The Iceberg: Seeing Beneath the Surface of Local Search Marketing Software
At Lastmile, our enterprise clients tend to be skilled explorers, eager to look below the surface of software to gauge what’s underneath. After all, only 10% of an iceberg is generally visible above the waterline. The remaining 90% is what you actually need to explore to understand whether the software you’re considering is powerful enough for a brand as complex and sophisticated as your own.
Written By
Lastmile Retail
Last Updated
February 4, 2025
Category
Industry Insight
Tasked with choosing a local search marketing platform for an enterprise brand with the scope of T-Mobile or U.S. Navy? Very quickly, you’ll notice that most offerings look remarkably similar…at least on the surface.
Everyone seems to have some kind of listings management solution, reputation management system, and maybe some kind of location landing pages product. After investigating multiple tools, you may be left with an impression of shapeless iceberg-like masses on the horizon amid a sea of sameness.
At Lastmile, our well-known enterprise clients tend to be skilled explorers, eager to look below the surface of software to gauge what’s underneath. After all, only 10% of an iceberg is generally visible above the waterline. The remaining 90% is what you actually need to explore to understand whether the software you’re considering is powerful enough for a brand as complex and sophisticated as your own.
Below the waterline, Lastmile’s 90%
Like most local marketing solutions, Lastmile offers listings management and reputation management, and we think you’ll like our thoughtful approach to both. We’ve also seen these two significant points make a meaningful difference to our clients:
Lastmile works solely with large local enterprises – unlike most local search marketing providers, we don’t try to fit your multi-location needs into a small business funnel.
Lastmile builds what we build for clients like you - not for shareholders.
Hopefully, just these two differentiators are useful to you in starting to distinguish us from the crowd, but it’s only when you peer down into the depths of our approach to local enterprise content management and marketing that you’ll encounter the full Lastmile 90%.
Instead of the single (and often thin) landing page approach most legacy providers are still offering, Lastmile’s scalable, dynamic micro-sites product meets the context of real-world customers who are seeking the best local solution to their diverse needs. Compare our deep local content approach to what you’re seeing our contemporaries offer, and we’re confident the differences will quickly become obvious.
Feature
Benefit
Inventory
Show real-time inventory to each customer at the locations nearest them to instill confidence that a particular branch is ready to serve them, or choose to show what is generally available at certain locations.
Promotions
Boost conversions by featuring any special offers, sales, and deals at the locations nearest each customer.
Services
Display custom service menus for each branch, including special services only available at certain locations to signal that you’re ready to serve customers.
Reviews
Showcase review content for each location to demonstrate how much a given community trusts each branch of your business.
Events
Bring customers in your doors for special events with a branch-specific calendar and event management system.
Staff
Enhance the uniqueness and authenticity of each branch with the inclusion of staff bios that show how your business is part of the local community.
Careers
Display optimized job listings for each branch to help successfully staff all locations of your brand.
Where enterprise pain points are healed
Every bit as important as what your customers see when they come to your website is what your brand experiences and measures on the back-end. These internal features instantly relieve some of the worst pain points for multi-location enterprises, franchises, shopping centers, hybrid brands, and other complex business models.
Feature
Benefits
Seamless integration with client systems
Instead of making you integrate with our products, Lastmile integrates with your existing systems, including product APIs, CMS, inventory ERP databases, product promo feeds, career platforms, and HR systems.
Custom access permissions
Empower staff and franchisees to market relevant locations, but limit access to other assets to defend your brand from errors.
Robust templating
With 15+ different page types to choose from, any staff member or franchisee can quickly create landing pages for almost any use case.
Content management rules engine
If automation is critical, rely on our proprietary, world-class rules engine to do the work for you of determining which content goes where on your site.
Local impact analytics
Track user behavior at a location level so you can see what customers are looking for and what actions they are taking, yielding insight into improvements you can make for better performance. Understand the impact of your marketing at an individual store and sale level.
Turnkey A/B testing
Run tests of different page elements and types to make data-based decisions on the content that performs best with each audience.
Advanced reporting
Lastmile makes all of our raw location and analytics data available in leading cloud databases such as Google BigQuery or AWS Redshift for turnkey use with third-party tools such as Looker or Tableau.
Intelligent use of AI
Access our AI features that connect your brand with customers instead of distancing you from them.
Global applicability
Lastmile supports your locations around the world, in every continent but Antarctica.
White glove service
You’ll have a dedicated account manager, guaranteed 24-hour response times, and resolution of most technical problems within 2 days.
Custom development hours
At no added fee, you’ll be allotted monthly custom development hours so that we can build for your brand’s specific technical needs.
Does it matter whether your software was built for enterprises?
Have you noticed that charts contrasting software options tend to favor the characteristics of whichever brand is publishing them? So have we, and that’s why we’d prefer to simply tell you about our offering and leave the comparison up to you.
One key point that we do want to be sure you have access to while you’re deliberating your options is that most local marketing platforms currently on the market tend to walk a tightrope of trying to serve the entire business spectrum. Typically, they build or whitelabel a product that works as a self-serve solution for a large volume of small, single location businesses and then they add on extra support and features in hopes of capturing some enterprise leads. In this scenario, multi-location models, franchises, shopping malls, and other elaborate organizations are often treated as an afterthought, creating inevitable disappointment for brands like yours when no functionality exists for high-priority use cases.
Lastmile’s 90% difference is that every process, product, service, and feature has been developed from the ground up for the largest, multi-location models. Brands like yours are our only focus. We become your dedicated partner in the shared goal of driving growth in the number of customers who are discovering and choosing all branches of your business.
Key questions to ask your prospective local search marketing software partners
Getting answers to the following questions could help you quickly narrow down your search to the best solution for your enterprise, saving time and effort:
Question
If Yes
If No
Do you serve small businesses as well as multi-location enterprises like ours?
This could indicate that the product was actually built for simple models instead of for complex ones like yours, guaranteeing disappointment.
This is a good sign that the product is designed to scale to your needs.
Can you show me some of your other enterprise clients?
Examine the brands the SaaS provider is already serving for proof that they are up to the task of partnering with you.
Be wary of the capabilities of both the SaaS brand’s team and products.
Do you have hard metrics on the lifts in visits and sales you’ve achieved for clients?
It’s important to know that a platform can report on store visits, sales lifts, and transactions, rather than being limited to basic metrics like views, clicks-to-call and clicks-for directions.
Avoid any marketing product sold on the basis of baseless claims.
Will we be assigned a dedicated account manager?
This is a good sign that someone at the SaaS brand will be responsive to your ongoing needs.
This is a bad sign that your needs will be passed around at the SaaS provider without anyone feeling ownership for your satisfaction and success.
Will support requests receive a guaranteed response within 24 hours?
This is good news, because problems will always arise with all software and it’s critical that your SaaS provider responds quickly.
A poorly-managed ticketing system means that your brand may experience radio silence from your SaaS provider in the midst of a technical emergency.
Do you integrate with our existing products at no additional cost?
This will eliminate tremendous hassle and defend budget.
Expect hassle.
Do you offer dedicated development hours at no extra cost?
This will ensure that the software can grow with your evolving needs.
You will either be stuck with a product that lags behind your needs, or with a large bill for added dev services.
Will I be in direct contact with your CEO/founder?
This indicates that the head of the software brand is still deeply invested in the software being sold.
This could indicate that the head of the brand is growing distant from the product and may be unaware of its limitations and your need for growth.
Are investors or market forces prioritizing profitability over quality?
This indicates that shareholders’ goals of profits may compete with your goals for software performance and growth.
This suggests that pleasing clients like you is the top priority of the SaaS brand.
Do you have a client retention rate that indicates long-term satisfaction?
Platforms with a high retention rate will be proud to show you how loyal their clients are, due to ongoing satisfaction.
Beware of any platform that can’t retain its clients.
Ready to explore the iceberg with Lastmile?
Experience the seismic difference between software that’s been built for you and other products that don’t have enterprises at the heart of their operations. We’d be delighted to hear your company story and show you our deep local content solutions. Schedule a live demo with us to discover how Lastmile’s 90% could make oceans of difference to your customers and your bottom line.
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