MerchantCircle Press Coverage

As part of our launch around MerchantCircle Neighbors and Answers, we unveiled a radio ad campaign across four major metropolitan areas: LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and Atlanta, as well as a national online radio campaign.

Please tell us what you think, if you hear it.

Also, thank you to everyone who covered yesterday's launch of Neighbors and Answers, as well as mentioned us in some other way and form. You can read the press release here.

- TechCrunch - Hyperlocal Business Directory MerchantCircle Launches Consumer-Facing Features

"MerhcantCircle’s “Neighbors” creates a mini-social network around the site where consumers can “follow” local businesses for information on promotions, coupons and announcements. In order to access this feed, consumers need to create a profile."

- VentureBeat - MerchantCircle Answers lets small businesses show off their expertise

"MerchantCircle Neighbors, meanwhile, is a way for consumers to create an account and “follow” a businesses, similar to what you’d do on microblogging service Twitter. Then businesses can send out coupons and promotions to those customers. It’s a way for businesses to promote to consumers directly and again, keeps them active on the MerchantCircle site."

- Screenwerk - MerchantCircle Joins the Q&A Club

"Beyond the fact that this type of service is valuable as a general matter MerchantCircle sees it as a tool to “re-engage” merchants via its site. The community can vote for the best answer (as with other systems) and the merchants who participate can gain points to establish themselves as experts.

Consumers categorize their questions and can limit the geographic scope of the response to their area."

- Kelsey Group, Local Onliner - MerchantCircle Tries to Get Stickier with 'Neighbors' and 'Answers'

"Answers is a consumer advice service, similar to ones we’ve seen with Yahoo Answers and vertical sites such as Avvo.com (lawyers) and Trulia (real estate). Merchant Circle’s idea is that small businesses will become more bonded to the service if they regularly communicate with potential customers. It says it has already had excellent response rate in a month of trials."

- BizReport - Merchant Circle adds consumer connection to network

"First, the "Answers" platform. This gives consumers the ability to ask 'experts' - members of MerchantCircle's 910,000 local businesses - a question and receive a solid answer. From the best brand of oil for a Ford truck to questions about invisible fencing for the backyard, merchants are available to answer consumers' questions."

- ClickZ - Get Started in Local Search Without a Web Site

"Many local platforms, including local search powerhouses Google Maps, Bing Local, MerchantCircle, Citysearch, Superpages, and Yahoo Local, allow you to create a local business profile on a page on their sites. Many of the best ones are free, while others charge a monthly fee."

- Dow Jones VentureWire - MerchantCircle, Now Profitable, Goes After Consumers

"Having built out a network of small businesses using its service, newly profitable MerchantCircle Inc. is now going after consumers.

MerchantCircle originally built out a network for small businesses to advertise, promote deals and blog. The company signed up more than 900,000 merchants nationwide and has more than 2% of total merchants in 49 states, and charges a minimum fee of $30 per month for services like placement of search engine advertising to drive traffic. The company, which says it now has more than 20 million monthly unique visitors, uses a self-service system to sign up businesses and has grown without the benefit of a sales force."

Thanks for all your help and support.

Sincerely,
Community Relations

What the Web.com Deal Means to You

MerchantCircle and Web.com today announced a partnership that will grow your network of local businesses by more than 100,000 members. With more than 20 million local unique consumers visiting MerchantCircle each month, we're excited to have an even stronger network or members creating more coupons, blogs, and newsletters, than ever before. Today, we have over 900,000 members and are on pace to hit 1 million before the end of the year!

Web.com will power many of our high end services like custom web design for individual businesses, analytics and tracking, and marketing. All of our services can be found here by logging into your MerchantCircle account.

Read the press release here.

Here are some of the write-ups and mentions of the new expanded partnership. Thank you all for covering:

Local SEO Guide - Where is the Facebook Platform for Small Businesses?

Screenwerk - MerchantCircle Expands Ties with Web.com

Local Onliner - Web.com, MerchantCircle to Market Each Other's SMB Services

BIA Kelsey Group - Web.com, MerchantCircle to Market Each Other's SMB Services

adotas - Industry News on Hirings, Partnerships and New Offerings

DMNews - Web.com and MerchantCircle.com Team Up

FOX Business - Web.com and MerchantCircle Expand Partnership to Improve Online Visibility for Local Businesses

CNN Money - Web.com and MerchantCircle Expand Partnership to Improve Online Visibility for Local Businesses

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

What I Learned From the Kelsey Conference

For those of you who don't know; the Kelsey Conference is a summit for those working with local online content. It's mostly the guys and gals behind the scenes trying to figure out how to make the internet more of an intimate space within YOUR community.

I really liked meeting and talking to people at the conference. For instance, a gentleman from Germany approached me with how his company is trying to do what MerchantCircle does in Germany (Here's his company, if you can read German). Even though we're currently only in the U.S., several people from overseas mentioned they had checked out our site before.

It's also real nice to meet and chat with some of the bloggers around the local internet space, rather than just trading e-mails. It helps you see them a little differently. For instance, Greg Sterling has a well-timed sense of humor that unfortunately doesn't come out in his blogs. Peter Krasilovsky is probably one of the nicest guys you'll meet, but it hurts your neck talking to him, because he's so tall! Donna Bogatin minds her business, wary of hearing the 30 second elevator pitch, and constantly nursing a martini. Even Ahmed isn't all that cynical once you sit down and talk with him.

Can't wait to see you all at the next conference!

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

Fight Night 3: MerchantCircle vs. Roy Jones Jr.

So recently at work we've been playing this game called Fight Night 3 on Play Station 2 (management's holding back on a PS3 or a wii, but we won't complain). Fortunately, our morale is great thanks to a number of recent mentions in the media about us. We've worked hard to make sure a business owner can easily navigate their way and manage their reputation on the web. And after 90,000 merchants signed on - it's great to know business owners realize the importance of having a presence on the web.

Just this last week, we've graced the sites of BusinessWeek, MSNBC, and USA TODAY, but just as importantly we've reached the analyst and players in the 'local' internet space with The Local Onliner and ScreenWerks. Perhaps the proudest accomplishment for us, is hitting home to people who actually run local businesses including Steve Mun, a real estate agent in Saratoga, CA, and marketing experts like Andy Beal.

You can even hear our co-founder Wayne Yamamoto in The Startup Studio podcast this week. All of the attention is great, but it means nothing if our merchants don't get new customers. And they are! Take for instance Beyond Atioxidant, Dodd Priority, or All American Gutter. With merchants like that in our corner, MerchantCircle can take out all comers - even Roy Jones Jr.



Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations