"You must unlearn what you have learned."

When Yoda said that to Luke Skywalker a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (i.e., the 1980s), he wasn't referring to digital marketing.

Nevertheless, the old Jedi Master would make a terrific CMO today.

And if he had traded his position on the Jedi Council for a cushy desk job, he might have imparted these words of wisdom to Padawan marketers.

1. 'Judge me by my [presence], do you?'

A strong presence is the most important element of online marketing that local businesses can focus on: Half of all mobile searches are conducted with the intent of finding local results, and 61% of those local searches result in a purchase.

Accordingly, business owners require a simple way to control their online visibility and promote their reputation effectively.

The main areas to focus on for establishing an online presence are as follows:

  • Online listings: Making sure listings are accurate and consistent across key sources
  • Online reviews: Generating and promoting reviews and addressing negative ones
  • Mobile-friendly websites: Providing an effortless browsing experience for customers
  • Social activity: Maintaining active social accounts on the most relevant networks with consistent profile data and engaging content

Without a solid social presence, a mobile-friendly website, and accurate listings featuring positive reviews, you may as well be waving your hand in front of Google and saying, "These are not the search results you're looking for."

2. 'Difficult to see. Always in motion is the [listings environment].'

The world of online listings is more fragmented than the plot of The Phantom Menace.

In a nutshell, four major data providers control most of the Internet's listings data: Infogroup, Neustar/Localeze, Acxiomb, and Factual. If they don't receive updates from authoritative services, they default to traditional sources of information, such as public records (think tax files and other government indexes). Those sources can be out of date, and their refresh timeframes are unpredictable.

According to our research, businesses that push their information to the four major data providers via listing management tools show a 172% increase in their overall listing accuracy, while the accuracy scores of those that do not correct their data stay extremely low (around 10%).

Moral of the story: If you offer marketing solutions to local businesses, start investigating presence management solutions to help them continuously correct their data and generate recurring revenue for your company.

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How to Master Your Online Presence, Yoda Style

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Devon Hennig

Devon Hennig is the director of marketing at Vendasta, a provider of white-label presence management and marketing automation solutions for agencies and media companies.

LinkedIn: Devon Hennig

Twitter: @devonhennig