Our PR strategy for FastCall411 is to focus on customer service. As part of this effort, here's an article that I recently wrote for iMedia Connection.
"Marketers need to think of their sites as doors to their business and delight in ever visitor, phone call, email or chat. FastCall411's CEO tells how."
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
FastCall411 Press Release - June 4, 2007
Nearly Two-Thirds of Businesses in Typical Internet and Mobile Directories Not Ready or Responsive to Consumer Calls, FastCall411 Survey Reveals
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi-content=NEWS_VIEW_POPUP_TYPE&newsId=20070605005652&ndmHsc=v2*A1178535600000*B1181192698000*DgroupByDate*J2*L1*N1000837*ZFastCall411&newsLang=en&beanID=202776713&viewID=news_view_popup
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi-content=NEWS_VIEW_POPUP_TYPE&newsId=20070605005652&ndmHsc=v2*A1178535600000*B1181192698000*DgroupByDate*J2*L1*N1000837*ZFastCall411&newsLang=en&beanID=202776713&viewID=news_view_popup
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
iMedia Connection: Ogilvy, MediaVest and Mindshare Weigh in on Mobile
iMedia Connection: Ogilvy, MediaVest and Mindshare Weigh in on Mobile |
Friday, June 1, 2007
"There isn’t sufficient local search volume to deliver enough traffic/leads to SMBs"
Greg Sterling recently posted comments on a speech given by Joe Walsh, CEO of YellowBook
http://gesterling.wordpress.com/
According to the post, Walsh said: "There isn’t sufficient local search volume to deliver enough traffic/leads to SMBs and small businesses won’t self-provision ads.
Is there sufficient local search volume? comScore estimates (or under estimates) that roughly 1 billion of 7 billion monthly searches are local (15 percent) and that 52 percent of local searches involve looking for a phone number or address. A significant number of these searches will result in a phone call – I estimate 100,000,000 calls per month. (I reviewed tens of millions of call records while Vice President of Business Development at CallSource and Jambo. Consumers overwhelmingly call when in need of a local product or service.)
The problem with local search? A very significant percentage of calls to merchants listed in today’s local directories will be made to unqualified, out-of-business, or otherwise unresponsive merchants. There IS sufficient local search volume to deliver enough traffic/leads to SMBs. We just need to funnel search to relevant, lead seeking merchants. FstCall411 taps into a vast source of currently unmonetized consumer phone calls. Calls made to the majority of the 14 million merchants listed in the local database who never answer their phone (10% have disconnected #s). 100MM calls to 14MM merchants averages 7 calls per month - not enough to get Joe Walsh excited. 100MM calls to the 10% of the 14MM that are really relevant (1.4MM) is 70 calls per month. Fire up the pay-per-call engine (and get the call connection rate high enough) and that’s $700 (at an average of $10 / call)
Will they self-provision? Walsh is right - they won’t. But send them 70 calls per month, and let the local merchant know the calls are coming from you and they’ll start calling us to sign-up.
http://gesterling.wordpress.com/
According to the post, Walsh said: "There isn’t sufficient local search volume to deliver enough traffic/leads to SMBs and small businesses won’t self-provision ads.
Is there sufficient local search volume? comScore estimates (or under estimates) that roughly 1 billion of 7 billion monthly searches are local (15 percent) and that 52 percent of local searches involve looking for a phone number or address. A significant number of these searches will result in a phone call – I estimate 100,000,000 calls per month. (I reviewed tens of millions of call records while Vice President of Business Development at CallSource and Jambo. Consumers overwhelmingly call when in need of a local product or service.)
The problem with local search? A very significant percentage of calls to merchants listed in today’s local directories will be made to unqualified, out-of-business, or otherwise unresponsive merchants. There IS sufficient local search volume to deliver enough traffic/leads to SMBs. We just need to funnel search to relevant, lead seeking merchants. FstCall411 taps into a vast source of currently unmonetized consumer phone calls. Calls made to the majority of the 14 million merchants listed in the local database who never answer their phone (10% have disconnected #s). 100MM calls to 14MM merchants averages 7 calls per month - not enough to get Joe Walsh excited. 100MM calls to the 10% of the 14MM that are really relevant (1.4MM) is 70 calls per month. Fire up the pay-per-call engine (and get the call connection rate high enough) and that’s $700 (at an average of $10 / call)
Will they self-provision? Walsh is right - they won’t. But send them 70 calls per month, and let the local merchant know the calls are coming from you and they’ll start calling us to sign-up.
FastCall at Mobile Marketing Forum in NYC June 6-7
FastCall is a sponsor of the MMF next week in NYC and Monday we will be announcing the results of the dialing test we did in April (posted below – “Check ‘N Don’t Go”). This trip also kicks off our fund-raising efforts as I plan the VC “dog and pony show”.
We’ve pushed mobile up to the front burner as the “fast” story goes hand in hand with mobile. If we are searching for a roofer from our cell – it’s probably urgent. The mobile browser also eliminates our need to ask the consumer for a call back number as we must do in the web browser. The caller has the phone in their hand. We essentially trick the phone into making an outbound call – and still keep the benefit of the browser initiated call. The caller can pass us info via the browser at the same time the call is made (“I need a roofer within the hour.”) Then we read the message to the roofers that we send the calls to. We pass the results of the connected call back to the caller (by browser or SMS.) The called can rate the merchant and send the rating back to us. We are working on the demo.
"Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global association that strives to stimulate the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technology.”
We’ve pushed mobile up to the front burner as the “fast” story goes hand in hand with mobile. If we are searching for a roofer from our cell – it’s probably urgent. The mobile browser also eliminates our need to ask the consumer for a call back number as we must do in the web browser. The caller has the phone in their hand. We essentially trick the phone into making an outbound call – and still keep the benefit of the browser initiated call. The caller can pass us info via the browser at the same time the call is made (“I need a roofer within the hour.”) Then we read the message to the roofers that we send the calls to. We pass the results of the connected call back to the caller (by browser or SMS.) The called can rate the merchant and send the rating back to us. We are working on the demo.
"Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global association that strives to stimulate the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technology.”
“System and Method for Improved Directory Assistance”
I haven’t posted since April – FastCall slow blog? I’ve been on the down low partially because we were preparing to file our patent application “System and Method for Improved Directory Assistance” It was a very beneficial experience writing the application for the FastCall411 artificial intelligence engine. The process forced me to describe the process step-by-step. We have a home run here and its great to have the security and confidence of the "patent pending". Our patent attorney is a hero. He escaped to China the day after we filed. Did I force him into exile?
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