MapBusinessOnline newsletter – March 2017

MBO Webinar - Using Calculated Data Columns in MBO

Join us for a half hour Webinar on Thursday March 30th at 11:00AM EST. We'll be covering the use of Calculated Data Columns (CDC) in MapBusinessOnline. We'll walk through how CDC can combine demographic data layers, multiply and divide operations between data layers, and why people might use CDC. Click this link to register for the webinar.

MBO Discussion - Custom Territory Maps

MapBusinessOnline is designed to make territory mapping wicked easy for general business mapping users with limited technical capabilities. There are always a group of users requiring extra support to get their maps made. This is normal and not a reflection on your intelligence. It is the world we live in now. For some companies, with complex territories and limited human-power it may make sense to pay to have your maps created. These services are available at $100 per hour. We'll need to review your data, run some tests and provide estimates. This approach works well for some organizations.

MBO Tips & Tricks

Included in the MapBusinessOnline premium layer option, available to annual and team users, is a map layer called Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA's). These urban market geographies are designed by the US Office of Management and Budget and are used by the Census Bureau for statistical analysis. MSA's provide an excellent map layer for market analysis by urban areas. MSA can be color coded, filtered and queried just like ZIP codes. These geographic areas represent major metropolitan areas and can offer general market segmenting by major advertising markets. Think of them as a poor man's Designated Market Area (DMA).

Lightning Video - Can You Create a Heat Map?

A heat map is a map centric representation of numeric data, that displays the relative intensity of the selected data in color shadings. Heat maps are used to show increasing or decreasing intensity in location data. I think heat maps communicate quickly because they look like weather maps depicting violent thunderstorms. Heat maps tend to wake up an audience. Here's video describing the heat map process in MBO.

MBO Feature of the Month - MapShare, Sharing Interactive Web Maps

MBO MapShare is a low cost (almost no cost) way for you to share interactive web maps with your constituents. Any MBO subscriber can share their map work by saving the map, clicking the MapShare button and choosing Public Sharing. Within the MapShare Public Sharing option you can generate an email that includes the map link URL or copy the URL of your MapShare map and paste it into an email. After clicking on the link, your constituents will be able to pan and zoom all over the world, they can conduct incremental routing, they can query data, and save map views. They cannot edit the shared maps - shared map editing is only available for full year subscribers.

Common applications for MBO MapShare include:

Call center map use - Look up addresses or ZIP codes on a shared map for fast customer responses
Sales territory awareness - Share territory maps so field associates understand their coverage areas
Remote optimized routing - Share maps with traveling associates who can then build routes.

MBO Community - Honey I Need a Map

It's not unusual to get calls from administrative assistants who've been told to use MBO to build a map. And just keeping it 100, we never get calls from male admins. Often these tech support callers are panicking. Their boss wants a map that includes all sorts of data layers and they want it yesterday. These requirements can overwhelm a new map user. Relax. Give us a call and we'll do all we can to help. Check out the MBO video library on YouTube. Here's some words of advice based on our experience with this common technical support challenge:

Slow down. Your boss has waited thirty years for his map, he can wait another day or two while you get used to the program.
Don't let your boss solve all problems with one map. This just creates one messy map. Try to tease apart the boss' map requirements. One map for sales another for revenue, still another for territories will be more effective.
Watch a few basic MBO videos without taking notes, just to get used to how the tool works. Search for terms like "import," "ZIP code," and "territory." The videos are usually short.
Remember - Your boss knows less about maps than you will, after your done. And "managed business maps" looks great on a resume. Become the resident map geek.

Share Your Map Story

As always we are interested in ways to make MapBusinessOnline the best mapping software possible. Send us your business mapping software application examples. There are many map users who would like to learn about your application of business mapping.

Referrals

Referrals to friends, relatives or business associates are the highest compliments we receive from our clients. We appreciate your referrals.