At the end of January this year, LSA announced a new certification program that sought to foster trust between advertisers (buyers) and marketing providers (sellers) by evaluating the business practices of these providers. Since launching the program, we are in discussions with around 50 companies and have officially certified three: RevLocal, ReachLocal and Moz.
Moz was just certified last week, but RevLocal and ReachLocal have been promoting their status as a certified company on various media outlets (email, social, press releases, etc.). Below is how they are using the LSA Certification “seal” on their respective websites:
Small, local businesses are the target of many sales calls, emails and letters for a variety of products and services. As it relates to marketing, one study found that on average, small businesses receive 24 sales calls each month from someone trying to sell them advertising or marketing services.
In many cases these sales reps make lofty or misleading claims. As a result, business owners don’t know which marketing providers they can trust. This is why we created the LSA Certification program.
Based on industry best practices, our robust review process for LSA Certification examines the following business practices:
- Sales practices and representations made to prospective clients
- Service standards and accountability
- Hiring and training practices
- Service agreements and contracts
- Transparency
- Security and privacy of information
If your company follows the utmost ethical business practices and are looking for a competitive differentiator, you should apply for LSA Certification. To learn more, click here.