Darby Sieben -

One of the most challenging aspects of local businesses is determining what media is driving the sale of a product or service. Some businesses claim the majority of their sales are driven by word-of-mouth, others by a directive medium such as Yellow Pages or Google Adwords and yet others believe creative mediums like Radio, TV or Newspapers are the key to success. Last year I did a post on “Word of Mouth Needs Support – A Deeper Look at Web Referral Traffic” in which I encouraged business owners to get a little more sophisticated in their approach when asking customers the source of a sale.

For this post I wanted to share a personal story of purchasing a Massage Chair. Although this is a high-ticket item, I think it demonstrates the complexity of the local media mix and one of the challenges that local businesses face in determining the source of a sale. For emergency or low engagement products or services the number of steps would likely be less.

Earlier this year we purchased the INADA Sogno Dreamwave Massage Chair from Bodo (read my review here).

In reverse, here are the steps that lead us to making the purchase:

1) Day of Purchase – Used YellowPages.ca iPhone App, did a search for Bodo – Calgary to plot the store address on the map in my iPhone.

2) Visited YouTube to watch any videos I could find on the INADA Sogno Dreamwave Massage Chair, search for Inada Sogno.

3) Performed a Google Search looking for Inada Sogno Massage Chair Reviews.

4) Met the team from Bodo at the Calgary Home Show. Wife had a chance to sit in the chair and test it out. Also, was entered into a home show draw that would have knocked up to $1000 off the price of the chair.

5) Visited Bodo.ca, the corporate web site to learn more about the company.

6) Heard an ad on QR77, the talk radio station that I listen to in the morning on the drive into work, for Bodo. One ad in particular was very interesting featuring the Inada Massage Chair.

7) Moved back to Calgary in 2008, used YellowPages.ca to find Massage Chairs – Calgary and Google for the same search. Checked out a few local retailers and what brands they carried.

8.) At the Toronto Home Show tested out the Sanyo as well as the Panasonic chairs available there. Almost bought the Sanyo at the show. (Note: was living in Toronto at this time)

9) Used YellowPages.ca to find Massage Chairs – Toronto and Google for the same search. Checked out a few local retailers and the brands they carried.

10) Started doing research on Google for Massage Chairs to see what product was available in the market place. There were lots of options; we knew this was going to take some time.

So the question is … who gets the credit for the sale?

Popularity: 3% [?]

Released over this past weekend was a very cool blackberry application from Yellow Pages Group. The application can be downloaded directly to your blackberry at InstallYP.ca/Blackberry (http://installyp.ca/blackberry) – please note that this link is blackberry specific, if you try to access through a web browser it will tell you that your devise is not supported.

This application features the leading directory services in Canada, YellowPages - for finding a business, Canada411 for finding a person, and a blended Reverse Lookup for finding both people and businesses.

Compatible with the newest blackberries and backward compatible to previous generations, this application automatically detects your device and installs the features that are compatible. For example, GPS search is enabled on devices with GPS, non GPS blackberries won’t see this option.

Lastly, the application auto detects your language settings and is available in French and English – pretty cool stuff.

Some of the high-level features include:

- tab between Business, People and Reverse Lookup
- save listing information through MyFavs or directly to your blackberry address book or both
- people search with integrated find businesses nearby (surprise your date with flowers on the way)
- GPS search (for devices where this is enabled)
- direct connect to Voice Search (no charge usage) if you are on the go

Application is completely free to download and overall is pretty cool and puts the most up to date Business and People information in Canada at your fingertips.

If you are interested, check out other neat local Canadian search applications.

Popularity: 6% [?]

As the iPhone becomes more and more popular in Canada I decided to take a look at 4 local web products, YellowPages.ca, 411.ca, Canpages.ca, and Google Maps.

I selected these as they all have iPhone compatible versions of their websites. Google Maps is a standard icon on the iPhone by default.

For this particular test I decided to focus on a popular generic category search (dentists in Toronto) and a very specific landmark search (restaurants by Eau Claire Market). For those of you who don’t know, Eau Claire Market is a popular destination located in downtown Calgary. I believe that landmarks would be important search criteria for mobile products.

In terms of ranking, I have decided not to rank the results. For the landmark search I indicated success or failure. You be the judge in terms of your personal preference. Please feel free to add a comment on your favorite or suggest other sites in Canada that have iPhone versions.

Let’s start with what happens when you bookmark the websites above and put them on your iPhone desktop.

From left to right:

Maps (Google) - this is default on your iPhone. One issue that I have is that Apple or Google have failed to customize this icon for regions – notice the US highway signage.

YellowPages.ca – In Canada, Yellow Pages(TM) is a registered trademark and when you bookmark you get the logo on your desktop.

411.ca- They have a unique icon and tell you 411 at the beginning of the text string. The ouch! at the end is a little weird though.

Canpages.ca – No custom icon, uses a screenshot that clearly tells the user nothing.

Let’s look at each property individually based on my two search queries.

First we try Google Maps – “dentists in Toronto” search on Map view.

The same search done via list view.

Here is the screenshot of the details of the business listing.

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed as the results are located in Toronto. Google did not recognize this landmark.

Second we try YellowPages.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search. NOTICE: with YellowPages.ca you also have the ability to switch to find a person in Canada using Canada411.ca.

Here are the results of this search.

Here is the details of a business listing

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market“. This search was a success, landmark was recognized.

Third we try 411.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search.

Here are the results of this search.

Here is the details of a business listing

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed as the results are located in Ontario. 411.ca did not recognize this landmark.

Fourth we try CanPages.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search.

Here are the results of this search.

Here is the details of a business listing

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed CanPages.ca did not recognize this landmark.

If you want to see another comparison - check out Taking a Look at Local Merchant Pages in Canada - a post from last December.

Popularity: 5% [?]