We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog to bring you this special blog presentation. I had another blog drafted, but I felt this one was more appropriate for our shared historical moment. Some of our clients may want to build maps using Covid-19 publicly available data.
Mapping deaths by state isn’t the most uplifting of map subjects and for that I apologize. But this is the world we live for the time being and all of us are watching the numbers unfold, day-by-day.
MapBusinessOnline supports the ability to import Novel Coronavirus data into the application and then use the business mapping software to display both confirmed cases and the number of deaths by state and or county. As with any process, it takes some patience and careful assessment. There are quite a few decisions to make when creating an effective business map.
Find the Data
You may be fortunate enough to have access to a Covid-19 data source through your business. My government contacts are limited to the occasional rant-email to Senator Collins. Maybe I should say “restricted,” not so much limited. At any rate, I was forced to conduct a Google search to find reliable and updated Covid-19 data.
I recommend reviewing any dataset you plan to map before you begin creating the map. Explore its geographic extent and decide which map layer makes the most sense for presentation. Make sure you understand all the column headings. To be clear, there is one dataset for confirmed Covid cases and another dataset for deaths. It took me a while to realize this data was presenting a summary of cases and deaths for each day posted. That is, if I used the most recent column in time, I would be accessing the total number of cases or deaths to date in each County. So no further summaries are required. Really helpful once you realize it.
Import the Data into MapBusinessOnline
With the data downloaded to your desktop and saved in a place where it is easily retrievable (yes, sometimes we save it in a not so easily retrievable spot, eh Microsoft Onedrive?) import the data into MapBusinessOnline using the Plot Data button. Read about importing data.
This data came in wicked easy. It was all County data and plotted well. Quite a few counties had dots indicating Covid activity, which made sense based on what I’ve seen on the news and read online. Always review your imported data to verify correctness. I then Unchecked the data in Map and Data to remove the visualization of the data points. I don’t need points. I want to color-code counties and states by disease data to create a contagion map.
Let’s start with color-coding the State map layer by Covid-19 deaths. For me, understanding the number of deaths per state or county seemed like the most important measure of where we are with this thing. Here’s the color-code process:
Click the Three Puzzle Piece button to color code counties or states by the imported Covid data
Choose the State Map layer as you move through the dialogue pages
Now Choose your imported Data (Covid-Deaths) and
Choose the column in the data that presents the sum of deaths by the date.
This final dialogue page is where the magic happens. It requires some decision making. The color-code dialogue needs you to decide how the state layer should be colored to best display the imported data. You’ll need to decide on at least three things:
The number of color groups you want to set up – I chose 5
The color scheme for your range of data – I inserted my own color choice for each color group. Red is the high number and then orange and yellow gradations
The numeric break down between color groups. Start with 1 -10. Then move to 11-25, all the way up to 101 – 157 (the top number of deaths in a state)
Now you can choose a fill color for states with zero deaths, or choose to not include zero states. I chose a bland light gray fill color – not distracting, not too bright.
Covid-19 Deaths by State
Next, you can either preview the look of the map, or just process the map view. Either way, it’s easy to tweak the settings again. Generally, color choices take some time to settle in the map creator’s mind. In between tweaks, go to the State Layer in Map and Data and adjust the settings on these, look and feel items:
Set a nice dark boundary around each state.
Set the transparency scrollbar to a comfortable level – I went with 20%. Covid maps aren’t about background maps, but some background adds orientation to the map
Lastly, click into the Label Tab and adjust the Auto Label settings to give your label text the right feel. I like dark purple text with no shadow, normal size, and no italics. But that’s me
Select Pertinent Label Data
MapBusinessOnline allows the addition of up to five flexible fields with your Map Layer auto-label – the State label in this case. While you’re in the label section of the State Layer, decide what elements of your imported, and/or demographic data, you’d like to include in the label flex fields. I chose:
Cases – per state from the imported data
Deaths – per state from the imported data
Total population per state – from MapBusinessOnline demographic data
In the Label Tab, select Format Label, and Auto Label. Scroll down to see the Flex Field options. Dropdown first to select your data, then again to select your column. Insert a little text in the Prefix field to give your data some context. Your prefix might read “Cases –” and on the map, it will show: Cases – 150.
Update: I updated this Covid-19 map with new data this morning. This was a manual process that took about five minutes. My link pasted in here, is a Publicly Shared Map published through the shared map dialogue (4th button from left). Our Map Gallery version (not published yet) will be updated automatically using our data SDK. Once the link is shared the map viewer simply refreshes the webpage.Here’s the link!
With all those decisions made, you can now go view your map. Double-check your work:
Make sure you selected the right data for the right view (states in this case) and the right column of data. This means checking a State to see if the number listed is correct
Look at the coloring of the states. Does it make sense? Are they all there as expected?
How do you feel about the colors, do they display in a way that looks and feels easy to view? Or are they loud and obnoxious? Tweak them as necessary
You probably know your state’s numbers for today. Check the map data and see if it matches. Of course, you may not have the most recent number now, but it should be close
5. Adjust the Map Legend
Finally, look at the editable Map Legend and tweak it by clicking the tiny Edit gear in its upper-right corner. The Map Legend explains your layers to the map viewer. Within the MapBusinessOnline legend, you can consolidate text, overwrite text. You can uncheck map layers you don’t want to include in the legend. Go at it. Make that legend speak to your primary map objective.
Now, review the map and tweak as required. Adjust colors, transparency, text settings, and the map legend. Tweaking is a big part of creating an excellent map.
Here’s a bonus idea. You can take the point layer of either the cases or deaths data (or other data you find) and symbolize it using the Graph option, eleven buttons in from the left, Put Charts on Map. Charts work well for Covid because you can show three to six day changes. I used Covid Death data.
Choose to filter the data by Map layer – I chose the State layer
Select your target data
Select the Chart type
Select three or more of the Date columns – I chose 3/22, 3/23, and 3/24
Adjust the chart intensity bar – I chose 250% to make the graphs meaningful at a national level
Covid-19 with Chart Symbol
Let’s hope our time tracking the Covid-19 contagion is brief. All of us here at MapBusinessOnline hope you and your families remain safe and untouched by this horrid disease. We’ll get out of this eventually by following the advise of experts and working together for a safe recovery.
Value-Added Resellers – Offer the tool to your customers as a reseller. Make money on training and consulting. Contact us with further interest in reselling MapBusinessOnline.
Importing a spreadsheet of location data and viewing those locations against a web map is the first thing most new MapBusinessOnline users do when they log on. The business mapping function of importing data can be described in multiple ways:
Geocoding – that’s the official geospatial industry term for the data import process
Pinning – this is the term that has been coming up a lot lately. Think ‘pin the tail on the donkey’
Plotting Excel Data – a common search term for the functionality
Importing Location Data – a more descriptive way of saying it
MapBusinessOnline makes the importing of location data wicked easy. Here’s a blog I wrote a while back describing the import process, with a video included. Even the Free Trial, free mapping software, imports Excel spreadsheets with up to 1,000 records.
Business Listings are also available in MapBusinessOnline, see the Yellow Pages Icon on the master toolbar under search tools. Business Listings may also be symbolized by you crazy business mappers.
Once the data is imported into MapBusinessOnline and displayed on the map, the user may choose to adjust the symbols that are automatically applied by the tool upon import. This is done by clicking the Color Code Points button on the toolbar and using the color-coding process, including the symbol library. Read more about color-shading points.
Import and Display Your Custom Symbols
Once you enter the symbol library there is an option to import your symbols. The first thing you should do is find or create a group of symbols to use on your business map. Keep the new symbols small in file size and save them in Jpeg or PNG format. The symbol file size must be no larger than 50 KB.
From the Color Code with Symbols button (three colored balls) on the Master Toolbar, select your data and begin the standard choose symbol process
Click any symbol listed in the dialogue page to open access to the symbol library
Once in the symbol library, scroll to the top using the scroll bar on the right side of the dialogue page
At the top click into the Mange Custom Symbols button
Click the Upload a Symbol button and navigate to where the symbol is located on your machine or network
Select and import your new symbol. The symbol will be saved in the custom symbol library panel located just below the custom symbol buttons we just used. You’ll note that you can select and delete symbols as well
Accessing the Custom Symbol Import function
Tweak Your Symbols to Achieve Map Perfection
Realize that your custom symbol may not appear on the map exactly as you might have envisioned. It may require a couple of design passes to get your symbol just right. Keep those symbols small and succinct. You will have the option, once the symbol is placed on the map, to move the symbol around the geocoded point on the map, like a position on a clock face. You’ll see that position adjustment feature in the label or callout on the map.
You can also use the Edit Address and Location function in the Data Window to adjust your plotted location position. Sometimes users are more interested in the custom symbol positioning on the map than the accurate locations of the originally imported data points. In the Data Window, select that imported data layer, then hover your mouse over the very left column – the one that displays the colored geocoding accuracy dots. Click the Pencil when it pops up. Next, select the option to Edit Address and Location.
Custom symbols and symbols sets are useful for specific industry applications. Medical symbols proliferate. And because we may not be intimately familiar with your specific industry, we can’t decide which symbols make the most sense for your applications. Let us know if there is a symbol-set we should be supporting. We’ll consider adding it to the library of stock symbols, so you won’t have to bother to import custom symbols.
I’ve used custom symbol sets in MapBusinessOnline maps to display hurricane landing and impact zones, hospital area descriptors, and even dental services. There must be an endless requirement for more map symbols based on specific industries.
The Map App install is fast and easy. The Map App is a cloud-based service, once you’ve logged in you’ll have access to all of your previously saved maps and data. The Map App is a better user experience and provides access to more features than the Web App. The Flash-based Web App link will remain available until December 15, 2020.
The Map App includes the new Map Viewer app for free non-subscriber map sharing.
Value-Added Resellers – Offer the tool to your customers as a reseller. Make money on training and consulting. Contact us with further interest in reselling MapBusinessOnline.
All sales and marketing professionals today understand that we must access a variety of software tools to get our jobs done effectively. It is hoped that the combined application of a few of the thousands of the marketing programs available will lead to improved marketing results and measurable sales growth for the companies we work for. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.
A key step for marketing professionals, along the way to the perfect marketing message and blowing away the sales goal, is defining and developing the markets themselves, a process better known as market analysis.
A robust and productive market analysis should take location-based analysis into account. Markets almost always have location components that connect them to points or areas on the Earth. Geographic analysis in the form of business mapping software provides an effective way to organize location-based marketing data, expose trends in responses to advertisements and calls-to-action. Location data and map-based market analysis enhance general business intelligence gathering and enhance marketing and sales results.
The Benefits of Maps for Market Analysis
Map-based market analysis, or market mapping, provides critical and new perspectives, and provides measurable increases in sales based on the power of location intelligence.
The application of market mapping, an eminently affordable cloud-based software solution, will increase sales revenue for the organization and help define an addressable market.
Map-based market analysis helps to define marketing messages and prove which ones work most effectively. These tools are helpful in identifying core market areas and building market profiles that point to the most lucrative areas for business expansion.
1. Harness Location Intelligence for Your Business
Think of location intelligence as business intelligence related to a specific place on the surface of the Earth. Location intelligence is information that can help a sales and marketing organization compete and expand based on real data. Location intelligence offers a wide array of general information, data layers for use in business and market analysis. These data layers, with location components (address, ZIP code, lat/long coordinates) may include almost any kind of information, including:
Address locations for all branches, vendors, customers, and prospects
Industry types
Credit histories
Sales histories and statistics
Employee statistics
Demographic data – population, ethnicity, income, and more
Industry-specific statistics
Critical business resources and infrastructure
These are just examples. The list of location data layers is constantly growing and is also industry dependent – Chemical company location data may be different than Internet Service Provider location data.
By accessing and analyzing aggregated location intelligence across geographic areas of interest, sales and marketing professionals will define critical characteristics for customer success and develop market profiles by area. Often these market areas of interest are ZIP code groupings.
Active ZIP code market areas, areas where business is currently transacted, are overlaid with demographic layers such as population by age, household income levels, or specific ethnicity populations. Demographic data layers associated with ZIP codes and actual sales records begin to tell a story about the nature of the business under analysis. Sales trends will line up with certain demographic characteristics and a marketing profile will emerge describing the demographic buying habits of typical customers in that area.
Once a marketing profile has been established, business mapping software turns that profile into a template to expose other similar ZIP code areas where marketing success is most likely to occur. Market profiles are used to develop expansion plans for businesses who’ve seen great success in one area and wonder exactly where and how they can replicate that success in another area.
Map-based market analysis provides definitive answers to that ‘exactly where‘ question by combining the power of a filtered database analysis with map visualizations. By filtering a geographic database, the map marketing tool will generate a list of the top ten or twenty new market areas of interest, and the associated map visualizations will enable proximity views that identify where those best market opportunities are gathered or abut, strongly suggesting the most promising areas a business might consider exploring.
In this way, location intelligence and proximity analysis tools, will support marketing, sales, and strategic decision makers, all charged with promoting growth for their business.
Alternatives to Map-Based Market Analysis
As mentioned, marketing tools abound across the Internet. So, one might think, there must be alternatives to map-based market analysis. And it is true, marketing software and services exist that promise rich callout lists, in-depth market analysis, and accredited marketing consulting services.
Most list generation organizations are simply throwing bodies at the problem. They’re paying lower-tier, hourly hires to dial numbers and comb the Internet for a body that might show interest in an aspect of what you have to offer. But the reality is, they don’t understand your business – you do. Find and invest in tools that leverage your business intelligence.
Beware the list provider’s deliverables because their ‘qualified leads’ are not likely to become your measurable sales. Outbound sales phone calling is dead. What little potential the telephone channel had left was destroyed by telephone spammers. Nobody answers the phone anymore except grandma, and she’s busy getting scammed.
Ph.D. toting marketing consultants will invade your board room with a rush of activity and subject your organization to a series of time-consuming meetings. They’ll distill collected data down into a presentation that tells you what you already know. It will be a great presentation, with neat colorful slides, but their recommendations are going to involve hiring and firing and changes to the way you do business that may or may not generate sales growth. If the economy’s growing, you’ll never know if the consultant helped. If the economy tanks, you can blame the consultant for declining sales. If you do go the consulting route, make sure they include map-based, location intelligence analysis. And take their exorbitant fee out of your marketing budget so the expense is that manager’s badge of honor.
Map-based market analysis builds on the intelligence you’ve already gathered, overlaying your location data on preconfigured maps of the nation. You’ll be selecting Census Bureau demographic layers and business listings, that define your potential – that addressable market for your sales expansion. Any market mapping investment is going to be affordable – in the area of a thousand dollars. Don’t get suckered into $5,000 plus marketing studies. Take advantage of affordable map-based market analysis.
Map-based market analysis is relatively easy-to-use. Any employee used to Microsoft Office or the Apple equivalent will find the map marketing tools to be a quick learn. Check the reviews online. The best map-based marketing systems will rise to the top.
2. Use Maps to Calculate the Total Addressable Market
All businesses have markets. A plumbing and heating company may not require extensive marketing analysis because, in the area where they operate, the need for their services matches or exceeds their capacity to respond. We should all be so lucky.
But most companies must actively market and sell through a variety of sales channels to both maintain and grow their business. Businesses must allocate money, people, and time to marketing and market research. Forward-thinking businesses will be supplementing their sales and marketing processes with a business mapping software to conduct map market research.
Map-based market analysis tools are designed to overlay accurate digital maps with customer transactional history by location and by customer type. These customer maps are used to define markets for sales and marketing planning purposes. Geographic analysis combined with location intelligence, easily and quickly defines each of those key areas of interest as an addressable market towards which businesses can direct their sales and marketing efforts.
A simple spreadsheet of customer transactions by address, imported into onto a business map will define the areas and major industries a business currently sells to. These key industry types and market areas will determine the marketing and sales approach the company must apply as it expands. Mapping market research will:
Define the typical customer for products and services offered
Define optimum ZIP code or other district profiles by overlaying transactional data with demographic or industry data
Identify new optimum geographic market areas upon which to focus sales and marketing efforts
Help establish the sales and marketing approaches that will work best for any addressable market
While markets are often defined by industry type – manufacturing, health care, and retail are three examples – physical market areas are usually defined by ZIP code or county. Map-based market analysis can define market areas based on driving time around a central location, or a circular area surrounding a city – 50 miles is a common radius used to develop an addressable market. A defined physical market area can then relate product interest to demographic or industry characteristics:
Population by gender, age, and ethnicity
Household income levels
Housing statistics
The number of Chemical companies within a radius
Demographic analysis on top of map-based market analysis, multiplies the location intelligence derived from these defined market areas. Sales growth occurs fastest when location intelligence is applied. Map-based market analysis helps develop more effective marketing messages and creative marketing content, directed at the appropriate addressable markets.
Retail Market Analysis , Site Selection, & Expansion Planning
For instance, direct mail or newspaper advertising can be focused on specific ZIP codes. For retail marketing, those ZIP codes will be chosen based on an assessment of the of an acceptable customer drive time. How far is the average customer willing to drive to purchase your products based on a marketing message? A key question for the retail industry.
Any retail marketing messages should be directed only at those potential buyers within a specific and likely driving time, significantly reducing direct mail costs and enabling a localized marketing message, “Hurry down to Store One today to get your ZIP code-based discount!”
Map-based market analysis presents an accurate digital map with overlaid business location data that assembles demographic statistics, industry sales, employment data, and imported user data into a measurable addressable market. All of this compiled location intelligence is easily exported as a customizable reports.
Retail business can identify potential populations interested in their products and campaigns, by age, gender, ethnicity and by who live within twenty-minutes of the store location. In this way a retailer can calculate the potential revenue of that drive time area
Healthcare companies can define patient populations by age group and sort by diagnosis for families living within a twenty-five-mile radius of a major hospital, and calculate the expected campaign results for a given driving distance
MRO sales teams can identify all the potential manufacturing customers in a sales territory and estimate the potential revenue for the next year based on sales and employment data
With such affordable market mapping tools at your disposal, it seems almost reckless to not invest in these location-based solutions.
Develop Market Profiles by Radius or Drive Time Areas
3. Research Your Market
Once market areas and customer patterns are established, sales and marketing organizations need to drill into market data to learn as much as they can about their existing customers while developing plans to reach potential new customers with well-tuned messages. Map-based market analysis tools provide a visual platform over a database platform to both visualize and calculate market potential.
A crucial element of business mapping is the assignment of relevant Census demographic data to the actual sales territories where companies do business. Demographic data layers are easily queried appended to map analysis views. Existing business intelligence is extrapolated from sales results as market profiles and added to the analysis, creating a profile of a successful market. These market profiles based on thorough map market research are a vital step along the path toward sales growth.
Advanced map-based marketing converts local success into market profiles that when applied to other areas creates a launching pad for sales growth. Generally, market profiles are generated by accessing existing data available in standard business systems like sales order processing systems, CRMs, or ERPs. Each one of these business systems captures critical customer data as location data. Go look. Ask the person in charge of your CRM to export a list of customer transactions by address. Import those records onto a business map absorb the map visualization.
4. Reach Your Market – Now Track the Results
Once a marketing or sales department has established a new area of interest to target, strategies are created for targeting the intended audiences with the appropriate messages for products or services. A marketing strategy could consist of an email campaign, a social media campaign, pay per click web advertisement, or even periodical ads, although old school print ads are expensive and difficult to track.
Sales strategies are generally developed around sales territories and salespeople. For instance, a sales team might split a new market based on ZIP code areas with a ten-mile radius of a salesperson’s home location. Or a call center team might define urban area territories and assign each call center person a few urban areas to target with outbound sales calls.
Such territory planning activity leverages a sales territory mapping application to organize campaigns based on the demographic or business characteristics of target areas. Usually, sales territory mapping is available in any map-based market analysis package. Sales territories are an outstanding platform to:
Develop sales areas of interest in new markets or competitive markets
Assign sales accountability for customer contact and follow-through
Share sales results so that the sales process promotes team building and training
Track and derive appropriate sales compensation
Sales territory maps are flexible. Territories are initially based on marketing profiles for a given area but should be subject to adjustment as salespeople run their campaigns. Don’t keep sending the same representative into the same area if there are no results. Try different approaches or move on.
After a marketing or sales campaign has been established and the emails and offers have been transacted, it’s time to track the results. Results are usually tracked as sales dollars by account, ZIP code, or territory. Tracked results can be rolled up into branch or location results to measure branch network performance.
Determining how marketing and sales campaigns performed seems an obvious final step in the marketing process, but many organizations fail to do more than just tally up the sales totals and pay commissions.
Results should include analysis by area. An analysis of how each ZIP code performed can be used to optimize demographic and location-based targets for future campaigns. This crucial lookback location intelligence will be factored into the next campaign’s planning, as your organization gets better at defining markets and optimizing market profiling.
Conclusion
Market analysis is a fact of life for most businesses. Embrace it and embrace the cloud-based SaaS services that make it accessible and affordable for your business. Make sure your organization leverages its location-based business intelligence through map-based market analysis capabilities.
Several leading SaaS software applications can provide map-based market analysis including:
MapBusinessOnline Pro‘s map-based market analysis tools will help your marketing and sales team identify appropriate and lucrative addressable markets for your business’s products and services. MapBusinessOnline Pro offers an array of analytical approaches that will define your addressable markets and profile your best performing ZIP codes, counties, or other jurisdictions:
Enable retail markets estimates by driving distance, driving time, or straight-line radius
Define ZIP code area demographic characteristic and develop market profiles for use in expansion planning
Assess the number of potential customers within the proximity of a set of stores
Match the probable patient pool with a medical center’s planned capacity
Compile complete, multiple category demographic profiles of critical areas of interest
Calculate driving distances and times between multiple datasets of multiple business locations
Enrich imported datasets with demographic and geographic data
Generate market analysis and business intelligence reporting
The results tracked will serve to expand operations, fine-tune sales offers, enhance targeting strategies, driving your business forward in a competitive world. MapBusinessOnline Pro transforms collected location intelligence data into revenue expansion opportunities.
MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro versions offer ready to use map-based market analysis with prebuilt background maps and accurate street, demographic, and business listing data.
Leverage the affordable and accessible location-based market analysis tools available in the cloud and do it today. Any competitor worth its salt will be doing it. Don’t get left behind.
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
Scenario: You’re the new salesperson for an industrial construction products company. Your boss has handed you your territory. You will cover all of Orange County, Florida, East of highway I-4. “Gulp.” Cue the beads of sweat on your brow.
Problem: How do I effectively represent my sales territory on a business map by ZIP code in relation to a geographic object like a highway or a river?
ZIP codes are a nice way to build territories. ZIP codes help aggregate sales figures and demographic data nicely and they are the next logical step for defining your territories when the boss cavalierly cuts a whole freakin’ county right in half.
I hate when that happens.
But the boss is also responsible for controlling travel expenses across his team. “I don’t want Harry Callahan traipsing across Orange County, spending half the day crossing and re-crossing I-4 just because ServCo needs another set of heater-elements. We’ve got budget targets to meet. Sally can handle ServCo.”
Ok. It’s when Harry Met Sally all over again except it’s Where Harry Meets Sally, territory-wise. But there is a manageable solution for addressing this awkward sales territory situation.
Drawn Map Object Are Not Territories
Business mapping software does allow the users to draw areas, like all of Orange County west of I-4. But these drawn map objects and the resultant sales analysis views are limited in scope. Harry may want to conduct some market analysis on his territory area and a simple polygon drawn on the map won’t provide the same capabilities as a ZIP code based territory – and it’s ability to maintain scale at all zoom levels may be restricted as well.
Create ZIP Code Based Territories
Using MapBusinessOnline, Harry establishes his area of interest. By typing ‘Orange County, FL’ into the Address Bar in the upper left of the mapping application suddenly Orange County, FL takes up his whole screen. He pulls back out a few clicks on his scroll bar to give himself room to breathe, geographically.
Harry also decided to overlay his map view with the Highway Layer available in the Add More Layers button. This gives him a clear view of I-4 as it drops like a guillotine hacking away the West edge of his Orange County territory.
Next, Harry addresses the county and ZIP code layer look and feel, to provide visibility for his map work. Hovering over each layer in the Map and Data box, he hits the Edit Gear and then adjusts the fill transparencies under the General Tab. He moves the scroll bar to the right to 10% opaqueness or 90% transparency. And he thickens the borders of the ZIP code layer, coloring it a dark black or blue. On counties, with the fill mostly transparent, he thickens the border even more and paints it a bright red. This is so that the Orange County boundary clearly defines the area for the ZIP code territory work he’s about to undertake.
With ZIP codes visible against the County border Harry selects a polygon search tool from the MapBusinessOnline Master ToolBar Search Tool dropdown and quickly draws a polygon following the inside of the county border. Harry is careful to stay inside the I-4 corridor to the west. Completed, the polygon operation presents a dialogue with choices. Harry chooses the Binocular search icon, and a list of Map Layers is offered. Harry chooses the ZIP code layer. The resultant dialogue begs for a Territory Name, Harry chooses the incredibly creative and clever name of ‘Ter 1.’
“In line for a Pulitzer, Harry is.” Said Yoda.
Harry deletes that polygon he just created because it is no longer useful. The territory is Opaque with an assigned color of blue. He quickly adjusts the transparency on the Territory layer in Map and Data, just like he did for the ZIP code and County layers. He also adjusts the boundary of the territory to be dark and clearly visible.
Now, remember, Harry’s territory is made up of ZIP codes covering Orange County east of I-4. But some of those ZIP’s on the West side of Orange County, overlap the I-4 corridor, going beyond the highway and fall, to some degree – more or less, into the county to the west of I-4. That’s right, ZIP codes, counties, and major highways don’t always line up. Is there no God?
Hey, life is like an onion. You peel it off, layer by layer, and sometimes you weep. (Lipton Tea Bag, 1980.)
Anyhow, Harry views those highway crossing ZIP codes this way. I-4 cuts a swath between 7 and 13 miles wide off of the west edge of Orange County. A good chunk of the westernmost ZIPs in his territory follow the I-4 boundary. The others are overlapping with some showing a sizable percentage of area to the west of I-4, split roughly 50/50, and others showing about 10 or 15% western overlap.
Harry figures he should be the good guy on this, so he selects all those territories with large areas west of I-4 and removes them from his territory. He clicks one ZIP code, holds down the shift key and clicks the rest, then in the dialogue, with his territory preselected, he removes those ZIP codes from his territory and saves his work.
Solution: Now with Harry’s territory addressing 95% of the I-4 issue, he is ready to import a dataset of customer addresses and see if that doesn’t fix the problem. What are the chances there’s a major account in those thin overlapping areas? Murphy’s Law says its guaranteed, but he’ll work it out with Sally. She’ll have what he’s having, territory-wise.
Value-Added Resellers – Offer the tool to your customers as a reseller. Make money on training and consulting. Contact us with further interest in reselling MapBusinessOnline.
Ah, the lowly county. Not as sexy as a ZIP code, not as awe-inspiring as a state – the county jurisdiction is a shy, unassuming administrative district. Still, business map users often ask about counties. And some aspects of county use in a business map can be tricky.
Unlike ZIP Codes, a relatively new invention from the 1960s, counties have been around for eons. The Norman Conquerors brought the term County to Merry Old England. Counties replaced the Saxon administrative district called the Shire. A county seat was often associated with a Count, who was the ruling figurehead of the county area, representing the king. A famous example of a county law enforcement agency would be the Sherriff of Nottinghamshire from the Adventures of Robin Hood.
In today’s Louisiana, counties are referred to as Parishes, a left-over from French rule before Napoleon sold the Louisiana purchase to the United States. Another county substitute name is the word borough. Borough can also mean city neighborhoods, such as those found in downtown Los Angeles.
There are 3,220 counties across the USA and therefore listed in MapBusinessOnline’s county map layer.
In MapBusinessOnline the importation of county data can be used to color-shade an area based on counties or to create territories. The most important thing to remember when importing counties is that a State column is required in your data. Unlike ZIP codes, counties are not uniquely named. If you look around the country you will find eighteen Montgomery Counties, seven Howard Counties, and surprisingly only five Smith Counties. So, it is important to always include a state abbreviation when importing a list of counties or searching for a county in the Search Bar.
Some users prefer territory maps based on counties as opposed to the more popular ZIP code based territory map. Counties can simply things from a territory perspective. Typically, counties are large enough to include more than a few ZIP codes. So, if minimizing overlap and providing larger areas for a sales rep to manage, is your goal, try using counties as your territory base map layer.
Because counties usually encompass a wider area than ZIP codes, counties may provide a more sensible territory balance basis. Population densities will tend to even out, where small ZIP codes, especially on the East coast, can be packed with people. Small ZIP codes with lots of population are tough to balance against large ZIPs bereft of people. Shifting your territory basis to counties may solve that problem.
Map Business Online does offer a filter option to view map layers by Primary County and Primary ZIP code. The reality is ZIP codes and counties do not always lineup perfectly. ZIP codes can overlap two or even three counties in places. Primary county views will provide a list of the ZIP codes with the majority of its land area dedicated to a particular county. This tool doesn’t come up often, but every once in a while, the Primary ZIP code and county options come in handy.
MapBusinessOnline offers a heat map button along the master toolbar. This map visualization will assign color density to a column of imported numeric data – like sales data or population characteristics. This view will display concentrated areas of sales activity, for example, like blotches of bright colors.
But often MapBusinessOnline customers who want to “heat map” means they want to color shade ZIP codes of Counties by their imported data, or perhaps by demographic data. Thus, a heat map can be a group of counties color-coded based on a column of data.
A simple and quick example is a Choropleth map showing county population estimates by County.
Of course, almost any business map could be considered a map visualization. Business map visualizations are maps that turn organizational location data into compelling map-based analysis.
A simple map visualization might be a heat map as described above. But more advanced visualization can include multiple layers of information including customer locations, sales data, demographic makeup by administrative district, and even map notes.
Map visualizations are intended to inform a map viewer, typically a business audience, about business trends, concentrations of activity, and areas of responsibility. As opposed to analysis, these maps tend to show the big picture. They transmit a message that an audience can understand without a lot of detail. Example messages might be:
Half of our business is in California
These sales territories are selling at a rate that will not hit goal by December
All these counties are polling for either Biden or Sanders
Map visualizations should be concise, representing one or two major points, and they should be relatively uncluttered with superfluous information. Do not use too many colors and data layers. Keep your map simple.
The use of counties in map visualizations helps to maintain a simple map structure. Counties cover a wider area than ZIP codes, which can get lost when viewed on a national scale. Counties still provide a relatively detailed distribution of demographic data, which can be too disseminated at a state level.
Map Analysis
MapBusinessOnline includes a Data Window or tabular datasheet view. From this perspective, sales territory analysis and marketing lists can be developed for export. Demographic profiling by ZIP code or County can also be developed and exported for use outside of the application. This data analysis is accomplished largely through the application of the powerful More Data button in the lower right of the Data Window view. Read more about More Data.
The Data Window includes a filtering tool. A business mapping user can choose between counties, ZIP codes or other map districts to filter for demographic data or imported business data. Counties are helpful in such analysis.
One-way counties can be particularly helpful is when analyzing impacts across regional areas. For example, when hurricane mitigation efforts are reviewed or planned, the impact at landfall is typically most devastating in the cone area. ZIP codes would generally be too small to be effective as a gauge of impact, while counties might encompass an entire cone of impact. Either way, the demographic data is there for your analysis.
TIPS on Using Counties in Business Maps
When using counties in your business mapping always make sure to include states. Counties are not unique like ZIP codes.
When filtering for counties, try to use the Contains modifier. You’ll go crazy trying to find exact matches by county
Forty-seven county names include the word ‘City’ as part of the name. That can be confusing when searching for Alexandria City County, as an example
Territories are created by either a County or by a ZIP code map layer. You cannot mix the two in one territory. Defer to the smallest geography required.
And keep in mind that county and ZIP code boundaries do not always line up with State or County boundaries. Often, they do line up, but not always. Therefore Map Business Online includes a data window map layer classification for Primary County and Primary ZIP code – in case you need to filter for only those ZIP codes with a majority of its landmass in a particular county or set of counties.
Value-Added Resellers – Offer the tool to your customers as a reseller. Make money on training and consulting. Contact us with further interest in reselling MapBusinessOnline.
MapBusinessOnline provides the business map user with the ability to create formulas and ratios using the Calculated Data Columns tool. Calculated Data Columns are applied by map layer. The Calculated Data Columns tool is accessed by selecting a targeted map layer in Map and Data.
For example, hover your cursor over the ZIP code layer in Map and Data and click the Edit Gear that pops up. In the General panel that opens, choose Manage Calculated Data Columns.
Calculated Data Columns provides access to the complete library of Demographic Data included with every MapBusinessOnline subscription – Standard or Pro. It also provides access to imported data layers. This means a user could sum, subtract, multiply or divide using numeric data columns in demographic data layers or their imported data. Pretty cool.
When the user opens Calculated Data Columns, she starts with a simple dialogue panel that is the Calculated Data Columns home-base. Choose the option to Add a Data Column. Up pops a dialogue page that may take a minute to sink in. The top section allows the user to name the Calculated Data Column created. Also available in the top section is the ability to set the Number formatting and adjust the number of places and decimal allowances required. This is all a matter of set-up.
Below all that, the left panel provides access to both demographic and imported data layers through a dropdown. A map creator can select numeric data from the left selection panel and move it to the right panel, either as the numerator (top section) or the denominator (bottom section.) That is assuming you want to divide or create a ratio.
Wait! Are we back in fourth grade? Sorry, but how often do I get to use the terms numerator and denominator in a blog? My 4th grade teacher from 1968, Miss Story, would approve.
Sum Demographic Data by Age Group for Retail Marketing
Most of the time, when I create a Calculated Data Column, it’s just a summation of related demographic data layers, like all population layers ages 65 and up. The resultant Calculated Data Column will be available in the Color Code Map operation associated with that specific Map Layer (ZIP Code – for example). The user clicks Color Code Map (Three Puzzle Piece icon), selects the proper map layer, and then, from the data selection dropdown, chooses Calculated Data Columns. The example used, the summation of the elderly population, is a popular map visualization for the homecare and assisted living industry. Read more about Color-coding a map layer.
Created and save Calculated Data Column results are available for use in map visualizations and analysis in the follow MapBusinessOnline functions:
Retailers might want to arrange a similar, age-based calculated data column for target audiences – teens through 20-somethings, or perhaps 30-something to 50-something women for specific products and services. Use Calculated Data Columns to sum demographics by age.
Calculate Demographic Data by Percentage for Political Analysis
Still, sometimes you might want to display a ratio of data. In which case you’d place your numerator data in the top and the denominator data in the bottom panel on the right and select Divide, in the middle. An example application might be to determine if the population of women ages 30 to 54 has increased or decreased since 2016 for all ZIP codes.
Calculated Data Columns Dialogue
Notice you can also choose to divide one demographic data layer by the sum of two demographic data layers to derive a percentage. Make sure to choose Percentage as the number style option in the dropdown. These tools might prove valuable for political data analysts. Especially when comparing one election cycle to another and looking at demographic changes.
Calculated Data Columns for Business Intelligence Gathering
Another example that could come in handy for marketing and sales analysis, is the percentage of high-income populations by city limits or groups of cities. Often, boroughs, enclaves, or suburbs need to be grouped geographically to access public service requirements, potential markets for products and services, or government grant viability.
Calculated Data Columns used in conjunction with area groupings, or territory creation, can offer significant insight into the requirements of specific areas. I’m thinking about areas surrounding affluent cities like Palo Alto, California; Chevy Chase, Maryland; or Dallas, Texas. Such analysis is helpful for business expansion planning or relocation analysis, based on high disposable income areas.
Calculated Data Column formulas are available to MapBusinessOnline users from the same data dropdowns that offer access to demographic data. See my last blog on Demographic Data access.
One of the most powerful aspects of Calculated Data Columns and Demographic Data within MapBusinessOnline is the ability to aggregate totals into map layer labels. This means a ZIP code or a Territory label can reflect calculated data using up to five flexible label fields. Map creators can display instant business intelligence for the casual map viewer.
To “sum” up, MapBusinessOnine users can then apply Calculated Data Columns to the following applications:
Combining demographic layers by age for medical, insurance, and tax purposes, as well as political analysis
Combining demographic layers by income for market analysis, banking, and tax purposes
Developing ratios and percent calculations for map visualizations and labeling supporting political maps, market analysis, and real estate management
Pretty much any business mapping application, where you want to display a subset of a larger demographic data category, an ethnic component to overall populations, or an age segment of a gender population, will benefit from the use of Calculated Data Columns.
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 and review us at Capterra, or g2crowd
Contact: Geoffrey Ives geoffives@spatialteq.com or Jason Henderson jhenderson@spatialteq.com
Let’s compare MapBusinessOnline Standard’s Market Analysis button features to MapBusinessOnline Pro’s Market Analysis features.
Both versions of MapBusinessOnline allow for the import of location datasets, typically Excel spreadsheets, but the import could be a text file or even a database file. Read more about preparing Data for import into Map Business Online business mapping software.
Market Analysis in business mapping can mean many things. In MapBusinessOnline, it means generating complex map visualizations with additional capabilities for analysis through the Data Window tabular data view.
Conduct spatial searches around up to 200 center points
Import multiple layers of Demographic Data and imported data layer columns
Generate reports for export that reflect a market’s characteristics and provide base-line marketing profiles supporting business expansion
In general, MapBusinessOnline Standard can query one drive time or radius area for data. MapBusinessOnline Pro extends that capability to multiple datasets.
MapBusinessOnline Pro Advanced Driving Distance and TimeQueries
Before we go too far, keep in mind that MapBusinessOnline Pro includes all the functions of Standard. If you upgrade to Pro, your costs will be prorated to accommodate your existing investment and your Standard subscription’s remaining credits and subscription period.
MapBusinessOnline Standard, market analysis tools, use straight-line distances when conducting location-based queries. That’s another big difference between Standard and Pro. MapBusinessOnline Pro provides multiple center point queries with the option of choosing straight-line distance, driving time, driving distance, or some combination of all three when calculating distances and times between points.
These driving distance and time calculations across multiple points provide businesses with specific information quickly:
Location intelligence – data collection based on drive time and radius searches of demographic data around a series of plotted points
Logistics planning information across a road network supporting field staff management and delivery systems
Coverage Area Cost Assessments for businesses that require employee travel
Competitive Market Analysis calculations of market viability and likely customer driving time windows
Retail Expansion viability, also related to customer drive time toleration
Emergency Healthcare Planning based on demographics surrounding multiple medical centers
Product Placement at wholesale and retail locations
Import 250,000 Locations Points – Regions & Divisions
MapBusinessOnline Pro supports the import of up to 250,000 location points per map. That’s a lot of location data. You’ll be surprised to discover the cost of geocoding more than 10,000 records on a map at once. We do our best to offer a more competitive solution for mass geocoding within a cloud-based business mapping application. This means constantly reviewing the web services market to assess and reassess the best geocoding options for the money.
We recently updated MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro to both provide hierarchical sales territory support for regions and divisions—or whatever your company calls them—groups, zones, or just plain areas.
Hierarchical support now includes the ability to import territories, regions, and divisions from a spreadsheet. Taken as a whole, we believe MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro offer the best sales territory management solutions on the market.
Point ZIP Codes over Boundary ZIP Codes
Here’s a list of some of the mapping functions available within MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro (Keeping in mind Pro included all standard features):
Radius Search – Standard
Multiple Radius Search – Pro
Drive Time Search – Standard
Multiple Center Drive Time Search – Pro
Drive Distance Search – Standard
Multiple Center Driving Distance Search – Pro
Create and Manage Territories – Standard
Create Multiple Drive Time or Distance Territories at Once – Pro
Create Regions & Divisions – Both Pro and Standard
Summarize up to Ten Layers of Demographic Data by Area – Standard
Summarize Multiple Demographic Layers by Territory for Reporting – Pro
Enrich Imported Data with Demographic and Geographic Layers – Pro
Overall applications of MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro have some differences:
Basic Market Analysis Visualizations – Standard
Sales Planning and Optimized Routing – Standard
Import up to 50,000 location records per Map – Standard
Import 250,000 records plus – Pro
Create up to 50 territories per map – Standard.
Create up to 1,500 territories per map – Pro
Advanced Map-based Market Analysis – Pro
Market Area Profiles by Drive Time or Distance – Pro
Concentric Circle Demographic Analysis by Drive Time or Distance – Pro
If your business is concerned about multiple locations and driving time-related analysis, or if you have excessive location data to import, you should consider MapBusinessOnline Pro.
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.
Demographic data is accessed by business map users to build location intelligence supporting better business decision-making. Sometimes the data is used to simply display population densities by area. In another case, that demographic data becomes the baseline data for establishing an addressable market for a product line or service. Simple or complex, demographic data is critical to business and market analysis.
MapBusinessOnline provides access to Census Bureau demographic data layers. The data is sourced from the Census American Community Survey (ACS), which publishes updates to the ten-year Census. I’m sure the Bureau is preparing to gather a boatload of Census data as I write this, it being 2020 and all.
MapBusinessOnline now comes in two flavors, Standard and Pro. Both versions of MapBusinessOnline have access to the same demographic data. Any prospective buyer of MapBusinessOnline can access those data layers using the Free Trial. You’ll be able to scroll through the data options. However, you will not be allowed to export any of the demographic data unless you purchase a subscription.
Both MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro offer Demographic data and Business Listings (a paid-for service).
Demographic Data in MapBusinessOnline Standard
The Standard subscription of MapBusinessOnline offers access to demographic data in the usual MapBusinessOnline ways. Those include these seven options:
Color-shading map layers by Demographic categories. Click the Color Code Map button (Three Puzzle Piece button). Color any map layer by any demographic category. Application Example – color code ZIP codes by population density
Conduct Summary queries on map objects like Radius searches and Polygons. Application examples – create a circle population map and export the results or develop household income by radius queries
Append map layer Labels with aggregated demographic data. Application Example – aggregate all Hispanics within a territory label
Sales Territory Analysis in the Data Window using the More Data button. Application Example – get a rough idea of how all sales territories compare in terms of total population. Are they balanced?
Filter Demographic data layers in the Data Window. Application Example – filter city boundaries by highest proportion of median income
Export Data Window reports. Application Example – build a population growth map for a strategy session
Create simple calculations and sums of Demographic data layers in Calculated Data Columns. Application Example – display all ZIP codes by males ages 65 and up
A tire-kicking, uninitiated free-trialers can try MapBusinessOnline’s free map tools, population, median income, and ethnicity data is there for your review.
MapBusinessOnline Standard leverages all the above-listed access points to our growing Demographic Data library. You will find all major categories of demographic data listed. If you do not see the demographic data you seek, please let us know and we will consider adding it to our list of possible future enhancements.
MapBusinessOnline Standard demographic data is most often used for these applications:
MapBusinessOnline Pro accesses the same demographic data libraries as Standard. All the MapBusinessOnline Standard features exist in Pro. From a product feature standpoint, the difference between MapBusinessOnline Standard and Pro is:
Pro allows up to 250,000 location points per map, and Standard is limited to 100,000 points per map
Let’s review the access points to demographic data in MapBusinessOnline Pro’s Market Analysis tools. The first five tools listed under Market Analysis are NOT designed to access demographic data directly.
Search & Segment from Multiple Centers – Use this function to create advanced marketing lists or territories. There is no direct tap to demographic data, except through the territories or areas of interest created. From within a territory click Map Data.
Two options for Batch Calculate Distance Queries – Two tools used for calculating distance queries across multiple locations and between two sets of data. Not used for demographic data access
Find the Nearest – This proximity search compares datasets and appends the nearest locations. Not used for demographic data access
Aggregate Customer Data – Use this tool to manage the application of imported customer data to geographic analysis. Not used for demographic data access
These final two tools listed in the Market Analysis Tools options are used to aggregate demographic data in Pro:
Summarize Demographic Data – This tool will allow the creation of multiple radius searches and add three categories of demographic data to the analysis. Repeat to get more and more data
Enrich a Dataset – Select your imported or created data in MapBusinessOnline Pro and add selected categories of Demographic Data to the data layer
Two Demographic Access Points in Pro Market Analysis
Summarize Demographic Data in Market Analysis will allow the user to place multiple radii (more than one circle) around a list of center points at a user-defined distance and collect up to three layers of demographic data which will be added to the Data Window results. The multiple circles limit right now is 200 locations contained in an imported dataset or MapBusinessOnline created marketing list.
You’ll collect three layers of demographic data with each pass. Once the initial query has been run, it is really easy to simply run that very same query again but change the demographic layer options to aggregate more layers. Rinse and repeat (do it again, until satisfied.)
This is an approach that can be used to generate results across an array of circles at different center points, or for a set of concentric circles around one central point. How cool is that?
Application Examples – Delivery circles describing fees for delivery by ZIP code. Multiple circle radii display demographic totals for a designated area around a central point – like a private school or a museum
Enriching a Dataset lets the Pro user import a dataset or create a dataset in Map Business Online and then add three demographic data categories to the original dataset by ZIP code, County or State. For more data, repeat the operation. Application Example – Product sales analysis enriched to expose market patterns.
Tapping into demographic data through a business mapping application is the process for collecting business or location intelligence; these two types of intelligence are practically synonymous. Use MapBusinessOnline to overwhelm your business processes with data, then feed the decision-makers with exactly the data they need through a Business Map.
The Map App install is fast and easy. The Map App is a cloud-based service, once you’ve logged in you’ll have access to all of your previously saved maps and data. The Map App is a better user experience and provides access to more features than the Web App. The Flash-based Web App link will remain available until December 15, 2020.
The Map App includes the new Map Viewer app for free non-subscriber map sharing.
Value-Added Resellers – Offer the tool to your customers as a reseller. Make money on training and consulting. Contact us with further interest in reselling Map Business Online.
A business map solves business problems. That’s why you take the time to learn a program like Map Business Online or justify a $500 ($350 renewal) investment in business mapping software. Every day we field chat, email, and phone inquiries from new users who need to solve business problems with a business map.
The ZIP Code Map
Often those business problems involve ZIP codes. Map Business Online customers quite regularly ask about creating a ZIP code map. ZIP code maps run the gamut from simple to complex maps. Our business mapping software can create a basic map of ZIP codes color-coded to reflect sales history, or it can generate a complex nationwide sales territory map based on the ZIP code map layer.
A simple question like, “Will your application provide a map of the USA with all ZIP codes?” is more complex than one might think. Users who may be new to mapping don’t realize there are two distinct types of ZIP codes – boundary and point ZIP codes. That fact can make their new map venture a little more complicated then the average user might want to grapple with as they begin using a business mapping tool, but it is the reality of ZIP codes. Our job is to help users get the maps they need, not sugar coat the world of USPS ZIP codes.
Map realities exist. Just as in any other discipline, you must learn the nuances of the subject. It’s the same for weightlifting, yoga, landing a man on the moon, or writing blogs. A Chat statement like, “I will not spend time learning your program,” doesn’t change the fact that any program must be learned. It is so easy to flame out on Chat. We all do it from time-to-time.
Another tough fact for people to grasp about business mapping is that full addresses are much more useful for analysis than ZIP codes. A ZIP code only address, imported into a business map as a record of a customer transaction, is just a point in the middle of that ZIP code. If you have two customer transactions tracked by ZIP code only, without a full address, you will have only one point on the map representing two transactions that in reality are located at two addresses. We highly recommend the use of full addresses when importing customer data – Map Business Online’s most common customer operation.
Point ZIP Codes over Boundary ZIP Codes
The Territory Map
A common use of business mapping software is creating sales territories. Most often, territories are created in one of two ways; either by accessing a polygon search tool and lassoing a group of ZIP codes and naming them or by importing a spreadsheet listing ZIP codes and their corresponding territory name. Map Business Online provides easy steps to achieve both approaches to sales territory mapping.
Still, the process requires some consideration and decision making. There are preparatory questions to answer:
What map layer or administrative district will my territories be based on? ZIP code, county, city, or other?
Will I allow our sales territories to overlap?
What demographic or business data columns will I import into my territory analysis for balancing and business analysis?
Territory maps in business mapping include a data table view. To some, this is intimidating at first until they realize its power. Viewing business data, like sales history or Demographic data, in a territory data table view is the core power of business mapping software. Such views transform your basic understanding of where your company does business into an expanded view of why your company does business and how you might improve that business. Business intelligence should include location intelligence in order to drive business expansion.
Other common requests include the creation of a radius map which is really a circle on a map within which the map user may want to query their imported data or business listings. Radius searches in Map Business Online are available at the click of a button along the master toolbar or in the mini menu associated with any plotted point.
Plotted point menus show up next to any point plotted in the tool. There are six mini menu buttons that provide map operations associated with an imported or plotted point on the map:
Apply a radius search with user input for the plotted circle radius
Apply a driving time or distance search which will place a polygon on the map showing the area a vehicle could cover in all directions over a specified time or distance along the road network
A dataset management tool to organize your plotted points
An editing tool to edit your point’s look and feel
Obviously plotted points are important in Map Business Online, but they usually are plotted to create a circle or drive time polygon. Users are almost interested in the area around a point, not just the point itself. Although, they may not realize that fact when they initially plot the points.
Any of these basic functions, available in a business mapping tool, provides map visualizations that range from simple map views to complex market analysis. Map Business Online Standard is the more affordable solution for general business map users. Map Business Online Pro is a more advanced tool, delving into complex market analysis tools and driving time and distance queries. If your business is in expansion mode, or interested in identifying an addressable market – consider Map Business Online Pro.
So, whether your requirement is simple or complex, just a ZIP code map or building a market profile by ZIP code, remember help is a click or an email away. The world of Mapping is fascinating and rich in history.
Your last name does not have to be Magellan or Columbus to use a map. In fact, their maps were way worse than yours and I don’t see you headed off to sea in a galleon or a pinace.
Value-Added Resellers – Offer the tool to your customers as a reseller. Make money on training and consulting. Contact us with further interest in reselling Map Business Online.
I’ve worked in the geospatial field for over twenty years now. This milestone seriously blows my mind, both because it reminds me how fast time flies and because it’s been a winding road. My initial time in geospatial sales was with DeLorme Publishing (now Garmin), where I headed up their professional sales division selling business mapping software, map data, and GPS devices.
At both DeLorme and MapBusinessOnline, our sales teams occasionally fielded customer requests for a ZIP code-to-ZIP Code driving distance or time analysis. A “ZIP-to-ZIP” analysis compares either:
One list of ZIP codes to another list of ZIP codes or
A list of ZIP codes to a single ZIP code
as a way to develop an array of all the driving distances between all ZIP codes in both datasets. I felt I should break that sentence up with bullets to improve its readability.
If you displayed a ZIP-to-ZIP analysis on a map, it would be an incredibly dense set of routes crisscrossing each other, but the result is usually a list of ZIP codes with distances or times noted for each record set.
ZIP-to-ZIP calculations are helpful for specific use cases in geographic business analysis.
Companies need to generate rough estimates of future driving and travel costs for cost projections, fuel consumption projections, and expense-related estimates.
Package delivery companies use ZIP-to-ZIP calculations to develop delivery fees and delivery time estimates across their coverage areas.
Market analysis applications also exist that require distance and time estimates along a road network tallying how many people are willing to make the trip to a product launch or an advertised sale at a retail store.
Service tech organizations might use the same analysis to track and analyze service tech calls to a list of customer addresses.
Batch Calculate Distances
At MapBusinessOnline, we refer to ZIP-to-ZIP calculations as Batch Calculation of Distances or Times Across Multiple Centers. The ability to process this complex query is a feature in MapBusinessOnline Pro. When a MapBusinessOnline user imports a ZIP code or a set of ZIP codes into MapBusinessOnline with no associated addresses, the application plots the ZIP points at the centroid or center point of the imported ZIP code(s).
ZIP Code Centroid Points
The beauty of MapBusinessOnline Pro is that it enables multiple center point analyses across an entire dataset of imported ZIPs (within reasonable limits.) The tool also includes several batch-calculate distance and time operations in its Market Analysis tools.
Straight Line Distance.
Driving Time Distance.
Driving Time.
Combinations of the Above.
It’s essential to keep the unique location of the Batch Calculate button in mind as you process a ZIP-to-ZIP analysis. That particular tool is found on the Mini Toolbar associated with a plotted center point in your analysis. See the picture below and read on.
Batch Calculate from a Plotted Point
MapBusinessOnline solved the ZIP-to-ZIP problem by inserting an advanced feature in the recently released MapBusinessOnline Pro. It is deceptively simple once you become aware of how to do it. If your current subscription is the Standard Plan, you must upgrade to Pro to access Batch Calculate Distance features. Read about pricing plans here.
The Problem and the Solution
A customer desired to analyze all distances from one central plotted ZIP code point to the outlying list of ZIP codes within a 150-mile radius of the center ZIP.
Here are the steps to achieve this ZIP code-to-ZIP code analysis:
Using MapBusinessOnline Pro, in the Address Bar at the upper left of your MBO screen, plot the center ZIP code for your analysis.
At the plotted center point, a mini toolbar now appears. Click the Radius Button on the mini toolbar and Query the circle for all the enclosed ZIP codes.
Export the ZIP codes from MBO (The far right button on the Data Window Toolbar) and save them to your desktop. The file is exported as a CSV file.
Click the plotted point toolbar again. Select the Target Icon Button for Market Analysis and Batch Distance Calculation
In the Drop Down, choose Drive Distance (note the options listed – Straight Distance, Drive Time, Drive Distance, Combos).
Plot the Exported and Saved ZIP code file.
Input a Column Label descriptor like “ZIP” or more descriptive depending on your analysis.
Process the query.
Results will be posted to the Data Window for Export.
MapBusinessOnline Pro provides advanced map-based business analysis for land-based organizations, delivery-focused, sales territory-oriented, and travel-intensive. Demographic data layers are available to develop comprehensive market analysis solutions driving sales growth.
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.
