Blizzard Local Service Now Open to All Custom Promotion Clients
Russ Cabe | 12 July 2006 |
Due to the early success of the Blizzard Local service with several of our larger clients in the hospitality industry, and the growing importance of local search, we have decided to open Blizzard Local up to all Blizzard Internet Marketing Custom Promotion Clients, at all levels of Promotion Plans.
We are very happy with the early results from Blizzard Local. The first client utilizing the service was Avenue Inn Bed and Breakfast. After just two months, their Google Local listing improved from 16 to 12, their MSN Local listing improved from 44 to 27, and their SuperPages.com listing improved from 23 to 2. Additionally, we see very significant improvements in how their local listings are performing. This trend is expected to continue, as Blizzard Local continues to consistently update their local listings in the various local platforms.
We are also pleasantly surprised to see many of our clients’ Blizzard Local profile pages ranking well in search engines and, in some instances, even providing traffic to our clients’ websites. This unexpected benefit has grown out of the well optimized profile pages.
Blizzard Local is a $500 annual service. Many clients with Custom Promotion or Comprehensive Promotion plans will find account managers planning this work for your account upon annual renewal; if you are interested in getting into the service immediately, please contact your Promotion Account Management Team. They’ll inform you when your plan is up for renewal, and take your order for the Blizzard Local service if you wish to purchase it immediately.
For more information and details on what Blizzard Local is, please go to Mary Bowling’s May 30th article Profit from a Blizzard Local Listing. For more information on the importance of Local Search and what it can do for your hotel, travel destination, or tourism website, including Mary’s latest article on the importance of Local Search for Mobile Search performance, please see the Local Search area of the Blizzard blog (http://newsletter.blizzardinternet.com).
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July 14th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Great article! After reading about the success that Avenue Inn experienced with Blizzard Local, I checked the stats of another initial test case for this service. Turns out this client has received over $6000 in revenue from local resources since signing on with Blizzard Local in early May. Revenue prior to that date from local resources was less than $1,000.
It’s too early to tell whether this type of ROI is the standard with Blizzard Local, however because of the successes of these test cases I am recommending to all of my clients to get in to the program as soon as their budget allows. There is no doubt in my mind that local search is the next big wave in search marketing and that the earlier you get onboard, the better chance you stand of taking advantage of this burgeoning market.
July 21st, 2006 at 4:52 am
I find it hard to believe that local search will benefit BandBs such as mine.
95% of my reservations are booked in advance via the web.
Any comments?
Bill Strickland
Innkeeper,
Wyatt House Country Inn
North Conway,NH
August 8th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Good Question Bill,
Just because they are booking in advance doesn’t mean your guests aren’t using local search. Because in many instances, where people make local search inquiries they are also able to read reviews of a property, many people use local search to get more of a 100% review of a property. They use it not just to find its location, but also what is near the property and what previous guests have to say about the property. We also don’t want to forget that local search is largely feeding mobile search and while the large majority of guests to your property are prebooked, there is no better potential guest to reach than the one that is in your town right now looking for a place today. It is my honest opinion that everyone with a physical address would benefit from Blizzard Local. Some may see more than others and certainly those in population centers will probably benefit more, but you would get far more than your money’s worth out of the program.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Of course, the New Orleans market is a tough sell right now, but we feel the investment in Blizzard Local will prove to have been worth the effort as the area makes its recovery. The Avenue Inn Bed and Breakfast is already seeing inquiry movement in a positive direction, especially now in August 2006, one year post Katrina. While previous months’ sales have been way below normal, sales for this month are almost equal to last year before the storm and that’s a very hopeful trend. We can attribute some of this to folks that found us because they wanted a specific location, such as near the Universities for Freshman check-in. We attribute some of this revenue to the local search application. Blizzard Local is incremental revenue opportunity, but incremental is great when you are counting on every opportunity dollar. We are pleased that we have incorporated Blizzard Local into our overall marketing plan and we are expecting continued excellent results. http://www.avenueinnbb.com