TrueLocal Launches Innovative Advertising Options for Local Businesses to Promote Their Products and Services

May 23rd, 2005 -- TrueLocal (http://www.truelocal.com) launches its advertising programs for local businesses including restaurants, hotels, dentists, and stores to reach 70% of American households. That number, provided by a 2005 Kelsey Group and ConStat study, represents the proportion of American households that use the web to find local services and products – an increase of 16% from 2003.

TrueLocal has expanded its local search engine to offer local brick and mortar merchants ways to reach consumers both through free standard listings, through cost effective expanded listings and an advertising program designed to meet the needs of local advertisers.

Based on the demand of local businesses both with and without an online presence, TrueLocal’s new advertising program TrueTarget, offers the simplicity and practicality of a traditional Yellow Pages ad. TrueTarget, an auction based program is only offered to local storefront businesses to encourage local searchers to do research before calling or heading down to their neighborhood store or restaurant to spend their money.

TrueLocal’s advertising model combines clicking and calling in a flat fee for one reason - statistics show small business owners have a difficult time determining the value of a click, call or impression. To avoid an advertising model that is time consuming and incomprehensible, TrueLocal’s advertising is simple for the small business owner to understand, monitor and evaluate.

After signing up for a TrueResults expanded listing ($40.00 a year) advertisers are automatically eligible to bid on TrueTarget advertising program. A business owner simply places a monthly bid on a category in a zip code and if successful their results appear at the top of the results relating to their business category.

TrueTarget provides advertisers with a free 1-800 number, reminds them when they have been outbid and tracks all relevant statistics so they can easily determine their ROI. And to ensure local businesses won’t compete with e-commerce sites and directories, only actual neighborhood businesses can advertise on TrueLocal. For those without an online budget, TrueLocal also offers a free standard business listing for businesses with a website who wish to add or update their basic information.

“TrueLocal is so pleased to launch TrueResults and TrueTarget at the 2005 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show because a large percentage of our searches involve food, restaurants and hospitality related queries.” says, Jake Baillie, Product Manager, TrueLocal. “Our search engine listings and our advertising policy promotes web users doing business with local brick and mortars, and restaurants are a perfect fit,” adds Baillie.

About TrueLocal:
TrueLocal www.truelocal.com recently launched its simple and savvy search tool that offers full text searches without cluttered results. TrueLocal takes robust franchise and business data and indexes only ‘physical’ storefront businesses to offer more relevant and accurate local business results. TrueLocal’s full text search function makes looking for dim sum, Barbie dolls, merlot, pizza delivery or teeth whitening anywhere in the U.S. as easy as apple pie. Currently indexing over 50 million pages, TrueLocal users can search for anything in their neighborhoods including products and brands through full text searching. TrueLocal combines the practicality of a Yellow Pages categorization and the technology of a search engine with a simple and unique design and navigation to encourage online users to do business offline.

Contact:
Christa Roettele
1-866-436-7446
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TRUELOCAL