Edward Yao -Harnessing the Power of Technology to Deliver Positive Results

CEO & Founder of OneLocal

CanadianSME sat down with Edward Yao, founder and CEO of OneLocal, earlier this year to talk about his inspiration and motivation behind launching OneLocal as well as the prime goal that he wants to accomplish through his work. He also shared some of his thoughts regarding online reviews in building awareness of small businesses as well as their impact on driving trust and reliability. He also talked about the strategies that can be executed when it comes to digital marketing and the power of social media and email in reaching customers. Also, he discusses the role of online advertisements in the digital marketing of small businesses. Finally, he shared some of the strategies and ways entrepreneurs can drive brand awareness for their companies and set themselves for success. Together, we explore Edward’s role in driving digital success for SMEs across Canada.

Edward Yao is the founder and CEO of OneLocal. With a background in management consulting, he has already successfully built Canada’s first daily deals company, Teambuy, growing and scaling it to >$50M GMV and 130+ employees in under five years. A local marketing expert and thought leader, his career is focused on delivering measurable results, revenue growth and customer loyalty for businesses of all sizes. Eddy lives in Toronto with his wife Jessica and their dog Bolt.

What was the motivation and inspiration behind starting “OneLocal”, what are you hoping to achieve through the work that you do? 

Small businesses are an incredibly underserved market which is surprising, considering they represent nearly 99% of all businesses in the United States and Canada. In addition, small business owners typically cover at least three to five additional operational roles within their companies (bookkeeper, salesperson, marketer etc.) The result? Most small businesses lack the time, resources and expertise to adequately manage their marketing which is resulting in performance gaps and a failure to drive actual business results. 

At OneLocal, we solve for this in a few ways: first, through our suite of local marketing tools, which are explicitly designed to drive SME success and second, by backing up our tech with a real-life marketing expert to help guide our customers and optimize their success. 

Historically, SMEs have either marketed themselves directly or relied on agencies and publications to do it for them. Both scenarios are far from perfect. The first lacks expertise, results and time, while agency billables and media costs can quickly run into the tens of thousands, making it cost-prohibitive. At OneLocal, we operate as a hybrid solution that relies on proprietary technology and procedures to deliver the same level of marketing expertise and success at much lower subscription prices.

Online reviews are a significant source of credibility and are essential to the local marketing stack. This value is ten-fold for SMEs that don’t often have established online brand presences to drive trust and authority on their own. As one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO,  generating more, better quality reviews provide the social proof buyers are after while earning recognition and better placement by search engines. We use reviews within our own business to create trust and authority while improving SEO.

There is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy and gone are the days when we could call any single channel a ‘silver bullet’. With the average buyer requiring eight or more impressions to convert, multichannel or omnichannel strategies typically prove most fruitful.

Social media and email remain highly effective at driving the repeated engagement buyers to need to convert. In a post-pandemic, paperless world, I believe we’ll continue to see these channels grow as they become more and more engrained in the overall customer experience post-sale, with dynamic data and AI automating much of the process for business owners.

Optimization is an essential part of any marketing campaign, even more so for small businesses. Their budgets are often a fraction of those they are competing with at auction, so their campaigns must be run with a higher degree of efficiency to be successful. When it comes to online ads, optimization efforts are focussed on lowering customer click/CPC costs (improved headlines, ad copy and keywords) in line with improved landing page experiences that drive conversions while maximizing overall quality scores. Customers who self-manage ads before onboarding with OneLocal consistently see an immediate performance lift through optimization activities and the application of best practices.

We will continue to educate SMEs and entrepreneurs on the importance of taking a multichannel approach to their marketing. While each channel offers a chance at some marketing success, we see bigger wins when the systems are integrated and share data and unified management throughout the customer journey. 

From the product side, we will continue to productize our procedures to give our customers more and more self-serve options, adding automation and AI to reduce the time and effort they spend on redundant marketing tasks, targeting and communication fulfillment. 

OneLocal is revolutionizing small business marketing. With a best-in-class suite of local marketing tools, supported by a team of real-life marketing experts, OneLocal provides technology-backed, managed marketing services that allow small business owners to focus on their passions and what they do best – running their businesses. Backed by Y Combinator, Nimble Ventures and Share Capital, OneLocal levels the playing field while driving tangible results for thousands of small businesses throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Australia. For more information or to see a demo, please visit www.onelocal.com.

CanadianSME

With an aim to contribute to the development of Canada’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s), Cmarketing Inc is a potential marketing agency and a boutique business management company progressing rapidly in its scope. By acknowledging a firm reliance of the Canadian economy over its SMEs, the agency has resolved to launch a magazine, the pure focus of which will be the furtherance of Canadian SMEs, and to assist their progress with the scheduled token of enlightenment via the magazine’s pertinent content.

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