Google Places?

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Framar

Framar

WOW Framer
Joined
Jul 24, 2001
Posts
26,420
Loc
Buffalo, New York, USA/Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada
Just received this email - never heard of Google Places and I am surely not one of their members. What kind of carp are they tryin' to pull here? Sounds like they are drinking the Facebook Koolaid.

Dear Google Places
user,

We
are writing to let you know that we plan to complete the migration of your
Google Places email communication preferences to a new set of preferences by
July 2nd (the changes are outlined for your benefit below). You have 14 days
from today to opt-out of these new preferences, during which time we will not
email you about Google Places. You can change these preferences at any time by
logging
in to your Google Places account
and clicking ‘Settings’ in the upper right hand corner of your
account.

Google
Places is undergoing many changes and we thought it was time to similarly change
our email communications to give users more control over what information they
receive.

The
e-mail communication changes are as follows:

  1. We
    are splitting the 'Account Updates' list into ‘Performance Updates’ and ‘Feature
    Announcements’. You will be opted in to both lists.
  2. We
    are opting everyone in to receive ‘Special Offers’. With the national roll-out
    of Google Tags, our new local advertising product, coming soon we want to be
    able to share special offers with our valued Places users.
  3. We
    are opting everyone in to receive ‘Newsletters’--with all of the new features
    we’ve rolled out in the past year (and will continue to roll out) we want to be
    able to share tips and tricks so Google Places users can get the most out of
    their account.
  4. We
    are creating a new set of e-mail communications entitled ‘Market Research’ to
    give you the opportunity to participate in surveys and evaluate new features. We
    seriously value our user’s feedback when developing new features. You will not
    be opted-in to receive this communication but if you would like to sign up
    please do so.


If
you would like to read more or change any of these settings you can do so at any
time by logging
in to your Google Places account
and clicking ‘Settings’ in the upper right hand corner of your
account.

Best,

The
Google Places team


©
2010 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA
94043
Email
Preferences:
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about
important changes to your Google Places product or account. Please do not reply
to this email; replies are not monitored.
 
It's a fantastic program that gives you free advertising. (it used to be called the Google Business Center) It puts your shop on the map with a lil shopping icon that people can click for business hours, photos of what you sell, wording that you choose, cards accepted, phone and web page info, customer reviews, sales, weekly promos or coupon, etc. They can click it from a smartphone to be taken to your shop, via Google navigation (built into all new Android based phones, and I think maybe iPhones too) Much of this becomes available as a link from your google search results, too.

They also mail you window stickers with a special barcode. (if you are selected as a "Google Favorite Place", based on # of searches done for your profile) Customers can scan it with their smartphone to see (or give) reviews of your business, offerings, or even to contact you after hours.

You get stats about how much activity you have, the keywords people searched to find you, etc. People do look at these things. I looked ours up now and see that 1037 saw it as a search result, 27 looked at the profile details or reviews, 5 clicked on the map/directions of the business address - in the past 30 days.

Example: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&g=&q=custom+picture+framing&btnG=Search+Maps
ours:
google-qr.png


For free, it's the best bargain in town - in my opinion.

Mike
 
Formerly Google Local Business Pages

It also is a place customers can review your business, you can post coupons, and see stats for how many people have gone to your web and see what key words they have used to find your business. You can also see how many have clicked on Google maps to find your shop. It is silly not to use as many of these places as you can, Facebook, Yelp, Google Places to funnel customers to your shop!

I have had great results using this, I am pleased how many people have come in with the coupons I run on Places.

Mar your fear of Google boarders on being superstitious, ;)
 
You know, as Local Business Pages I started to fill out their form years ago and when they did not have a proper category for Picture Framing I never finished filling it out and promptly forgot all about it.

My website gives me all the stats I need and I rarely bother with even looking.

I don't have key words or meta tags or whatever on my website - if someone finds it they find it. It is out there - I only have less than a dozen years to go - I am winding down. So Google can go "help" someone else! ;)
 
Mike - I think I tossed out that barcode sticker I got 6 months ago, not understanding what it was. ...is there an option with Google to get another one?
 
Google is not the be all and end all of knowledge, folks. Last thing I got in the mail from them was addressed to my late business partner who has been dead for 4 years.......
 
cjmst3k said:
Mike - I think I tossed out that barcode sticker I got 6 months ago, not understanding what it was. ...is there an option with Google to get another one?
Click to expand...

If you log in to your account, I believe there is an option to print out a new one on your own printer.

The ones they sent out are pretty nice, though. They're printed on both sides and laminated. We proudly display it on our front door. "We are a Favorite Place on google maps", with the barcode.

I don't know if anyone has scanned it yet :)

Anything that drives customers to our website and shop is good to me, especially if it's free :)

Mike
 
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