According to a white paper published by TMP Directional Marketing and comScore, U.S. Internet users who conducted online local business searches are likely to actually end up in a store in person.
The study, titled “Wave 3: Local Search Usage Study,” found that the primary goal of a local business online search was to find a business that had the product/service needed, as this received 26 percent of all responses. For general search users this was 27 percent, while for local search users it was 21 percent and for Internet yellow pages users it was 29 percent.
Finding the address or location of a local business was the goal of 21 percent of all respondents. Nineteen percent of general search users gave this response, 26 percent of local search users did the same while 19 percent of Internet yellow pages users responded similarly.
Finding the phone number received 21 percent of the overall response as well, with 31 percent of Internet yellow pages users indicating so. Researching products and services received a 12 percent overall response, followed by getting driving directions with 9 percent, getting hours of operation with 6 percent, reading ratings and reviews with 3 percent and other goals with 2 percent.
In terms of actual behavior following a local business online search, 37 percent of respondents actually visited the business in-person, which is up from 32 percent in 2008.
Meanwhile, 46 percent contacted the business by phone, up from 39 percent a year ago. Fourteen percent planned to contact the business in the future, down from 15 percent in 2008, while 12 percent performed additional research online, down from 13 percent last year.
Eleven percent contacted the business online, down from 12 percent in 2008, while 6 percent performed additional research online, unchanged from a year ago.
While general search engines were used most by local searchers for most business categories, child care and hotel searchers leaned more heavily on local search engines. Almost one-half of home service searchers utilized Internet yellow pages, according to the study.
With regards to mobile use, there was a 127 percent boost in mobile subscribers who used mobile applications to obtain local information and a 27 percent increase in users who looked up local data by way of SMS.
Google Maps saw its local search market share surge to 26 percent this year, up drastically from 15 percent in 2008. Superpages.com Network saw the opposite as its share declined from 26 percent last year to 15 percent in 2009.
Yellowbook Network doubled its share to 12 percent this year compared to 6 percent last year.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007344
http://gesterling.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/new-comscore-tmp-local-data/
http://www.tmpdm.com/ourwork/download.asp?paper=wp_18
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