2017 Engage Mini-Interview: Dana DiTomaso

Dana DiTomaso will be speaking on Local Search at the Engage Conference, which will take place March 9, 2017 in Portland. For more information, or to purchase tickets,

1) Please give us your background and let us know what you do for a living.

I'm the President & Partner at Kick Point. I manage most of the conversations Kick Point has with potential clients, write proposals with the team, and assist with research and strategy development. I have the most technical experience at the company, but it’s important to me to always make time to offload that knowledge so that I’m not a roadblock anyone has to wait for for an answer. Analytics, data mining, and analysis are also tasks I enjoy taking on, because I’m a big nerd.

I’m usually also working on a presentation or panel for a conference, and I’m lucky to get to work with a team that wants to be involved in developing talks. A big part of my job ends up being about taking the incredible work the whole team does and then connecting it to a marketing concept for a presentation, so that attendees can see the impact strategic marketing actually has.

2) Do you think it’s inevitable that businesses will need to do PPC to get into the local 3-pack?

Absolutely. Google is turning into an advertising engine, with some SEO stuff thrown in when they don't have enough paid results.

3) What should a local business do to make sure their local listing is optimally effective?

You really can't have too much detail. Fill out everything you can. Tell a story. Why should someone come visit your business? Also, cultivate reviews — otherwise, only the angry customers will review you.