Analyst Roundtable: Showroom Floor Edition

Data, social media and simplicity: These are the things driving SMB digital marketing, according to the mid-conference takeaways of this week’s Analyst roundtable.

While in New Orleans last week for the SMB Digital Marketing conference, Charles Laughlin and I grabbed a few minutes to do our standard analyst roundtable. In this case, it was in person instead of Skype. And the subject matter is all about conference takeaways.

In the video below, we discuss how most discussions in SMB marketing haven’t changed, though they are taking new form, in step with today’s media and tech trends. For example, simplicity in SMB ad tools continues to be a universal theme, shown in Reach Local CEO Sharon Rowlands’ keynote.

We also discuss how that relates to formulating product bundles for SMBs. And how are those products priced and sold? This invoked a panel consisting of local media sales reps and managers; and conversely a session of real life SMBs who reinforced the simplicity point.

Big data was also a big topic, culminating in Axciom CEO Scott Howe’s keynote. In some ways, big data is antithetical to simplicity, given the perception that it adds complexity. So the idea is to use data to support SMBs (and the sales reps serving them) in more automated or covert ways.

Much more to come in conference video footage, including these backstage interviews, as well as session footage.