So, you manage or own a regional business and you’re looking for more customers. You have a service business that caters to other local businesses by providing cleaning, plowing, or landscaping services. You’ve done well. But you want to grow. After all, you’ve hired a couple of salespeople. You need to:
- Feed your sales team lists of prospective customers they can call
- Provide organized customer mapping that displays current customers as well as prospects
- Provide sales route mapping with efficient travel activity
- Conduct competitor mapping
MapBusinessOnline may be just the thing to help expand your business. Our data mapping software provides an array of tools that can geographically organize your marketing and sales teams. MapBusinessOnline also provides access to Business Listings in your area or area of interest, searchable by business name, industry, or geography.
Try MapBusinessOnline Business Mapping Software for Free
We offer a free, 1-month trial, that provides a limited-feature experience with the opportunity to import and visualize your address-based customer lists, in spreadsheet format, onto a business map. The free trial includes a set of free business listing credits you can apply to any area of the USA map.
One of the first things customers try to do, when they sign up for MapBusinessOnline, is import customer address data. Read more about importing customer data here. Customers also like to build sales territories. MapBusinessOnline is the best sales territory mapping software. You can build three territories using the free trial. Read about setting up sales territories here. Don’t forget to try the free ZIP code radius tool.
Accessing Business Listings
The nub of your interest maybe be generating business intelligence and customer prospects by location. Consider MapBusinessOnline business listings.
Along the Master Toolbar at the top of the application, in the Search Tools section, find the Icon Button showing a Yellow Pages Book with Binoculars. That’s the Business Listing Button.
From within this button, you will be able to find business listings by:
- Business name
- Industry category
- Geography – ZIP code, City, or State or by drawing a polygon on the map
You can test any of these approaches using the Business Listings search function and the application will tell you the number or count of business listings under that category and located within your area of interest. Try it by business name:
Under Business Name, in the first blank field, type in McDonald’s. It will flash a message telling you there are 23,233 businesses with that name across the country. Now, that total includes McDonald’s restaurant, but it could include other businesses using the McDonald’s name, such as Mcdonald’s Farm. Click Validate to engage the target business in the Business Listing search.
Now click the Count button in the lower right of the right-side panel. Once again, you will find that same count because the area you’ve specified is the whole nation.
So, let’s narrow it down.
Search Business Listings by Geography and Polygon
Click into the Geography section of MapBusinessOnline Business Listings. Choose ZIP code. Type in 02134 and press Validate. Now click the count in the lower right. One McDonald’s in the Boston ZIP code 02134. The State geography search works the same way (use a two-letter abbreviation) as does City, which you will have to spell out with a State abbreviation referenced: Worcester, MA
The Validate and Count processes confirm the number of businesses in your area of interest under that name or industry category. There is no fee until you choose to start the buying process by clicking Next in the lower right of the Business Listings results page.
To reset the search, and get rid of the ZIP code we searched, simply click Clear All. Now you may start again.
Another way to search by geography is to create a polygon or circle on the map. Click into the section called Circle or Polygon. You can read the instructions in the dialogue box.
- Close the business listings dialogue and return to the Master Toolbar
- Select Search Tools to the right of the Business Listing Button
- Now select the Circle or Polygon tool and draw your area of interest on the map
- In the Mini-Toolbar next to the map object click the Business Listings button (that Yellow Pages book icon again)
Your Business Listing dialogue has reappeared, but this time it notes the Polygon or Circle you just drew, as the search area. Type in McDonald’s again to see how many businesses, with that name, are located in your area of interest.
At this point in the process, you could buy those listings by clicking Next in the lower right. But let’s keep searching for business listings.
Search by Industry Using NAICS Code
Searching business listings by industry type mean you can isolate business listings into sensible categories like dentist offices vs. dental associations or dental equipment suppliers. There are thousands of categories of businesses. So, having a resource to narrow down that search is important.
Fortunately, the National Association of Industry Classifications (NAICS) handles this for us. SIC codes were an earlier and similar categorization of industries. Either classification scheme is usable in Map Business Online.
To search by Industry, you will need to go to NAICS to search for the categories of business listing industries you want to pull. Go here and look up some of the industry types you’re interested in – https://www.naics.com/naics-search-results/ Get the codes and bring those 6 digit codes back to MapBusinessOnline for a search. Examples:
- Machine Shop – 332710
- Animal Protection – 115210
- Furniture Stores – 442110
Once you’ve found a category you think will work for your market, jot down the codes or copy the code, open the MapBusinessOnline Business Listings search, select Industry and paste in your category code. Click Validate and Count to see how many of those records are in your area of interest.
Once you decide to purchase a set of business listings, click Next. The tool will report how many listings you are purchasing, how many current credits you have, and how many will be left after this transaction. Each credit has a base value of $0.15. Purchase pricing breaks at 5,000 units, down to $0.10 each.
Business Listing Points on the Map
After purchasing your MapBusinessOnline business listings, your set of listings will display on the map as points. You are free to color-code or symbolize these records as you would any other dataset in MapBusinessOnline. If you are asking yourself, “How do I color code a map?” click here. You’ll also have a Data Window view with data details. Feel free to export the data out for use outside the application.
Business Intelligence from Business Listings
MapBusinessOnline mapping software can be viewed as map-based business intelligence. Business listing data secured through MapBusinessOnline includes information about each business:
- The critical contacts at each location with contact information
- Employee counts
- Rough sales estimates
- Branch locations
This information coupled with business mapping capabilities lends a vast amount of business intelligence for your company to apply to market analysis, competitor analysis, expansion planning, and strategic planning. Transform your organization into a map based business and reap the intelligence reward.
For example, a retail chain competitor imported into MapBusinessOnline gives the map viewer the geographic extent of the competitor branches. The map viewer can get a sense of business size and branch location placement. By considering this information along with demographic data, existing customer and resource location data, a business manager has a pretty good sense of their market position. For a few more critical details, call a few contacts from your downloaded business listings. Pretend you’re Ed McMann.
“This is Ed McMann from Publisher’s Clearing House. What is your best selling product.? What? Anything goes nowadays, right?”
OK. So celebrity impersonations may not be your thing. Try collecting business intelligence and prospects through MapBusinessOnline business listings, and find out how much more you’ll learn about your marketplace.
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Find out why over 25,000 business users log into www.MapBusinessOnline.com for their business mapping software and advanced sales territory mapping solution. The best replacement for Microsoft MapPoint happens to be the most affordable.
To access MapBusinessOnline, please register and then download the Map App from the website – https://www.mapbusinessonline.com/App-Download.aspx.
After installing the Map App, the MapBusinessOnline launch button will be in the Windows Start Menu or Mac Application folder. Find the MapBusinessOnline folder in the Start Menu scrollbar. Click the folder’s dropdown arrow and choose the MapBusinessOnline option.
The Map App includes the Map Viewer app for free non-subscriber map sharing.
Please read customer reviews or review us at Capterra, or g2crowd.
Contact: Geoffrey Ives geoffives@spatialteq.com or Jason Henderson jhenderson@spatialteq.com
