We need to augment and expand on the discussions in LinkedIn automotive groups and break them up into three major groups. There is no one silver bullet to answer “why”, rather there are multiple elements that make up the total answer.

1. Search Engines
Search engine maps and their listings have been evolving since 2007. By the end of 2008 they were in the first page search results. Unfortunately, the financial meltdown that caused many businesses to hold on their budgets in 2009 and most of 2010 kept them away from seeing the evolution and maturity of the Local Business Listings as a marketing tool to reach local consumers.

At the end of 2010 major changes from Google pushed local results before national results. This includes geo-tagged web pages / web sites and local business listings (aka Google Places and aka the interactive yellow pages).

An organic web marketing strategy has to focus more on local over national with websites, web pages, micro website strategies, and local business listings. Please note this is about “marketing” not “advertising”…web marketing has a shelf life of years! …web advertising has shelf life of a few seconds and only good as long as you put money into it.

Two Google issues also play into using local business listings:
A. Google Places is not about what you do on Google, but also Google validating your information on other websites, known as citations. Too many companies focus only on Google Places and can’t understand why it doesn’t work.

B. Amongst various data point, one of the data point Google ranks local listings on is customer ratings and reviews. It is important to actively manage these, not only for negative ones, but securing positive ones and facilitating positive re-enforcement.

2. Mobile Marketing
Mobile searches have not only been increasing in usage, but the searches are showing better quality of leads. We are seeing this in our managed Google Adwords campaigns in which mobile clicks are outperforming non-mobile clicks and are also costing less. An Google Adwords strategy that encompasses keywords, ad extensions, image ads, and also are all equally prepared for mobile, will show better results than national 3rd party lead generators.

3. Hyperlocal Advertising
Hyperlocal Advertising is the next main growing element in reaching local consumers. Ex-newspapers journalists have been opening up their own city or neighborhood websites with local news and information. Larger entities like AOL have been growing their Patch.com websites and this industry also includes websites like Examiner.com. Amongst the local journalist and these national hyperlocal sites consumers are responding very well to them and in fact have browsers opening to them as their initial home page.

Focusing on editorials and advertising (text, image or banners) becomes part of the web strategy in reaching local consumers for local stores. Particularly for national companies with stores nationwide whose business revenue is dependent upon the local consumer.

If you look at all three elements (Search Engines, Mobile Marketing and Hyperlocal Advertising) we will see that there is no one single answer as to why national 3rd party lead generators are not as effective. Perhaps had the 2008 global financial bankruptcy not happened and business continued as usual, many businesses would have realized these changes much sooner.

The ongoing evolution, maturation and technology changes/additions that takes place on the web create a very dynamic and fluid environment that is not necessarily comforting to business. Nothing is ever stagnant and one has to always adopt technologies early to take advantage of reaching consumers that have no problem adopting technology changes earlier than business. Unfortunately, business tends to take its time in making these decisions and also expect that their investment in “one thing” will continue forever. Neither which is true or good for the business.

For this reason it all comes down to ongoing education and communications focusing on the marketing processes versus just executing silvers of technology tasks. The difference between a marketing agency versus a technology company is well apparent because of the communications. Marketing agencies are focused on pushing ideas and marketing strategies with ongoing communications with clients. Technology companies tend to wait for orders from their customers, who unfortunately, many not know what they should request or what they are requesting.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use local business marketing for national company stores through monthly managed marketing services, broadcast data services for mass business data distribution, and our Mobile Locations Finder mobile app.

Smartfinds Internet Marketing
330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009
Toll-Free: (866) 501-5758
Fax: (866) 501-5758
http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com

For example, you may have seen TV commercials for Angie’s List, Super Media, Yellow Book. If you add Internet advertising that includes but not limited to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Citysearch and many others, you have to start wondering how all these websites can attract a finite number of businesses and visitors to use their website.

The other more significant question is how a business will manage their local business marketing information at all the local business listings websites.

History of Geographic Marketing and Local Business Listings

As a business, if you have not kept up with the evolution of geographic marketing you will need a quick primer to know where things started and where things are today.

• The origins of local business listings go back to the early 1990s when search engines had directories listing businesses by categories in addition to their basic search results.
• These basic business listings gave way to business directories giving the business the opportunity to add more business marketing information.
• While this evolution was taking place, yellow page (411) websites were also emerging on the web.
• Business directories eventually gave way to the idea of rating a business with companies like Angie’s List and Yelp in social communities.
• In 2007 business listings began showing up in search engines and customer ratings and reviews also were available.

In summary, geographic marketing is essentially based on an online business listing which consists of yellow pages information, business description, and local business marketing information, consumer ratings and consumer reviews.

Geographic Marketing is Interactive in Nature

Calling these listings a business directory does not do them justice considering all the local business marketing content, customer information and mapping information.

However, geographic marketing is not just about getting your business marketing information into these listings. It is also about essentially creating mini-websites for your business, and more importantly allowing customers to quantitatively rate and subjectively provide commentary about their experience with the business, products and services.

Local business listing websites that are social communities allow customers. Live social communities that provide location based services like Four Square, Twitter and Facebook create instantaneous feedback to friends, family and followers alike. This collaboration not only allows for ratings and comments, but the information is posted permanently.

A smart geographic marketing strategy will require a business to ask satisfied customers to post commentary and manage those postings that are negative…..at multiple local listing websites, of course.

Manage Your Geographic Marketing Process Everywhere!

Unlike the traditional yellow pages, where business information was located in a single source, the Internet lets local business marketing information be found everywhere. With so many sources, it becomes imperative for a business to stay on top of its information, description, business marketing materials and consumer reviews at multiple local listing websites.

Local Business Listing websites is defined to include search engines, social communities, 411 websites, GPS websites and business directories.

If you wonder why the management needs to take place at multiple local listing websites, the answer is simple. Your business information shows up in search engine results, mobile search results, and is available to mobile application developers for mobile apps.

Every time a consumer or customer enters a search term, the search engine or mobile app will return local business listings that are relevant to that search based on its proximity to the user’s location (latitude and longitude, city, or state). Since you don’t know what source your local customers or mobile application developers are using, you need a way to manage many sources simultaneously.

Select a Company to Help

Whether we are talking about website optimization, local business listings, mobile marketing, social marketing, or geographic marketing, a business needs proper support to succeed in this new era of store level marketing.

You need a partner with experience and expertise in multiple digital marketing fields who can adapt to the progression of new technologies that will become available over the next few years.

Some key elements for a company to provide geographic marketing services include:

• Claiming your local business listing at multiple local listing websites.
• Providing both data services and business marketing services (you need both data and marketing, not just data services).
• Updating your basic business data information monthly.
• Updating and managing your business marketing information to include photos, videos, coupons, offers, discounts, and events monthly.
• Monitoring and Managing Consumer ratings and reviews monthly.
• Reviewing analytics of local business listings and making the appropriate changes to your local business listings monthly.
• Offering expertise in Mapping Technologies and GPS that offer mapping and navigation services based on latitude and longitude, or city and state geography.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution.

Smartfinds Internet Marketing
330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009
Toll-Free: (866) 501-5758
Fax: (866) 501-5758
http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com

In the traditional sense, the definition of geographic marketing is the association of data and maps, but the added convergence of local business listings, mobile business marketing, and social media makes this method of local business marketing more powerful than ever before. This local business marketing tool may come across as something for local business, but we have to remember that all business is local. National companies with multiple store locations also have to consider managing the marketing for individual stores at the store level now-a-days and not just at the national level.

We should define what we mean by local business. A local business is any sized business dependent on the local consumer for its revenue. This means you could be a national company like Home Depot, U-Haul, Best Buy, Sherwin-Williams, Discount Tire or you could be a local florist or independent store only known to your local geography within a certain city, state, or near a specific latitude and longitude on the map.

From a technical standpoint, an Internet user’s IP address is tied to GPS data (like its longitude and latitude) which are mapped to geographies around the world down to the city and street level. While all this data may seem overwhelming, the good news is that most businesses do not need to concern themselves with this part of geographic marketing. Many of the tools already have all of this information built into their software or hardware technology, so we can stay focused on how to put these geographic marketing tools to work.

The difficulty with any new business marketing tool is a business’ inability to adopt the methodology early. When it comes to technologies and the Internet, in the past, by the time most businesses are ready to adopt a marketing tool, the industry has already moved on to something new. Being an early or at least an earlier adopter of business marketing methods on the Internet and through digital devices can only benefit the business.

We have seen many signs over the past two years regarding the evolution and growing importance of geographic marketing. When companies like Google, Apple, and the investment community of Wall Street start to put $100+ million and more behind a technology, it will become part of our daily lives whether a business wants it or not. Consumers have and will be using more of these geographic marketing tools to find businesses, services or products near them, therefore, national businesses should be planning to incorporate local store marketing tools early on.

Let’s take a look at the three main tools that consumers are using to find businesses, products or services close to their geography.

1. Web searches are the first and most obvious. These are generally web searches in which a map displays nearby businesses that match the search criteria. Unlike the traditional yellow pages, these geo-listings (a.k.a. Local Business Listings) can be claimed (a requirement to use the local listing as a local business marketing tool) and updated with your business marketing information in order to meet these search criteria.

While this may sound relatively easy, managing local business listings also includes: monitoring consumer reviews; cleaning up duplicate listings; posting coupons and offers; sharing discounts; posting videos and photos; including citations; posting QR bar codes; and incorporating hyper local websites. Understanding what to start with and how to strategically use these components can be done by a professional marketing firm that specializes in this area.

2. Mobile Marketing is the next most significant geographic marketing tool in which SMS Texting, Mobile Applications, Mobile version of your website, and Mobile advertising are your key components. The starting point in this process will be with SMS Texting to get your alerts out to customers that subscribe to your short bursts of information. The reason why this is your starting point is that it will take time to build your list of subscribers.

3. Social Media Marketing continues to evolve and is also geographic in its targeting ability. Consumers are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wiki sites, Four Square, Instant Messaging and other social community tools on their mobile devices. While they use it mostly to find businesses, products and services, in the social communities they are seeking recommendations from their friends (near and far). They are also using these social communities to post their experiences with a business, product or service. For this reason you have to monitor the social communities in order to embrace any potential problem situations and work with them.

These three geographic marketing components are important to any business size – large or small – and each have their own sub-components that need to be well understood in order to succeed. Understanding the local business marketing strategy amongst them; accepting and embracing them early; and, finally planning on a 3-year return will put you on the right path of geographic marketing.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution.

Smartfinds Internet Marketing
330 East Maple Road, Suite 503
Birmingham, MI 48009
Tel: (866) 501-5758
Fax: (866) 501-5758

September 26, 2011 (Birmingham, MI): Smartfinds Internet Marketing (http://www.smartfindsmarketing.com ), an Internet Marketing pioneer for more than 20 years and leader in web marketing including geographic marketing has been invited as the guest speaker for the Detroit Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau’s (DMCVB, http://www.visitdetroit.com) educational series for their members. The event focuses on learning how to manage the business online reputation at the local geographic level.

“As our Geographic Marketing Solution and Services has expanded over the past years, we have had to engage in helping businesses not just monitor, but also manage their ratings and reviews being posted by their local customers in the business’ local business listing,” said Melih Oztalay, Smartfinds CEO. “Geographic web marketing is a fast growing industry making it easy for local customers to post their positive or negative experiences with a local business store either through a web browser or through a mobile phone. Knowing how to approach the process of managing these ratings and reviews is an important factor to insure continued business to the local store by future prospects.”

The DMCVB’s 2011 Membership Educational Seminar will end with “What’s the Online Buzz?” as the third and final installment in the membership educational series. In the blink of an eye customers can share their opinions and experiences online, and you need to be aware of what they’re saying about your business. Learn how to manage your online reputation with presenter Melih Oztalay, CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing. Melih and an all-star lineup of panelists will discuss the latest ways businesses are monitoring their social brand image, attracting new customers through favorable reviews, responding to criticism, turning negatives into golden opportunities, and more!

Following the presentation a panel will convene for open discussion that includes representatives from Yelp, Motor City Casino, and WDIV.

The event is held on Thursday, September 29, 2011, from 2 – 4 p.m., at the Best Western Plus Sterling Inn at 34911 Van Dyke Avenue, Sterling Heights, MI 48312. You must be a DMCVB member to attend. You can contact Angela Gillis at the DMCVB for further information by phone at (313) 202-1973.

Geographic web marketing as a solution for multi-location businesses from Smartfinds Internet Marketing expands not only beyond Google Places, but also encompasses other elements that include Geo Tagging, Citation Marketing, QR Code Marketing, Consumer Rating and Reviews Management along with a Mobile Locations Finder mobile application. Geographic Marketing is a way to attract local customers online through strategies that leverage a business’ physical location. When a local customer searches online via mobile, web or GPS, a map appears with business listings related to the search criteria. When fully leveraged with the company’s marketing content, pictures, logos, videos, events, coupons, promotions, customer reviews and more, it helps to create a micro website for the client across each of the search engines.

About Smartfinds Internet Marketing
The most critical element of SmartFinds Internet Marketing services is the creativity and imagination to apply the technological aspects of the digital marketplace to the marketing objectives of a particular business. Initial research provides SmartFinds the ability to develop a digital strategy that can be measured every step of the way to insure business growth and revenue generation. Some of SmartFinds’ clients have included ComForcare Home Care, Delphi, Flagstar Bank, Guardian Industries, Soave Enterprises, McCann Erickson, Penske Automotive Group, Wendy’s, Ziebart and others. You can learn more about SmartFinds at http://www.smartfindsmarketing.com .

About The Detroit Metropolitan Convention and Visitor’s Bureau
The Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau (DMCVB) is the only organization that promotes metro Detroit regionally, nationally and internationally as a convention, business meeting and tourism destination. To achieve this goal of soliciting and servicing the area’s second-largest industry, the DMCVB works with the Detroit and Windsor area business community, civic organizations and local government offices in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. You can learn more about the DMCVB at http://www.visitdetroit.com .

New Release Contact
Melih Oztalay, CEO
Smartfinds Internet Marketing
Direct: (248) 568.2241
melih@smartfindsmarketing.com
330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009
Toll-Free: (866) 501-5758
http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com

The disappointing issue is that most businesses have not tapped into their listing as a local business marketing tool. For businesses that have engaged, they are only looking at Google without regard to other websites that consumers visit. For instance Yelp is a significant source for many consumers over Google.

While the industry is 3 years ahead of businesses, the businesses that are dependent upon the local geography for their revenue are unclear that they can actively manage these listings through a geographic marketing service instead of watching them passively.

All Businesses Can Take Advantage of Local Business Marketing Tools

First of all, a local business is not a small business. While we have discussed this in more detail, we have to keep in mind that national chains with local presence are also dependent upon the local geography for their revenue. So, it doesn’t make a difference if you’re as large as a Home Depot store or as small as a local restaurant, geographic marketing will benefit any size business as long as you can claim the store listing related to a specific state or city that is related to a certain latitude and longitude.

Secondly, the fact that local listings are included in organic Google search results is a telling sign that this is related to both Business-To-Business (B2B) as well as Business-To-Consumer (B2C) models. If you think that B2B won’t have its customer posting ratings and reviews, then you are in for a surprise. B2B businesses that seek revenue from the local economy should equally be tapping into geographic marketing tools like a B2C business.

Customers Decide To Do Business Based On Search Results

Google search results not only display regular organic search results, but they also include local business listings (and the associated business marketing information) that are relevant to the requested search or are located near a specified city, street address, or latitude and longitude. Local listings are showing up above fold and tend to show more results than the organic website results.

Local business listing results are also interesting in that they show quite a bit of business marketing information to a local customer or consumer. Of course the basic information like business name, address, phone number, telephone number, website link and location on the map is pretty standard. If a business has offers, videos, photos are provided as a link. The number of customer reviews and the average star rating is also prominent to the person searching. Translated, this means the local customer or consumer can quickly see from the business marketing information provided if they want to even click on your local business listings or call you.

Geographic Marketing Optimization Becomes Important

Businesses now have two geographic marketing tools that need optimization: their website and their local business listings. Since the local business listing is effectively the interactive yellow pages of the 21st century, businesses need to stop passively watching and actively engaging with their local business listing by implementing appropriate business marketing tools and information.

It is important to remember that mass production data submission services are only a small part of the overall marketing strategy. You now have to look into more details like regular changes to photos, videos, offers, discounts, promotions, events to keep the local customer engaged and willing to click on your listing.

Part of any effective geographic marketing process requires that you first claim your local business listings, followed by their initial update. Once this is complete, you then have to consider monitoring and managing the local business listing just like your website.

You will find that local business listings can actually be a website, but it is probably better to use them as supporting business marketing tool to your primary website. In order for you to show up in the search results, you have to be sure the local business listing has all the right information about your business, products and services.

That is then followed by adding local business marketing information including photos, videos, coupons, offers, discounts, events and other information that will help the local customer decide to do business with you.

Managing your geographic marketing tools also includes managing customer reviews and engaging with them not only to secure positive reviews from satisfied customers, but to ensure positive public relations with any customers that are less than satisfied.

Finally, the geographic marketing optimization process includes watching the local business listing analytics (separate from your website) and making decisions about how to tweak your listing.

…and did we mention this goes well beyond Google? A variety of other websites are included such as Bing, Yahoo, Yelp, Local.com, Merchant Circle, Citysearch, Map Quest and many others that include search engines, social communities, 411 websites, GPS websites, and business directories.

Outsourcing Your Geographic Marketing Process

There are generally two types of companies that provide geographic marketing services. The first are those that provide “data” only services, which really doesn’t help you much since they don’t get involved in the claiming process. The second provides geographic marketing services, but be careful here since some of them are not well staffed to do anything beyond Google.

Seeking assistance for geographic marketing services is no different than seeking professional help for your website’s search engine optimization. You will not only need to have professional help in the optimization of your local business listings, but you will also need someone to monitor for duplicate listings, customer reviews, updating your marketing information, and analyzing the analytics.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution.

Smartfinds Internet Marketing
330 East Maple Road, Suite 503
Birmingham, MI 48009
Tel: (866) 501-5758
Fax: (866) 501-57587

Let’s discuss briefly why there is more to geographic marketing than Google Places. You will find that there this is a closed loop circle that begins with customer using Google Places to search for a business, product or service. Once they have experienced doing business with you, they go to other websites to post their review about your business, product, or service. The other websites then push these reviews into your Google local listing for future customers to see. You can see this requires that you manage your business marketing tools and local listing at other websites.

The other is that no other local business marketing tools associated with the listing have been utilized. Geographic marketing is a multi-faceted operation, and requires updating and using many different local business marketing tools online. For example, for many business listings, we find no coupons updated, no customer reviews disputed, no events, no videos, and no photos. Essentially the listing was claimed, but from a geographic marketing standpoint, it is not being used for local business marketing purposes or to support reputation management problems.

Undoubtedly, businesses that are interested in creating a geographic marketing strategy have claimed their local business listings, but have found that their time resources are limited in order to manage the business marketing tools and listings at Google Places let alone managing the local listings at many other websites, searches engines, social communities, 411 websites, GPS websites and general business directories.

This doesn’t include the frustration they may have encountered in the claiming process that could have led to an anxiety to do anything further with the listings or their geographic marketing strategy. Changes we have see with Google Places and Bing Local during 2011 would scare anyone from spending anymore time with this process.

Here are a few items to consider when creating a geographic marketing strategy that includes multiple local business listing websites, search engines, social communities, 411 websites, and GPS websites:

• Claim your local business listing at more than just Google Places
• Updating your business listing with local business marketing materials (coupons, offers, events, discounts, promotions, events, photos, videos, map marker location, business information, and much more)
• Removing or Claiming duplicate listings
• Responding to existing customer reviews (particularly negative ones, but you can also thank positive reviews too)
• Securing positive customer reviews from satisfied customers
• Monitoring your local listing for new duplicates and customer reviews
• Managing your local listing with online business marketing tools like local listing analytics and tweaking your local listing monthly with new business marketing information.

There is of course another reason to stay on top of geographic marketing tools like local listings besides the consumer reviews. Local business listings show up not only in web searches, but also in mobile searches, mobile applications, and some GPS applications (for searches based on a specific area, latitude, or longitude.) Thus, mobile application developers decide which database they will use for their mobile application. If a business only concentrates on Google Places, but the mobile application developer uses another website, then you would be missing out on potential business despite your geographic marketing efforts.

You see, when it comes to successfully implementing geographic marketing strategies, local business listings are the interactive yellow pages of the 21st century. They are also one part of your total Geographic Marketing strategy.

Consider the following as part of your Geographic Marketing components:

• Hyperlocal Advertising
• QR Code Marketing with Content Marketing and Social Media
• Consumer Ratings and Reviews Management
• Mobile Location Finder Application
• Broadcast Data Services for wide distribution
• Analysis and Analytics with data Interpretation for actionable steps for ongoing improvement

As a company who has claimed your local business listing as part of your geographic marketing strategy, you are heading down the right path, but time resources, expertise, and experience will prevent you from using this interactive marketing tool to truly benefit your business and reach the local consumers. Geographic marketing services can support your business listings for as low as $2 per day per location. Do not be fooled by the lower cost data only services as you will get what you pay for.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution.

Smartfinds Internet Marketing
330 East Maple Road, Suite 503
Birmingham, MI 48009
Tel: (866) 501-5758
Fax: (866) 501-57587

Detroit, Michigan – March 7, 2011 (MTAM) – Though it has remained under the radar, Michigan’s mobile technology industry has slowly but steadily been achieving growth over the last several years, in spite of the state’s recent economic challenges.

According to WirelessAdvisor.com, as of June 2010, over 4600 were employed within Michigan by the carriers providing wireless service in the state. Thousands more are employed in such areas as: mobile app and website development, mobile marketing, cell tower installation, and mobile technology management. Additionally, thousands more are responsible for implementing mobile technology programs within a wide variety of industries including ad agencies, health care, manufacturing, retail, consumer services, automotive, travel, education, state services, tourism and more. And the need for staff in the mobile industry continues to grow.

A local mobile expert, Keith Bourne of Appervasive states, “I recently spoke with a number of companies across southeast Michigan about their most urgent need for their businesses, the unanimous response was people to fill mobile-related positions in their companies. And these positions were not just in mobile development as you might expect, but instead they crossed the entire hiring spectrum including sales, marketing, accounting, and so on, in addition to development.” Sevan Kulwicki, a representative from Southfield-based tier one technology staffing supplier Epitec Group, indicates that their clients have an ever-growing need for staff with mobile technology knowledge. She states, “Our clients depend on us to be in the forefront with regard to our ability to provide staff with mobile capabilities; for project management, development, and many other areas. We’re always seeking ways to connect with members of the mobile technology industry.”

As the industry grows, so too does the need for a Michigan-based trade association focused on synergy and collaboration to insure continued growth of the industry and the career opportunities it provides – particularly within the State of Michigan – and to provide resources that enable that continued growth. To meet those needs, the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan (MTAM) has been formed as a non-profit trade association for Michigan’s mobile technology industry. Those interested in joining MTAM may register on the organization’s new website at http://www.GoMobileMichigan.org ; this URL will direct visitors to the organization’s PC website or mobile-optimized website depending on the device being used to access it.

MTAM’s stated mission is “To grow the mobile industry within the State of Michigan, thereby generating increased entrepreneurial and enterprise-level opportunities within the mobile technology space and creating sustainable jobs”. The plan is to achieve this mission thru such vehicles as:

1) training / re-training
2) jobs development
3) creating industry awareness among Michigan’s consumers and businesses
4) creating entrepreneurial opportunities and resources
5) networking
6) collaboration with statewide, national and international organizations and corporations

To facilitate its efforts to achieve the continued growth of the mobile technology industry, MTAM is now accepting applications for the following types of memberships:

1) Charter
2) Corporate
3) Small Business
4) Individual
5) Student

Each membership level receives all the General Membership Benefits, as well as those designated for their selected membership level; additional benefits to those listed are being negotiated with regional and national firms, and will be added on an on-going basis. Membership is open to students, individuals and firms working in, or interested in learning about or using, mobile/wireless technologies. If you want to learn how these technologies can be beneficial to your business, MTAM will be an essential factor to that education; if you’re in the industry, MTAM will provide a wide variety of valuable tools and resources to help you achieve growth.

Founded by Linda Daichendt, CEO of Southfield-based Strategic Growth Concepts and Co-founder of Mobile Monday Michigan, the MTAM Board of Directors also includes: Cynthia Grubbs, Small Business Liaison with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (Detroit/Lansing); Paul Czarnik, Chief Technology Officer at Compuware (Detroit); Keith Bourne, Founder of Appervasive and Co-founder of Mobile Monday Michigan (Ann Arbor); Jonathan Engelsma, Professor at Grand Valley State University and Director of GVSU’s Mobile Applications Lab (Grand Rapids); and Jason Joseph, Director Technology and Information Solutions, Spectrum Health (Grand Rapids). Several additional Board members are pending. The group’s General Counsel is Mike Watza of Kitch Drutchas et al (Detroit).

The organization is currently operating out of Southfield, but seeking permanent offices in downtown Detroit from which it will work to facilitate industry growth throughout Michigan.

MTAM’s new website was provided by High-Level Marketing of Farmington Hills, and the mobile-optimized version was provided by Keego Harbor-based, Fourstream USA.

About The Mobile Technology Association of Michigan (MTAM)

The Mobile Technology Association of Michigan (MTAM) is a Michigan-based trade association for the mobile industry. Our mission is to grow the industry within the state, thereby generating increased entrepreneurial and enterprise-level opportunities within the mobile technology industry.

Our primary function: to foster cooperation between the various factions of the mobile industry and its professional associations globally, the State of Michigan, the investment community, the education community, and technology users to facilitate in-state growth of the industry.

MTAM sponsors Michigan-based growth of the Mobile Monday organization; performs research for members and other interested parties; facilitates idea sharing, entrepreneurial programs, training programs and jobs creation; acts as a liaison with the mobile community inside/outside of Michigan; and serves as a resource for all things related to the Mobile / Wireless industry. The group’s website can be found at http://www.GoMobileMichigan.org .

Organization: Mobile Technology Association of Michigan
Address: 21908 Evergreen Road, Southfield, MI 48075
Metro: Detroit, Michigan
Contact: Linda Daichendt
E-Mail: info@GoMobileMichigan.org
Tel: (248) 470-3257
Fax: (248) 350-9465

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/company/mobile-technology-association-of-michigan

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/MobileTechAssn

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/MobileTechnologyAssociationOfMichigan

Birmingham, Michigan – August 13, 2010 (SMARTFINDS INTERNET MARKETING) –The Michigan Chapter of Mobile Monday today announced the speakers and topics for its upcoming monthly meeting. The event will be held on Monday, August 16th from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at Ann Arbor SPARK located at 330 E. Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Attendance to this event is Free, and those interested in attending may register at www.MobileMondayMichigan.org.

Featured speaker for the event will be Melih Oztalay, CEO of Birmingham-based SmartFinds Internet Marketing, who will be speaking on the topic of “Why Geo-Marketing is Becoming Increasingly Important for Marketing Your Business and How Mobile Helps You Achieve It”. Other speakers for the event will be Megan Crosbie, Marketing & Membership Coordinator at the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce who will be speaking about the Chamber’s mobile app, A2YChamber, and Linda Daichendt, CEO of Strategic Growth Concepts, who will discuss recent studies regarding consumer cell phone usage and cell phone operating system market penetration rates.

In today’s marketplace, mobile marketing is being implemented by business owners and marketers from the smallest ‘mom & pop shop’ to the largest multi-national corporations. As the traditional marketing channels suffer various levels of decline, mobile marketing is experiencing triple-digit growth annually. Mr. Oztalay’s presentation on Geo-Marketing via Mobile will help businesses capitalize on this growth by providing more effective ways of using the technology to improve local marketing results; while Daichendt’s presentation will review mobile from the consumer’s perspective.

Featured speaker, Melih Oztalay states about Geo-Marketing, “The benefits to small business are incredible; to be available to their local customers when the customer is looking for them while driving around town with their mobile device is an opportunity they need to take advantage of. The fact that the business can also update their offers anytime gives a local business the ability to adapt to market changes. I’m excited to be able to make this information available to members of Michigan’s mobile and marketing communities.”

Melih Oztalay has over fifteen years experience with Internet and digital services in developing strategies that utilize all facets of the World Wide Web. As a Internet marketing agency, SmartFinds Internet Marketing’s major focus is to develop multi-directional marketing campaigns to drive traffic to client web sites from more than just search engines.

A co-founder of Mobile Monday Michigan , Daichendt explains the importance of mobile technology as part of local marketing efforts, “As methods of reaching customers become more and more fragmented due to the abundance of channels in use today, it becomes increasingly imperative for marketers to be able to focus their efforts on those methods they can be certain will produce the highest rate of return on the marketing dollars invested.”

Anyone interested in learning more about the ways in which businesses can use Geo-Marketing to be more easily located by local consumers may visit www.smartfindslocallisting.com.

About MobileMonday (MoMo)
MobileMonday (MoMo) is an open community of mobile industry visionaries, developers, influential individuals, and users fostering cooperation and cross-company business development through virtual and live networking events. The groups programs are designed to facilitate idea sharing, best practices development, trends identification, and Mobile Industry growth locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. The Michigan Chapter executes on these objectives by delivering a balanced approach of business and technical content from within the Michigan business community, as well as beyond our State, in order to insure the Michigan community is made aware of developments taking place outside our area that can aid local businesses. Those interested in learning more about Mobile Monday – Michigan can find the group’s website at www.MobileMondayMichigan.com; and information about the International organization can be found at www.MobileMonday.net.

About SmartFinds Internet Marketing
The most critical element of SmartFinds Internet Marketing services is the creativity and imagination to apply the technological aspects of the digital marketplace to the marketing objectives of a particular business. Initial research provides SmartFinds the ability to develop a digital strategy that can be measured every step of the way to insure business growth and revenue generation. Some of SmartFinds’ clients have included Delphi, Flagstar Bank, Guardian Industries, Soave Enterprises, Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, McCann Erickson, Wendy’s and others. You can learn more about SmartFinds at www.smartfindsmarketing.com.

Contact: Esther Lastacy, 330 E. Maple Road, Suite 503, Birmingham MI 48009, 866.501.5758, esther@smartfindsmarketing.com.

###

The mobile industry certainly has grown quickly the past three years. The iPhone coming to market was only the beginning. It didn’t take long for mobile applications to make these devices more useful to the consumer. With the flood of mobile applications consumers were able to find many different uses for their mobile device. Games and Entertainment were only the beginning. More useful applications like tools, utilities and resources also found their way to the mobile device.

As of December 2009 there were 285,610,580 mobile devices in the United States against a population of 308,505,000. Basically 91% of the population has a mobile device. Feel free to look at the Wikipedia article at for more statistics worldwide.

With 91% of the U.S. population having a mobile device, and these devices having considerable capabilities, it is undoubtedly the next significant source of information for consumers and businesses alike. Using it as a phone is only the beginning. Email, Games, Entertainment, Texting, Instant Messaging, Browsing, Photos, Camera, Calculator, Calendar, Maps, Voice Recognition, News, Banking, Weather, Finance, Social Communities, and Radio are only a small fraction of what mobile devices are used for. Their capabilities will continue to grow as this mini-computer will have more use in our daily lives.

As an Internet and digital marketing agency we’re going to focus on how a business can use mobile marketing. We’ll focus on four specific areas and describe a starting point and a planned progression for the next few years. Each area has many details and this information is designed to be in summary. Future articles will specifically discuss each section separately.

Messaging Services
This is known as “texting” and includes SMS Texting (Short Message Service) as well as MMS (Multimedia Message Service). For a business to tap into this marketing tool you have to begin by getting permission from prospects and customers to send them SMS or MMS messages. Begin by seeking out a service that provides SMS and/or MMS services. You will be assigned a text number that customers can send a subscription notice to. You can add this feature into your website, email marketing or display in your business to promote how prospects and clients can get alerts from you by SMS or MMS. Because it will take time to build up subscribers you will want to start this sooner rather than later.

Mobile Websites
We have had discussions with clients in which they felt as long as their website was showing on a mobile browser then they had a mobile website. Not the case. A website that was developed specifically for a standard computer or laptop monitor does not mean you have a mobile version of your website. On a mobile version of a business website a user will not need to zoom in or out or pan left or right when viewing your website. The website will be a “lite” version of your primary website with specific call to actions that are useful to the users visiting your mobile website. A good example is Delta Airlines. Go to their website on a standard computer. Then go to their website using a mobile device’s browser. You will see two very different websites. As a business you will want to budget and get a mobile version of your website as one of your very next steps.

Mobile Applications
At some point every business will have a mobile application and it’s even possible that mobile applications will diminish the need for domain names. Mobile applications can be useful as a tool for your customers or you may decide to have an application for branding purposes that is a simple game. There are certainly many possibilities for mobile applications and you will need to consult with a marketing firm to decide how to best utilize mobile applications. Mobile application development budgets vary dependent upon creative, interface functionality, database use and Internet streaming.

Mobile Advertising
Text advertising like Google adwords and banner advertising is available direct to mobile devices. The difference is how they’re delivered. For example banner ads will appear in free mobile applications and when the application is used at the bottom. You can push your mobile banner ads through mobile advertising networks like AdMob (acquired by Google) and Quattro (acquired by Apple). Development of your mobile ads requires a different approach since there is limited physical dimensions of your message.

By utilizing all four mobile marketing components for your marketing plan over the next couple of years you will be able to tap into a new marketing tool that happens to be well suited for local business marketing. Waiting for two years to pass and then deciding to plan and adopt this technology is probably the wrong answer. You need to incorporate this process now and build it into your business marketing process otherwise you will be left behind.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geo-Marketing Services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 16 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly and prevent brand security issues from occurring.

With the onset of mobile devices and mobile applications becoming a more useful tool to the local consumers, we have to wonder how this will affect the traditional coupons that are printed and cut using scissors. The impact we are discussing comes in three forms and we’re not talking about the convenience to the local consumer.

• The first is the cost reduction for the local business from having to pay for their coupons to be printed and distributed. The cost reduction goes down to $0 (zero)!
• The second is the impact upon companies whose business is reliant on printing and distributing these coupons. This would include large corporations like Valassis and Val-Pak all the way down to the small local coupon company.
• The third impact is one we have discussed before related to the traditional yellow pages. Local business listings are already having an impact upon the usage of the traditional yellow pages and its effectiveness for the local business has been dwindling for years.

The reason the cost to the local business is going to go down to zero is because the local business can post their coupons to their local business listing for free. Particularly with Google, although, electronic coupons through local business listings will all reduce the costs for the local business. Not only will they be able to reduce their costs, but they will see their coupons have a larger reach geographically without any additional costs.

Local business listings and business directories have been on the web for quite some time. This part is nothing new and neither is the ability for the local business to post their coupons electronically. The primary difference comes in the local consumers having the ability to obtain these coupons electronically to their mobile devices while they are about town. No longer do we need to print the coupons before we leave the house, we will have them at our finger tips when we arrive at a store. We don’t’ even need to plan ahead. When you arrive at a store you will be able to bring up their local business listing to see if there is a coupon available.

While this process has a significant impact upon the coupon companies (especially if they are not planning for this existing change to their business), for the local business this is good news and in order to take advantage of this cost reduction they will need to engage in their local business listing at multiple local listing websites.

Local business listings are a local business marketing tool for the local business to reach the local consumer through web searches and mobile searches. As a local business or small business dependent upon the local consumer for your revenue you can tap into a free marketing tool with search engines, social communities, 411 websites and GPS websites.

Tapping into local business listings as a business marketing tool starts by setting up accounts and claiming your listing at multiple local listing websites. Please do not be fooled by companies that provide a “get listed” service, because most businesses are already listed. Of course, the majority of local business listings are not claimed by the business and they have incomplete or incorrect information. Your competitors therefore become the next best choice for the local consumer.

Aside from the benefits of mobile coupons, the other good news about local listings is that they show up on the first page of a search engine result based on the search term and the locality. For this reason, optimizing a website is not as necessary as having your local listing claimed and up-to-date. Local businesses no longer need to understand the intricacies of search engine optimization (seo) of their business website.

If you’re wondering why you need to manage your local business listing at all these locations the answer has two parts.

• The first is the local consumer who will decide which website they will use to submit their reviews and comments about a business, product or service. Equally where they will go to get your coupons. This one is probably the most important.
• The second is the mobile marketing industry. Google may be the 800 lb. gorilla “on” the web, but in the mobile industry, the mobile application developer will decide whose database of local listings they will use to display on mobile devices and this includes the mobile coupons.

Certainly this local business marketing tool is going to evolve and mature over the next few years. Planning and preparing for success lies with getting started now. This may be the first time we can see into the future and not wait to be behind the eight ball.

Your time resources are limited and Local Business Listing Management Services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 15 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly and prevent brand security issues from occurring.