me a couple of more options - it provides me with a link to view more information about the dentist which loads this dentists YellowPages.ca advertising. I also have the choice to type in "dd" for driving directions or if I want to view a map to this location I can accept the invitation to do so.

When I select map, notice that my messenger window expands to provide me with a detailed map on the left hand side of the screen - powered by Windows Live - this is a very cool feature.

Finally I can select "dd" and it will provide driving directions from my address to the this location.

So, if you are a big user of MSN Messenger and Yellow Pages, now you can have the best of both worlds, through your computer or handheld device.

What is LinkedIn? In a nutshell, LinkedIn is a social networking site for people in business. This is not the place for kids looking to cram up MySpace.com with their thoughts, videos and pictures, rather LinkedIn is a connection of professionals that you build based on your contacts. You can see my LinkedIn profile here.

So how do I use LinkedIn and why would I recommend this for business owners?

1) I use it as a place to record my history - in a nutshell a digital resume.
2) I use it as a contact manager - if I do something different, with a click of the button I can notify people.
3) I use it to make new contacts for products, services or information.

How does the last one work? Well basically its like 6 degrees of separation. For example, I have 45 wonderful directly connected to me. Those 45 people connect me to over 6000 people (the 2nd degree). Those 6000 people connect me to over 710,600 people (the 3rd degree). What this basically means is, that if I need to contact somebody at the 3rd degree, I can send an email to my direct contact, who can forward through their contact base to reach the third person.

In business, the old saying goes, it’s not what you know, rather who you know. LinkedIn makes that happen in a way that is truly amazing and a great tool for business owners.

I highly recommend the usage of this service.