Calling Strategies Announces Launch at The Kelsey Group's Interactive Local Media 2006 Conference

Richard Rosen, former executive with CallSource and Jambo, announces consultancy to focus on the phone as the connector in local search

Los Angeles, CA and Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) November 30, 2006 -- Calling Strategies (www.callingstrategies.com) today announced its official launch to the who's who of local search gathered in Philadelphia for the Kelsey Group's marquee Interactive Local Media conference.

Headed by Richard Rosen, oft-quoted executive in the field of telephone applications, Calling Strategies will focus on clients who are interested in pay-per-call, click-to-call, call tracking, and other phone-related search applications.

"I see many publishers approaching phone applications without the domain experience needed to maximize the true ROI potential," said Rosen, Principal of Calling Strategies. "The phone is not the second half of pay per click. This is new, complex territory. Calling Strategies will help clients over the learning curve. We create programs thinking about how the consumer wants to use them."

For the last five years Rosen has been at the forefront of local search helping facilitate the connection of consumers to local advertisers by telephone. These local merchants, particularly local service providers with no walk-in retail presence, an attorney for example, expect to connect with consumers by phone in order to schedule appointments

According to Rosen, more should be done in the automotive and real estate verticals, as well as in the Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) and local "horizontals," to prepare intelligent telephone strategies based on ROI. Publishers have used call tracking as a tool to prove return on advertising investment (ROI) to current advertisers. Call measurement applications report telephone response to the local advertiser in the same way that nearly all direct marketers track response into a call center. Call tracking as ROI has been the bedrock for several leaders in local, vertical search. Now is the time to apply this learning more broadly in local search, specifically as a way to find and sell new advertisers.

"We have an incredible amount of data that can be captured and analyzed," Rosen said. "Calling Strategies believes that mining this data is key to market leadership in local search. Advances in Internet Protocol (IP) Communications now enable publishers, for the first time, to analyze the connection of the phone call from the consumer to the merchant in a way similar, and complimentary to, how publishers currently analyze click-through traffic."

Calling Strategies will work with publishers and service providers to build new pricing models in cost-per-phone lead; and most promising, Calling Strategies will help its clients integrate the telephone response data into search algorithms in order to deliver more relevant results to the consumer.

"The phone call opens performance marketing to print, radio, TV, direct mail and other local media. This is a great time for publishers to develop their 'calling and local search strategies' for '07," Rosen noted.

About Calling Strategies
Calling Strategies is a consultancy firm which focuses on the phone as the connector in local search. Strategic business development, product management, marketing, sales and/or program management functions are provided to select clients seeking to launch and manage pay-per-call and phone-oriented local search applications. The firm helps clients navigate issues around pay-per-call; tracking phone numbers; click-to-talk; call detail analysis; call measurement for ROI and/or other phone-related topics. The practice is managed by Richard Rosen, a recognized leader in the space with 20+ years of experience. Richard has pioneered developments over the last six years in pay-per-call, local search and phone-related applications for Jambo, Callsource, EyeCron and Move, Inc.

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