A study was conducted in 2009 by TMP Directional Marketing regarding the annual growth of online local search and changes in consumer behavior. The study revealed that there was an enhanced usage of online search channels including mobile platforms, internet search engines and social media. Local business information is known mainly by the internet search engines.
It was found that there was 33 percent rise in the use of the searches compared to the previous year in the U.S. The usage of local search sites was increased by only one percent. It was reported that the usage of Internet Yellow Pages sites was increased by two percent.
About 40 percent of the people were found to use online searches for researching the brands that help in buying or finding the businesses that offer the brands. The TMPDM study revealed that 83 percent of local search users contacted businesses offline. It was studied that among them 46 percent were making contacts over the phone and 37 percent were visiting the businesses in person. Purchases were made by almost half of all online local business searchers.
Access of local business information by a mobile browser was in practice by 22 million people through June 2009. The study revealed that when compared to the previous year, access of local content through downloaded applications on mobile devices was done by 127 percent more users. A 11 percent increase was observed in searchers using internet-capable cellular phones for searching local business information from the mobile internet. It was also found that there was a rise of 27 percent of mobile users for looking the local information by SMS.