WOODLAND HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ReachLocal, Inc. (NASDAQ:RLOC), a leader in powering local online marketing for SMBs, announced today that it will be launching three new product suites in 2013. Together, these new initiatives will expand ReachLocal’s focus on offering online marketing and lead generation to now bringing the entire local commerce process online for both merchants and consumers.
As a pioneer in local online marketing, ReachLocal has helped SMBs acquire leads online for nearly a decade. In fact, the company has delivered more than 100 million leads to clients through its lead generation products: ReachSearch, ReachDisplay, ReachCast and ReachRetargeting. Its success in helping local businesses market themselves online has fueled the company’s expansion to 12 countries on five continents, with a global distribution network that includes more than 1,000 sales and service professionals, along with select third-party agencies and resellers. Currently, the company has 22,000 customers across five core verticals: healthcare, automotive, home services, professional services and specialty services.
“We founded ReachLocal to solve the local marketing problem for SMBs by developing innovative solutions to help them generate leads from local consumers,” said CEO Zorik Gordon. “Now, we’re innovating again by helping local businesses convert more leads and enable their customers to digitally book and buy from them. This is really the next evolution of solving the ‘local’ problem, and we’re excited to yet again be leading the way.”
ReachLocal is leveraging its successful model to offer new marketing and transaction Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions that help local merchants close more business. The company is also announcing the beta release of its new consumer service, ClubLocal, which allows consumers to instantly book and buy home services online.
New Marketing Solutions: ReachSite, ReachConvert
“As a leader in lead generation for local businesses, we have seen the difficulty many merchants have converting website visitors into leads and then converting those leads into customers,” said Kris Barton, chief product officer. “In fact, roughly three-out-of-four Internet leads fall through the cracks because businesses don’t have a smart website that captures contacts or simple tools for lead conversion.”
To solve this problem, the company is announcing two new lead conversion products within its marketing suite. The first is ReachSite, a smart website product that helps businesses turn more of their website visitors into leads. This product includes basic search engine optimization, dynamic content optimization and lead capture technology, which work together to drive more contacts, automatically build the business’s marketing list and track the effectiveness of all of the business’s marketing tactics. ReachSite will release as a beta in North America in the second quarter and launch the second half of 2013.
The second offering, ReachConvert, is a SaaS product that helps businesses manage their leads and convert more of them into customers. ReachConvert notifies the business of every new lead in real time via text message, email or the ReachLocal mobile app, so that they can follow up within minutes. ReachConvert helps the business stay top of mind during the customer decision-making process by automatically sending new prospects targeted emails and sending alerts to the business’s staff reminding them to follow up on each lead. During the initial beta test, clients using this product converted 30 percent1 more of their leads into customers. ReachConvert is currently in beta in North America and will launch in the second quarter of 2013.
New Transaction Solution: ReachCommerce
Once merchants have converted leads into potential customers who are ready to buy, they need a better way to manage bookings and transactions. The majority still use an inefficient offline process to book appointments, schedule their technicians, provide estimates and invoices, communicate with consumers and take payments. Ultimately, this costs merchants lost bookings, customers and profits.
To solve this problem, ReachLocal is developing a new SaaS product, ReachCommerce, that enables local businesses to take their entire booking and buying process online. This product dramatically improves the entire experience for consumers. Now, when interacting with a merchant who is using ReachCommerce, consumers will be able to book online via the merchant’s website, receive online notifications when the service pro is en route, get a digital estimate and pay online.
In addition to providing a better consumer experience, ReachCommerce also digitizes the merchant’s entire back-office operation, including scheduling, employee and fleet management, estimating, transaction processing, invoicing, retention, business intelligence and reporting. ReachCommerce will enter beta in North America in the second quarter and launch in the second half of 2013. The product will initially be focused on merchants in the home services vertical.
New Consumer Service: ClubLocal.com
Just as the company saw the opportunity to transform local marketing for merchants by bringing it online, ReachLocal also saw the opportunity to revolutionize the consumer buying experience for local services. Today, finding a local service provider is still an antiquated process that takes too much time and work for the consumer. They experience information overload when trying to figure out who to call. There’s zero pricing transparency about what it will cost them. They waste a lot of time waiting because there’s limited visibility about when the technician will arrive. The buying process for the consumer is still 100 percent paper based. Essentially, consumers buy local services similar to the way their grandparents did.
To solve this problem, ReachLocal developed a new consumer service, ClubLocal, (http://www.clublocal.com) that has been in beta in Dallas-Fort Worth since July 2012. ClubLocal is a revolutionary new one-stop service that enables consumers to instantly book 17 home services via its website or mobile app.
ClubLocal provides consumers with two-hour appointment windows and sends alerts and notifications when their Service Pro is en-route. ClubLocal pre-screens and background checks all of the Service Pros and pre-negotiates pricing with merchants to provide pricing transparency to the consumer. Once the work is complete, consumers simply pay ClubLocal, and all their receipts and warranties are stored online in their account. ClubLocal stands behind every job with its ClubLocal Satisfaction Guarantee and is 100 percent free to join. ClubLocal is launching in its second beta market, San Francisco, in the second quarter of 2013.
About ReachLocal, Inc.
ReachLocal, Inc. (NASDAQ: RLOC) develops online marketing and transaction solutions that power local commerce for SMBs, from lead generation and lead conversion to booking and buying. Our global distribution network includes local Internet marketing consultants and service professionals, along with select third-party agencies and resellers throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Brazil. ReachLocal is headquartered in Woodland Hills, Calif. Subscribe to ReachLocal’s free newsletter to receive news, tips and other online marketing insights.
- This statistic is based on an early alpha test of the product in a very limited distribution. Based on this alpha, starting from their first use of the product, clients experienced, on average, a 30% or more increase in customer conversions. However, no assurances can be made that such conversion rates will be maintained when the product is in full release. Conversion rates may vary due to a number of factors, including business type, customer type, client engagement with the product and other factors.
Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This document includes certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current expectations or beliefs of management of ReachLocal and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the statements herein due to (1) changes in economic, business, competitive, technological and/or regulatory factors, (2) difficulties that ReachLocal may encounter as it seeks to develop software-related and consumer-facing products, (3) failure of the AdWords strategic relationship with Google to produce expected results; (4) failure to compete successfully in a highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, (5) failure to retain key employees, and (6) other factors affecting the business operation of ReachLocal. More detailed information about these and other factors that may affect current expectations may be found in filings by ReachLocal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ReachLocal is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any such obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.