**by Hanan Lifshitz**
Local businesses typically use search marketing to achieve two main
objectives: getting customer calls and walk-ins. They do this by
publishing their address and phone number in search engines and local
directories so that an interested customer can take action one way or
another – by walking into a restaurant or calling a plumber for
example.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4013831308/>
But while getting more customers on the phone or through the door is
the declared offering of many SEM agencies, "Advertise with us and
your mailbox will be packed with new emails every day!" is one
advertising slogan that you would be hard pressed to find online. Many
small business owners are happy to "Pay Per Calls", or "Pay Per
Actions", but getting unsolicited emails is something that most
people might shy away from.
Last month, Palore <http://www.palore.com/>
was commissioned to research the state of SMB emails online, and the
results suggest somewhat different conclusions. SMBs typically appear
online in directory sites (e.g. Yellowpages sites, local search
engines, vertical sites etc.) and, if available, in their own business
website.
When looking at directory sites, we found that roughly 10% of the
businesses display an email address on one or more of the major
directories. Note that this is an aggregated number covering all major
directory sites – when looking at any single directory, we usually
found just 1%-2% of businesses that displayed an email address in
their profile page.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/3927627741/>
When looking at the SMBs' websites, the numbers are also quite low.
To begin with, about half of SMBs do not have an active website at
all. Of the remaining half, we usually did find an email address in
one of the websites' pages. However, a closer look showed that a
fair share of these emails appear to be non-personal email addresses
that are not checked regularly by the business owner, but are rather a
technical contact of some sort.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/3927627783/>
In other cases, we found local business websites with multiple email
addresses, as in corporate websites.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/3928409818/>
And yet, in many cases we did find what appeared to be personal,
frequently-checked emails addresses.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/3928409846/>
While our research seemed to confirm the notion that few SMBs would
choose to publish their active email address openly, a closer look
suggests otherwise. Since only a minority of business owners are
actively engaged in updating their listing on directory sites, and
less than half maintain an active website, in reality, a very
significant portion of "Internet active" SMBs do publish their
email address on the Web.
Many businesses use email marketing to communicate with their
customers. However, why so many small business owners publish their
email address openly is unclear to me. It may be that incoming email
is an effective communication channel that generates a lot of new
business. Of course, it may also be that many business owners are
simply ignorant of the perils of spam.
SEM agencies continually try to demonstrate ROI for SMBs' search
marketing dollars through measurement solutions such as call tracking
systems and online reservation systems. If indeed SMBs use search
marketing to generate new leads and customer emails, then SEM
companies may want to monitor that channel as a result of their search
marketing efforts as well. But that is a big IF… what do you think?
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Hanan Lifshitz <http://searchengineland.com/author/hanan-lifshitz/>
is CEO at Palore <http://www.palore.com/>
, a provider of local businesses' advertising data and information on
their online activity. He also blogs at The Palore Blog
<http://palore.wordpress.com/>
. This column is researched and written by the marketing department
at Palore, which is led by Hanan.
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