Friday, December 24, 2010

Google woos local advertisers old-fashioned way

After helping popularize automated ad sales on the Web, the Internet-search giant is quietly turning to a lower-tech tool -- phone calls -- to compete in the hot market for local business advertising.

Google has hired several hundred sales representatives to call U.S. businesses such as spas, restaurants and hotels to promote new advertising initiatives, The Wall Street Journal says in a new story today, citing people familiar with the matter. The effort includes an office in Tempe, Ariz., with around 100 sales representatives, one of these people said.

So far, only a fraction of local businesses advertise online, the story says. BIA/Kelsey, a local-media advisory firm, estimates that local businesses will spend about $20 billion online this year, a figure that could reach more than $35 billion by 2014.

Google's effort comes as Gannett pushes forward with its participation in the Yahoo newspaper consortium. In that venture, GCI representatives sell ads to local businesses on the web portal's websites as well as those of GCI's local U.S. newspapers and TV stations. GCI announced that deal in July, after it had been first reported here on Gannett Blog.
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12/25/2010 8:40 PM

    "Google woos local advertisers old-fashioned way"

    you mean with booze and broads?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12/27/2010 6:10 AM

    Gannett and Yahoo is a disaster. This is a PR hoax that was presented to the shareholders and the board just like the debut of ContentOne and the new sports network. Can anyone name any "new transformative" program that has been successful in the last five years? Moms? Clipper? gannettLocal, ContentOne?, DIG? Cozi?, Retail Sales?,CircularCentral?, iPhone/iPad apps?, paid content? Broadcast's Online Video Consortium? Metromix?, Quadrant One?,USAToday Topic Pages?

    Jim,
    You need to do a better job on reporting these failures. None of these are transformative and in fact I would debate they have all been failures and big money losers for Gannett and this leadership team.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12/28/2010 6:43 PM

    6:10 am: Wow, you're right. I'd forgotten about many of these programs, many of which were dated before they were launched. In many cases, they came too late and were too-late of responses.

    ReplyDelete

Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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