Last week over 375 attendees came from 13 countries to San Diego for Marketplaces 2010. The conference explored local vertical marketplaces and showcased Internet lead generating opportunities for small businesses. Day Two of the conference covered these opportunities by introducing online solutions. “Small businesses are increasingly reliant upon SMB marketplaces for refreshing their critical business leads. These emerging SMB marketplaces are utilizing all manners of directories and “social” media to engage (and convince) customers as they enter the sales funnel.”
In Kelsey’s blog post, “Top Takeaways from Marketplaces 2010,” Peter Krasilovsky writes, “Home and trade services are now moving to the Web in a major way. ServiceMagic has a major head start, but social features might move the viral needle and give a chunk of the market to new sites such as AlikeList and Redbeacon.”
Small business marketing and lead generation options are improving radically. The past three years have moved us beyond listing your business and posting a coupon. Small businesses now have an array of choices to find, engage, reward, advertise to, and receive referrals from their best and next customers online. Social sites and mobile applications have dramatically changed the space. Customers are finding what they need from search, people they know, or reviews and wisdom of the masses to make complicated decisions. Still, trends point to the fact that most people favor discovering businesses they trust from friends they know in the everyday world. Word-of-mouth advertising still rules.
The Kelsey conference gleaned and reported this critical piece of information from the Small Business panel: “What’s missing from online markets that offline markets have?” Jim Delli Santi, AlikeList CEO, sees that online markets need to develop better relationships, utility, transparency and establish ROI. Word of mouth drives trade. Consumers want to find the right business to address their need fast. Small businesses want transparency, trust and measurable ROI.”
AlikeList addresses the needs of local business and consumers by quickly connecting customers to their favorite, trusted businesses – and helping them to share and find new businesses within their social circles.
About Jim Delli Santi, Cofounder, AlikeList
Jim has been working to crack the local Internet nut for the last 13 years, leading product strategies and Internet revenue-generating initiatives for Yahoo’s CPL lead generation, Yahoo Search Marketing, BrandsDirect, CarsDirect.com and SBC Interactive Media, publisher of SmartPages.com. Jim authored the geo-targeting strategy for Yahoo resulting in its acquisition of WhereOnEarth and the establishment of the Y-Geo team. He has also co-authored 5 patents on geo-relevancy and lead generation.
