Marchex Committed To Local

Yesterday Seattle-based Marchex released a 23-page report titled 2008 Perspectives on Local Online Advertising and Content and it's worth a read. Marchex is a local online advertising company and leading publisher of local content. The Marchex-team written report is an overview of local industry trends with specific tactics for marketers, addressing areas such as local online advertising and localized search engine optimization. The report is available for free here. In the report, Marchex identifies several trends that they believe will continue to accelerate the growth of the local market in 2008 and beyond:

• The adoption rate of online advertising services by small- to medium- sized businesses (SMBs) will continue to rise, driven by local sales channels such as Yellow Pages providers.
• National advertisers will expand their focus on local online advertising campaigns and will increasingly utilize local geo- targeting and tactics that encourage and measure offline purchases.
• The demand for call-based advertising services, such as call tracking and pay-per-phone call, will grow.
• For consumers, the local search experience will improve, delivering more accurate and actionable results that more effectively connect consumers with local businesses.
• The local market will be less fragmented due to consolidation, innovation, and partnerships.

Techvibes Media Inc. is also committed to Local and see it as the next major consumer-focused mega-trend on the commercial Internet. Techvibes.com has always been city-centric with a focus on local search whether it be tech suppliers, tech jobs, or tech events. The addition of our hyper-local blog takes that one step further and 2008 will see these elements merge into the ultimate local platform for everything Tech-related.