BETA Launch of MerchantCircle 'Neighbors'

Greg Sterling, of Sterling Market Intelligence, recently profiled on his blog, Screenwerk, our "quiet" launch of MerchantCircle 'Neighbors' - which will allow consumers to create consumer profiles and 'follow' their favorite local merchants. This launch, which is still in BETA, gives our merchant base a stronger connection to offer deals directly to their customers.

Sterling writes:

In much the same way that MerchantCircle has sought to create a social network of merchants, it has now begun that same work on the consumer side. But the object here is not so much to link consumers to one another as generate more interaction between consumers and merchants and stimulate demand, further activity and content creation. .....

If MerchantCircle is successful in getting consumers to join, create reviews, clip coupons and follow businesses, it will build considerable additional value for its merchants at no cost to itself.

Read the rest of Sterling's post here or create your Consumer Profile now! Click here to get started.

Consumer profile features:

My Coupon Book: Consumers can clip deals and coupons created by you!
My Reviews: Consumers share their thoughts about the best businesses in town.
My Merchants: Consumers can “follow” local businesses to get updated news and events.



Tell us what you'd like to see or improve in our 'Neighbors' program, here, in our forums.

Sincerely,
Community Relations

New MerchantCircle Promotion Helps Small Business Owners Disappointed With Print Yellow Pages

As Yellow Page companies like RHDonnelley and Idearc have lost millions of dollars of valuation this last year, their infrastructure and value to merchants will continue to take a hit. Investors, consumers, and merchants know that less and less people turn to the Yellow Pages with the influx of multi-media that is available at our fingertips. Our own MerchantCircle members have taken on the question of whether Yellow Pages actually work. To be fair, they still have value for many merchants. Check out the discussion by clicking here.

To alleviate fears for merchants and to help them during this difficult economic environment, we wanted to introduce an online advertising promotion that would help them cut-out the high cost of print Yellow Page advertising and replace it with online advertising. In order to ensure that merchants have nothing to fear, we will buy your next Yellow Page ad if you're not 100% satisfied.

Here's an excerpt of the release:

“With the economy being what it is, it’s important that local businesses try more cost-effective advertising channels, like online advertising,” says Darren Waddell, MerchantCircle VP of Marketing. “While the majority of our members tell us the yellow pages no longer work for their businesses, many are hesitant to completely stop advertising in the yellow book. We believe this promotion will help local businesses take the leap into online advertising and feel safe doing it.”

"Many small businesses know their traditional media buys are not as effective as once were, but they're afraid to adopt new platforms and strategies," said Greg Sterling, founder Sterling Market Intelligence/analyst Opus Research. "This program addresses that hesitation by attempting to remove some of the perceived risk of online marketing."

Read the entire release by clicking here.

As always, we wish you all, business success.

Sincerely,
Community Relations

2008 Year in Local IYP: Bloggers that Mattered, Numbers that Defined

While it was a tumultuous year to say the least, 2009 has shown there's still much work to be done in the local business space. With Yodle recently closing a $10 million dollar round, it's obvious that the local online advertising/IYP space is far from being an open-and-shut case. While we are a little biased, we believe the three "local" companies that are poised to be the biggest movers and shakers of 2009 will be Yelp ($31mm), Yodle ($25mm), and MerchantCircle ($14mm).

All three companies are financially healthy and all three have taken different approaches to gaining the traction of local advertising dollars. Yelp has gained a loyal audience base of consumers and reviews, using that base to appeal to business owners to advertise on Yelp for premium placement on the site and the ability to communicate with their reviewers. Yodle has taken the approach of selling consumer leads via the web and phone calls, with an up-front cost to the business owner. MerchantCircle has become a social network for local business owners whose "profile pages" show up on organic search results under relevant business terms. The company offers online advertising products with a scaleable model which requires no sales force.

While Yelp has not released any sales figures, Yodle claims 5,000 advertisers, and MerchantCircle has over 10,000 advertisers. Because of the different models for engaging local business owners, the employee count for each company is also decidedly different: Yelp - 200 employees; Yodle - 250 employees; MerchantCircle - 17 employees. Cheers to all companies who engage and reinvent when the rest of the old media companies stay stagnant. Although their loss, is our gain.

Throughout the course of the year in 2008, we would also like to give thanks to another form of new media that is replacing the old. Citizen journalism, in the form of bloggers, have helped to keep us informed and innovative, while also holding the company to a higher standard. Here are some of the "local" bloggers that helped us become better and the link to their best posts of 2008:

- Andrew Shotland: Local SEO Guide
- Greg Sterling: Screenwerk
- Peter Krasilovsky: Local Onliner
- Mike Blumenthal: Understanding Google Maps
- Matt McGee: Small Business SEM

Below are some of the top stories in "local" from our vantage point (feel free to send a link and we'll add it):


I've also begged permission (I think it's a great message) to release an edited version of a note from our Chairman and Co-Founder, Ben T. Smith, IV, that highlights the year that was, where MerchantCircle has been, and where we'll go:

It has been quite a year…

• This has been the worst tech IPO market in 25 years
• Some of the most important media and yellow page companies lost 95% of their multibillion dollar market caps
• We saw interesting competitors disappear
• We probably saw our personal stock portfolio’s drop more than any time in our lives
• XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XX XXXXXXX

But….

• XX XXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX, XX XXX XX XXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXX
• MerchantCircle went from 350K merchants to 650K merchants and now grows 20K merchants a month for free
• Starting as an idea, there are now 700 MerchantCircle Advisors/Members around the nation 'pitching' MC advertising products
• Our traffic went from 5MM page views to 25MM page views and from 2MM unique to over 10MM uniques
• We went from just 500 paying members to over 10,000
• XXX XX XXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XX XX,XXX X XXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXX XX XXXXXXXX
• XX XXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XX X XXXXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXX XXXX
• Most importantly, we have gone from a large number of merchants to a community/network of merchants who are sustaining and growing the network on their own

So while we will miss our 1M merchants for 08, we have come a long way. You should all be proud of your contribution for 08 and also for most of you what you put in place in 07 that allowed 08 to happen.

2009 is going to be a tough year for the macro environment, but may well be one of the most exciting years for creating an capturing opportunities.

• We should finish up our paid product in January with the email and cost per lead call products: XXXXX XXX X XXX XX XXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXX.
• We will have improved natural growth in merchants onto an ever-improving community platform through the early 09 focus on building consumer and community tools around our merchants. XXXXXX XXXXX XXX XX XX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXX XX X XXXXXX XXXXXXX.
• Our traffic has a chance of moving us up to be one of the top 5 local traffic players with the smallest team in the space (17 great employees)
• And our crazy experiments like dynamic radio XXX XXXXXX, domain XXXX-XXXX, XXX XX YP ad, higher merchant touch, etc---something big will happen as always.
• We will do all this with our small tight focused team and hopefully still have a good time doing it.

Ben

I don't know about you, but I'm excited to go to work this year. I agree with Ben that this economic environment will lead to more opportunity for those that are innovative and strong enough to capture it.

Thanks for a great year!

Sincerely,
Community Relations

I'm Unemployed - What Can I Do?

With 6.7 percent now unemployed in the United States - or 10.3 million people - Americans are distressed to say the least. President-elect Obama has cautioned that there will be no quick or easy fixes to this crisis. As more and more people join the ranks of the unemployed, more and more people will be competing for the fewer jobs that make themselves available. While there is much to be discouraged about, there is still a lot of opportunities to be had.

There are ways to stay afloat, even if you haven't had luck getting a job and your unemployment benefits are running out. Google recently announced that their Local Business Referral Representative (LBR) program is shutting down at the end of the year. Essentially, the program was meant for LBRs to collect information from businesses for Google Maps, including hours of operation and store pictures. The LBRs would also introduce the business owners to Google Maps and Adwords.

Greg Sterling writes in his blog, that he believes Google didn't fully commit to the program and that 'Adwords itself, is not a self-service product that can be readily adopted by the mass of SMBs.' We agree with Greg, but we also believe that there was just not enough incentive for people that would've made the program lucrative enough for them.

Back in October, we introduced the MerchantCircle Marketing Advisor Program. The benefits for our advisors are a monthly reoccurring revenue from the members they sign-on to our paid products. With over 10,000 paid products sold to our merchants since December 2007, our merchant base of 655,000 is only at the early stages of being introduced to affordable, effective online advertising solutions. Even in the midst of a recession, we've argued before that marketing is one of the last things a consumer-oriented business should cut. Instead, expensive, ineffective advertising like the Yellow Pages should be the first to go.

Month over month, we've seen one of the lowest churn rates in the business. We've actually seen less business owners stop online advertisements since the economy was officially declared "in a recession." The fact of the matter is, we have over 700 Marketing Advisors who are helping local business owners find more customers online. In this economic time, this means a lot to us, and to the business owners, and quite possibly to you.

To find out how you can be a MerchantCircle Marketing Advisor - click here.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

MerchantCircle Press & News Stories

There's been a lot of press recently for our new partnership that brings every business owner in the nation a free business video. Thanks to all who covered the story and we look forward to helping more local business owners find new customers.

• Market Vox
• BizReport: Kristina Knight
• Inquisitr: Duncan Riley
• MediaPost: Tameka Kee
• Kelsey Group: Mike Boland
• Local SEO Guide: Andrew Shotland
• Screenwerk: Greg Sterling

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

Who's a Critic?

We're all critics.... We learned it first from our mommas, when they told us not to spit out our food as toddlers, keep our elbows off tables as kids, not to beat up our teachers as teens, or not to be home past midnight as adults. (What?!?! You guys don't live at home with your parents? Well that's another story.)

Our life of criticism and analysis has become more and more outbound. It use to be, you kept your thoughts in or shared them with friends and family. Now it's, 'I have a forum on the web.' Whether it's Myspace, Youtube or practically anywhere on the web, we're learning to be more extroverted.



We've written in the past about this wealth of outside critiques, particularly in the realm of business reviews - on our site and in general. Check out this blog post from Greg Sterling about what one business owner decided to do about a business review site, and then opened up a Pandora's Box of online dialogue - much of it, very funny.

This points us back to MerchantCircle. We remain firmly committed to ensuring business owners can engage with their customers and potential customers online - and we don't charge you for doing this. Check out the blog post and let us know what you think.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations