I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Pastko, CEO of Coupious a Boulder, Colorado-based mobile coupon platform. Coupious got its start when Pastko and his partner leveraged their experience at Purdue University to launch a Coupious iPhone application in Lafayette, Indiana. While the duo did very little marketing, word-of-mouth marketing helped push their mobile application to potential users. Push seems to be the operative word with Coupious since its model does not push coupons to people based on their geography, but rather allows people to seek on-demand the just-in-time promotional offers relevant to them when they want them and where they want them. Many of its initial customers utilize the platform to run multiple promotions or post “just-in-time” offers to get rid of seasonal items or to push specific menu items.

“In order to win over local businesses, the goal was to replicate the print coupon model to help make it familiar and comfortable to select,” says Pastko. However, unlike print coupons, mobile promotions on Coupious can track the number of impressions, what promotional offerings are performing better and most importantly where impressions are taking place. As Pastko points out, “being able to locate where people are downloading or viewing promotional offerings allows advertisers to understand if consumers are looking at the point of sale, responding to an outdoor billboard, or are in areas of town that might offer new potential for the business.”

While college towns in the Midwest have been a successful launching ground for Coupious, traditional media groups such as newspapers have become the major focus in the past 12 months. Pastko has been careful about his growth plans seeking markets where Coupious can gain a high density of coupons and promotional offerings. “One of the biggest success factors is having enough content to make the application useful. Just like directories, if the restaurants and entertainment venues people expect to see are not in the database of offerings, then people’s desire to use the application decreases significantly.” Coupious’ model is not to aggregate coupons or scrape the Web for other offers, but to deal directly with the advertisers in the market. Pastko is quick to point out that “this gives consumers confidence that this is a legitimate offer and will be honored locally.”

When asked if the recent surge in coupons is a trend born out of the slow economy, Pastko said “coupons and promotional offers are in a trend phase now but the space is going through a transformative revolution where offers will not simply be coupons but will become promotions embedded within key messages making them more relevant and highly geotargeted to the users location. The mobile platform is the ideal device to deliver just-in-time offers, reaching people where they are and when they have a specific need. It’s up to mobile coupon companies to continue to innovate and embed offers within other media to further increase adoption and usage.”

The Coupious application is currently available on the iPhone and Android platforms with work under way to broaden to other application platforms.

I had the opportunity to speak with Brad Reynolds, CEO of Mongoose Metrics, a Cleveland, Ohio-based call measurement and conversion analytics company. Reynolds was quick to point out that it is not simply a call tracking company, but rather it is dedicated to linking online and offline conversion so clients can better understand what leads to sales conversions. According to Reynolds, “Our business is based around illuminating the sales funnel related to offline conversions. Our goal is to make it easy to track online and offline conversions side-by-side. We want to drive actions like tweaking marketing spend and efforts with a full basket of information.”

While some companies focus entirely on online conversions, the reality, according to Mongoose Metrics, is that a large majority of transactions occur offline via the phone. In most cases there is a chain of events that lead to an offline conversion. By better understanding how online and offline media influence the conversion path, marketers have a better sense of what media and messages they should be using to maximize their effectiveness. With good offline and online conversion data in hand, brands can personalize their messages across media to create a conversation and a stronger relationship.

Mongoose Metrics has also been busy putting together an effective international local number tracking network and recently put together deals in Canada and the U.K. to deliver true local exchange numbers across both countries. Rather than relying on VoIP numbers or toll-free numbers, Mongoose is now able to offer local telephone numbers better linking businesses to their local area. “Until recently, it had been nearly impossible for Canadian and U.K. companies to use local phone numbers to follow visitors from Web-to-phone to understand how their Web sites drive phone calls and ultimately sales,” according to Reynolds. Mongoose Metrics’ move into the U.K. and Canada is a first step in expanding internationally.

When asked where call measurement is headed in the near term, Reynolds quickly pointed to mobile. “While many feel there will be transactions handled on the handset, the current reality is that most sites are not fully enabled for mobile screens, requiring too many clicks and too much scrolling. People want to get a quick answer to their question and often will revert to contacting the store or company since it is easier — and they have a phone in their hand to expedite the need for information. Click-to-call features makes sense on the mobile Web and will offer yet another layer in understanding where offline conversions are initiated.”

When asked about other developments, Reynolds replied, “Mongoose is currently working on a few proprietary products to provide deeper analytics of incoming calls and hopes to create a way to trigger specific actions tied to a recognized set of keywords. This is yet another step Mongoose is taking to help drive conversions and personalize the communication between consumers and advertisers.”

Having been in the trenches for the past year talking about multiproduct selling and how a consultative or collaborative sales process is a key component for selling multiple media, I keep hearing over and over again “I’ve been training on consultative selling for years so why should we rely on it to take us into the next era of selling?” Having been involved in local media sales for more than 10 years, I’m going to take the unpopular stand and say that the current local media sales process is transactional product selling in consultative selling clothes. In short, many sales organizations have embraced aspects of consultative selling but in large it is being used as a sales tacticto get in the door and keep the advertiser talking in order to sell specific media options.

BNET recently featured Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati, who wrote a new book titled “Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.” In his book, Gulati points out:

“In a marketplace like today, customers have more choices and more information, and services start to look like each other, in what we call a sea of sameness. If you don’t have an ability to transcend beyond the features and functionality of my product versus yours, then you have a problem.”

Gulati points out the fallacy of the notion that media companies are currently consultative and customer focused. Many media sales teams feel if they are asking a few questions about the business and their expected ROI from their marketing efforts that somehow this constitutes consultative selling. Put simply, salespeople are saying “I’ll talk about your needs so long as it leads to you only buying my portfolio of solutions.” Gulati’s point of view is “Most organizations believe they are customer centric when they are asking questions, but they’re communicating with customers through a product lens (with a pre-determined end in mind).” Instead, Gulati says “companies must ask deeper questions such as what problems they are dealing with and what issues are happening in the life of my customers regardless of the solutions the sales person is offering.” The goal in asking probing questions is to help the advertiser better articulate his or her needs so sales can get them met.

Consultative or collaborative selling is about transparency and building solutions that fit the customer’s needs and not necessarily the media company’s balance sheet. If a salesperson is aiming to sell a specific product set, and is willing to un-sell other potential solutions, then this version of consultative selling is merely disguised as the same transactional selling of old — all paths lead to a limited solution. Media consultants recognize there are many media options available to advertisers and that at times their portfolio of media offerings has to co-exist or complement other media and at other times they must fight to win budget from media that may not be as effective or is receiving too large of a share of an advertiser’s budget. Being able to counsel local advertisers on media strengths and weaknesses means salespeople must learn about all types of local media to be effective in selling their own portfolio of media options.

Local advertisers are much smarter about where they spend their marketing dollars because they have access to more information than ever before and have tighter ties to peers through social networks who can offer additional guidance. Salespeople used to be the source of information about what was happening in the local marketplace but now they are one of many sources available. If a salesperson cannot deliver value beyond what an advertiser can access on his or her own, then he or she has very little to offer. True media consultancy is the path where more peer-to-peer relationships are developed. Based on BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor study, 48 percent of SMBs want their media rep to help them understand their media options and make the best choice for their budget among the confusing array of new media choices.

While many media sales organizations are looking at incremental changes to their sales processes, those that are savvy and understand that local advertisers have changed and that the sales role must change are the ones that will thrive. The reality is the market has already changed and it is up to each media company to understand how to recraft its sales strategy and put together a consultative media sales team that understands local media and can be the media guide local advertisers are seeking. It’s time to stop making consultative selling a sales tactic for getting the advertiser to talk and use it as a means for building a relationship, creating value and developing media plans that work for the benefit of the advertiser and leverage their existing marketing activities. If consultative selling fantasy can be turned into reality, media outlets stand to make significant revenue gains and gain a larger, more loyal base of advertisers.

Mapping has become less about radius of where you are and more about what people define as local, how far people are willing to travel and the importance of certain events or locations in their community. While the advertising paradigm has focused on ZIP codes/postal codes, consumers identify more with neighborhoods or specific areas of cities, which sets up a major disconnect.

The clear trend is the linking of social and mapping to drive action and to link people with their network of friends or favorite bands or events. According to Julia Scott, CEO of Bargain Babe, “linking social and mapping allows people to surface activities and deals that you may not be aware of.”

The goal, according to Darrin Clement, CEO of Maponics, is “to add more context to maps to help drive actions on a localized basis and to understand what is most valuable to the consumer to see on a map.”

A unique view of mapping came from Jason Bosek, president of Parking Data Ventures, who said that “parking is a point of necessity to allow people to utilize and take advantage of destinations particularly in urban areas.” Parking Data Ventures is an example of how mapping is becoming more specific to the needs of consumers beyond what is nearby to how to enable getting and staying in a particular location.

One of the main challenges of mapping pointed out by Clement was that “people’s ideas of local are more personalized to their neighborhoods and cities requiring sites to redefine what they consider local and offering layers of mapping choices to better match needs.” With this more personal view of what is local people are seeking ways to find friends, their favorite bands, sports and recreation activities on what they determine is a reasonable distance to travel or walk.

All this will force marketers and site owners to think more like their consumers and offer the mapping choices they need based on the type of search they are conducting and how they plan to travel to the location they have designated.

Neil Budde of DailyMe and Mike Orren of Pegasus News helped the ILM:09 audience understand what it takes to offer a truly customized news offering that is engaging and relevant.

One of the key takeaways both Orren and Budde discussed was the idea that not everything can or should be customized on the news site. Orren pointed out, “if we customize too much for the customer we take away those items they might stumble upon and become interested in following in the future.” Early days of customization meant sites were built and rebuilt for users as their choices and interests changed, requiring more administration and oversight to make things work effectively. One of the side effects of too much customization is that people were not aware of the level of customization, which took away from users promoting the value of the site to others.

Behavioral tracking is a necessary level of customization as people often say one thing and their behaviors might suggest another. Orren joked that “some people say they like champagne and opera then do searches on cheap beer and honky-tonks.” Without behavioral tracking the site would not have the flexibility to react and adapt to new interests. Budde added “there needs to be a mix of traditional editorial that is constant with personalized choices and behaviorally driven content to make it relevant and valuable.” Behavioral targeting is also valuable in advertising delivery not only for consumers to see items of interest but in more specific targeting for advertisers to reach those who might be more engaged in their products or services.

Orren pointed out, “the goal is to reach those consumers with high levels of interest and engagement to drive more value to advertisers in the way of sign-ups, redemption or attendance.”

Editorial content is one of the greatest drivers and one of the greatest cost issues for localized new sites. Data analytics is becoming a significant tool in helping to identify content trends based on what people are searching for and what they might be reading.

“DailyMe analyzes topics of interest and queries to determine editorial gaps to drive editorial focus or the need for additional freelance writer support to meet emerging needs,” Budde said. The reality of making a hyper-local news site work is a small dedicated editorial staff that not only creates new editorial but can be the aggregators of relevant news from other resources or local bloggers who are viewed as content experts.

The trend in news is definitely focused on delivering personalized content and local information in a single location to make it relevant and easy to access. The goal is to strike a balance between what consumers ask to be shown and what might be of interest either at the moment or what might be an emerging interest.

Discovery is the most important step of the sales process since it is when the customer gives the salesperson a roadmap that helps him or her clearly understand the best products to present. Rather than being overwhelmed by the number of products in the portfolio, a good discovery process makes selection a more straightforward task. Discovery also builds trust that the salesperson is acting in the customer’s best interest and has a desire to understand the customer’s challenges and present the most suitable products. The four purposes of discovery are:  

1. Uncover the Dominant Buying Motives: What time-bound need or opportunity will be met (or not met) if the customer does not accept your solution. Without urgency, the motivation to buy is very low. 
2. Find the Problem: What is road blocking customers’ current success? What have they tried unsuccessfully in the past? What is their expectation of a reasonable ROI? What happens if they do not address their challenges or meet the new opportunities presented to them? 
3. Find Past Objections: A good discovery will uncover previous objections to sales efforts or past media solutions that did not work. This gives the salesperson the opportunity to address these issues before they can be raised later. 
4. Allow Self Discovery for the Customer: Many times prospects really do not know what they need, and it is in discovery that they will reveal to both the salesperson and themselves what they need and how best to position products and services. The discovery process may be the first time the business owner has organized his or her thoughts about business marketing needs.

The discovery approach should lead the customer through a logical process to capture these critical bits of information tied to value, ROI, business needs, previous approaches and urgency. Many times when salespeople struggle with poor closing rates, poor discovery is the cause. Lacking adequate discovery, the salesperson often struggles to present a logical solution to the customer. 

When a salesperson has multiple products he or she could be presenting, discovery provides a clear indicator of what products are most appropriate given the customer’s needs and budget. Deeper discovery gives salespeople more confidence in selecting appropriate products rather than reverting to presenting every product or “the latest new products” to see what draws the customer’s interests and attention. Discovery creates the roadmap for creating the recommendation and it gives the salespeople confidence that they are presenting the strongest case for why the customer should buy.  

If your sales team has given short shrift to the discovery process it may be time to go back to the basics of asking better questions and demonstrating how good discovery provides a great chance of satisfying the customer and closing the deal.

One of the often asked questions we receive regarding sales from all local media sectors is whether multiproduct selling by a single sales force is really possible. The natural follow-on question invariably is, what would be the benefit of a single sales force as opposed to specialized sales teams for each product area — traditional media products and online/digital products?

I will go on record as saying I am a strong believer in the ability of a core sales team selling multiple products that combine both traditional media and online media. Solution selling is what is being demanded by the local business owner. Our Local Commerce Monitor survey has indicated over the past several waves that small and medium-sized businesses are trying desperately to figure out how all of their media choices fit together. Subdividing media choices into separate sales channels invariably confuses the customer and empowers individual sales forces to sell against each other.

PaidContent.org recently reported on this very scenario in a story about Hulu, the online partner of NBC Universal, Fox and ABC. “For Hulu, which is under increasing pressure to prove its value as a business in its own right, the battle over ad revenues [with its TV broadcast sales channel] has become more acute as [it] competes for ad revenue.”

Channel conflict is often the case when competing sales channels within the same organization compete for ad budgets. It is rare that an online rep will rein in his or her recommendation so the next internal sales force has the opportunity for budget. Every sales channel has an objective and every salesperson is paid on maximizing every selling situation. 

AdOperationsOnline.com revealed a recent IAB Bain & Co. study providing further support for an integrated sales approach saying, “Marketers want integrated campaigns instead of platform-specific media programs.”

While IAB/Bain focused primarily on brand advertisers, the same thinking certainly applies to the SMB marketplace. One of the key findings was, “Ultimately, marketers are looking for media companies to offer a true triple-play service model from direct response to awareness to high impact brand engagement.”

Advertisers are already multimedia buyers; it’s just that the sales process hasn’t caught up to where the advertiser is at the moment. Our ongoing survey of SMBs, Local Commerce Monitor, indicates that SMBs use on average three or more local media to market their business with much higher numbers in categories such as retail, restaurants and professional services.

Yes, it is easier to segment the sales force from a management standpoint, and it is more challenging to train a sales force in a new method of selling. But ultimately it comes down to what the advertiser wants and needs. Multiproduct selling is about providing a solution to support the advertiser’s business objectives, shows how media offerings support and relate to one another, and it demonstrates the value of the sales force to the advertiser by educating and demonstrating how the solution meets or exceeds their goals at a price that makes sense. For the organization it maximizes the investment in the core sales force, eliminates channel conflict and focuses on increasing the overall customer value. Let’s make peace with our advertisers and our sales operation. 

I recently had a chance to talk with Marco Zappacosta, founder and CEO of Thumbtack, a newly launched online resource for trusted local businesses. Thumbtack facilitates an online marketplace for local services by offering consumers one place to easily find, compare and purchase local services, while also giving service providers verifiable reputation, transaction support, appointment management and marketing tools.

Thumbtack was launched as a way of allowing consumers to have a more transparent relationship with businesses by enabling them to not only find the resources or services they want but also providing them with testimonials and post-service consumer reviews, establishing trust in the service provider through a Department of Justice background and National Crime Check verification process as well as displaying a businesses’ professional affiliations/bonding/insurance coverage. 

“Building trust is the key to matching small local businesses with buyers,” says Zappacosta. Trust not only in the service providers but trust that the site allows consumers the choice to pick the company that best fits their needs and comfort level. Unlike other sites that arbitrage leads by returning only selected businesses, Thumbtack seeks to make this process more transparent, empowering the consumer to make the choice instead. “Many pre-Internet companies have simply transferred their model online and did nothing to improve the consumer experience — we’ve endeavored to simplify that experience for both consumers and businesses of all sizes.”  

Rather than focus on the top level service categories like ServiceMagic or even Redbeacon, Thumbtack is mining smaller local businesses that have a need for building leads and utilizing the business support offered by Thumbtack. One unique approach Zappacosta is employing is offering a free CRM tool to businesses so they can manage their client base, conduct e-mail marketing, and take advantage of all the services Thumbtack offers. The CRM tool offers small-business owners the ability to manage their customers and facilitate better communication to enhance repeat and referral business.

Asked what sets Thumbtack apart from similar small-business lead generation sites, Zappacosta pointed out that, “Thumbtack goes beyond lead generation to offer profile page creation, scheduling and booking, allowing consumers to post ‘want ads’ for all applicable providers to respond to, and will soon be adding the new PayPal API solution to allow for easier online transactions.” Another unique aspect of the site is that it allows businesses to map their trading area to better match the search queries of consumers coming to the site. Rather than provide all massage therapist listings in a town, the search results will only return those results in the person’s selected area, making the results more relevant and lowering the frustration level many experience when discovering a company will not travel to their location. 

Thumbtack was recently recognized as one of the outstanding start-up sites by TheFunded.com, a private membership community of more than 12,500 CEOs, who use the site to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide and to discuss operating challenges of growing a business. As Thumbtack moves from its alpha start-up phase into beta sometime in mid-November, we look forward to its progress and it will certainly be a company we will continue to watch.    

I participated in a webinar sponsored by DataXu discussing how the development of display ad exchanges will make real-time bidding for display ad units and impressions similar to the current SEM process by making it more open, targeted and technology driven. I attended the webinar because of the increasing interest of local media publishers in how they might take advantage of these emerging platforms to offer display advertising similar to how they offer SEM. 

Bruce Journey, DataXu’s chief revenue officer, pointed out that “the available inventory of online display advertising is growing exponentially based on the number of outlets and the number of available impressions. As of today, on a monthly basis, there are 300 billion impressions available, which will grow to 1.5 trillion by 2010 indicating a tremendous amount of inventory that could be sold.” 

Companies like DataXu and others are adding behavioral and segmentation analysis to the process to better target potential customers and to have a better understanding of buying intent. As Journey explained, “highly researched categories such as automotive have a significant cookie trail to indicate areas of interest and intent. The new behavioral research allows agency buyers to look for patterns and make smarter buying decisions.”

While most of the inventory being sold via ad exchanges is the basic banner and leader board units, the ability to place ads across a number of sites and ad networks makes this an appealing segment to build revenues either for a publisher or an agency.

Mike Baker, CEO of DataXu said: “The greatest value to a publisher in an ad exchange is the ability to move inventory in order to maximize revenue potential on their sites. By enabling a larger pool of buyers via a real-time bidding platform, publishers increase their ability of moving and selling inventory at a higher price point.” 

The real question in my mind is can this automation and decentralization of display unit buying be offered to the local small and medium-sized business interested in brand or promotional advertising. Adoption of SEM has certainly increased at a rapid pace thanks in part to directory and newspaper publishers, begging the question, could directory, newspaper or other local media sales teams get into the real-time bidding game by offering display advertising to their existing advertisers? Leveraging existing relationships with Yahoo and Google and partnering with real-time bidding platforms could create this very scenario. As these systems mature and the measurement becomes more refined, display ads from the local plumber and florist could be viewed side by side with major brands.   

The traditional print directory has been under fire over the past few years, but panelists at DMS ’09 feel there is new life in the print book as it moves from its stagnant 1.0 version to become more usable and consumer focused. It’s important to point out that while the perception remains that directories are dying, they are still a dominant leads source and business driver for small and medium-sized businesses. Directory revenues remain on average 80 percent of publisher’s revenues, and directories are the dominant media source driving the highest number of calls and visits.

As Michelle Sherwood, GM of marketing for Sensis put it, “we are not seeing the death spiral many have predicted for the print directory.” 

The print directory is slowly evolving into a new YP2.0 format that is more flexible and hyperlocal to address the changing needs of consumers and localized businesses. Publishers are seeking ways to make the directory access points more relevant to the local consumer.

Sherwood pointed out, “The key to relevance is offering consumers a choice on how they want to access the book or the content whether that is in the form of a local book or a smaller size directory, or one designed for use in the car. It’s a matter of getting the right book to the right people who have a desire to use the content.” 

Abram Andrzejewski, CEO of HomePages Directories, said, “directories can address the geographic needs of consumers who want localized information not easily found online since hyperlocal data might be very limited.”

Hyperlocal books seek to meet the needs of smaller geographic neighborhood or sections of cities in a way that offers true local content that builds a more intimate relationship with consumers since it delivers content such as local ordinances, profiles of local leaders, events not generally covered elsewhere and other content generated by local entities.

YP2.0 is characterized by more simplified headings that may reflect how people are searching on other forms of media such as online or mobile. In hyperlocal books, the product set is more limited and offered at a price point that reflects the distribution and a geography that makes sense to localizes businesses that may have a single location or limited trading area.

According to Andrzejewski, “larger directories in major urban markets could do the same thing by breaking down their books into more hyperlocal books and let the advertiser choose the postal codes that make sense to them and link to the communities where they are known and relevant.” 

Both panelists concluded that directory organizations need be willing to experiment and invest in their print products.

As Sherwood put it, “we need to keep investing in the product, looking for ways to innovate based on consumer research, and promote the successes of advertisers so publishers set the perception of success rather than rely on others to downplay its ability to effectively bring buyers and sellers together.”

One other key conclusion was that leads needs to be the new local media currency with the caveat that directory organizations need to be the most effective leads source if they hope to dominate. If directories fail to move on to YP2.0, they may very well continue to follow the downward path. But those that embrace the new 2.0 innovations may be those that see revitalization of their marquee product.