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Inbound Marketing Tool: List Business Locally Free at Google Places

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Michael Hartzell specializes in the training and development of individuals and organizations with a primary focus on innovative marketing to grow sales and profits.

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Inbound Marketing Tool: List Business Locally Free at Google Places

Posted by Michael Hartzell on Thu, Apr 22, 2010
 

Google Place list local

News for your business today from Google.  Google Places now offers new features:

  • Service areas: If you travel to serve customers, you can now show which geographic areas you serve.  And if you run a business without a storefront or office location, you can now make your address private.
  • A new, simple way to advertise: For just $25 per month, businesses in select cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags. As of today, we’re rolling out Tags to three new cities — Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. — in addition to ongoing availability in Houston and San Jose, CA. In the coming weeks we'll also be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, and San Francisco. 
  • Business photo shoots: In addition to uploading your own photos, businesses in select cities can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which we'll use to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages. We've been experimenting with this over the past few months, and now have created a site (note: live as of 9pm PDT) for businesses to learn more and express their interest in participating.
  • Customized QR codes: From the dashboard page of Google Places, businesses in the U.S. can download a QR code that’s unique to their business, directly from their dashboard page. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business. 
  • Favorite Places: We're doing a second round of our Favorite Places program, and are mailing window decals to 50,000 businesses around the US. These decals include a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to directly view the mobile Place Page for the business to learn more about their great offerings.
 
A QR code?  To put on a business card, marketing or on decals for windows?  Does this excite you more about the possibilities or make you pause and wonder just what this might mean as the computer inches its way to every corner of life?
 
There are too many free tools to be had on Google Maps / Google Places not to take advantage of them.
 
(You did notice the new name right?  Google Places has replaced Google Local Business Center.)
 
Four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings, and more. It also lets them communicate with customers and get insights that help them make smart business decisions.
 
Even mobile phone marketing is taken into consideration and provided for:
"You can also provide extra incentive by adding coupons, including ones specially formatted for mobile phones."
 
Put this on your to do list.  If you outsource this to a company?  Be sure to send me an email first.  Too many people are charging way too much for what is a pretty simple task.  You want to skip this?  That's ok.  Your competition probably won't though.




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