At BIA/Kelsey’s National Brands, Local Marketing conference March 25-27 in Dallas, we’ll be hearing a lot of discussion around where spending is going for national marketers. Based on a survey just released by Duke University’s Prof. Christine Moorman the news is really good!

Overall, CMOs are showing their most positive outlook about the overall U.S. economy in five years with an average optimism rating of 69.9 percent in Feb 2015 versus 47.7 percent in Feb 2009 (0 percent is least and 100 per cent most optimistic).

CMOs plan to increase their spending by 8.7 percent in 2015 based on their expectations for an improving economy. When you break down that spending, digital spending will be up 14.7 percent compared to a 1.1 percent decline in traditional advertising. That increased digital spending will occur less in B2C product categories (2 percent increase) but we’ll see the digital spending rate double in 2015 versus 2014 overall and in the B2B product, B2B services and B2C services categories.

The CMO survey included results from 288 top U.S. marketers at Fortune 1000, Forbes Top 200, and top marketers who are AMA Members or Duke University Alumni and Friends (10.9% response rate).

Check out the CMO survey results in detail but if you really want to know the story behind the numbers, we’ll hope to see you in Dallas where you can hear and meet the speakers responsible for directing this increased spending into digital advertising and marketing.

The post New Survey Shows Optimistic CMOs Increasing 2015 Digital Spending appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Sales Momentum recently published a stat that says $15 million was spent on marketing new products which does not factor in the product vetting process, integration into back office systems, IT support, sales training costs and lost opportunity of poorly executed launch plans which could push that figure north of $25 million. This investment figure was balanced by a recent UCLA study which indicates more than 50% of new products fail.

While many factors contribute to the success or failure of new products such as competitive differentiation, ease of sale, and fulfillment support, one key area BIA/Kelsey has been investigating is the hand off between product marketing and sales. While there is often heavy investment in time and resources discovering, vetting, negotiating and integrating new products within a media company, often there are miscues in translating the product and marketing message into a coherent sales plan and approach. Some of the key areas fumbled include:

• Fully researching and defining the specific target audiences. Many product marketing plans focus on number of products sold by rep by market taken from their business plan revenue models. Once the product development phase is complete, marketing and sales need to work together to develop proper target audience identification, determine how or if the revenue goals can be supported by these audiences, then develop audience specific messages.

• Clearly identifying how the new product fits within existing product portfolios or advertiser bundles. New products are frequently introduced in a vacuum without enough thought on how they will be sold alongside other products, particularly when it comes to introducing digital products alongside traditional media products. Advertisers are confused about the volume of marketing products available, so local media companies have to work to make it obvious as to why the product is being added and the value it brings to their current marketing initiatives.

• Demonstrate how the new product enhances current marketing initiatives or enables the advertiser to reach more prospects. Advertiser budgets only go so far, showing them how a new product increases the effectiveness of the other marketing products they have purchased helps to streamline the sales process, increasing success.

• Focusing too much on features and benefits rather than on customer-focused needs. Products are a series of solutions to support advertiser business needs. The roll out of any product has to keep the needs of advertisers in mind so that solution sets can be recommended to solve their key business growth needs. Sales people often get overwhelmed by the number of media products in their portfolio, moving to viewing products as a portfolio of solutions helps sales people clearly see which products make sense and which products to keep in the sales bag.

BIA/Kelsey’s goal is to dig in and identify the best approaches to a smooth product marketing to sales handoff, as well as how we can help sales teams better strategize on developing sales messaging, strategies to maximize the ROI associated with new product launches to better maximize each product opportunity. We’re interested in talking with companies who are taking innovative approaches to product launches and sales teams who are figuring out how to integrate digital and traditional media products successfully. If your company feels they have something interesting to share, contact me to feature your best practices on our blog.

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Overall we expect national advertisers to increase their spending in local markets from $50.2 billion in 2013 to 68.9 billion in 2018, growing at a 6.5% compounded annual growth rate. The chart below shows the annual estimates of the spending in local media markets by national and local advertisers.

One of the key drivers in this growth is the growth in mobile advertising. While local advertisers will grow in importance, national advertisers will still account for 70% of all mobile advertising in 2018, resulting in over $11 billion in advertising spending. Pure online advertising will also see growth coming from national advertisers, resulting in $20.8 billion being spent in 2018.

Clearly, advertisers of all sorts are looking for all ways to reach their existing and potential customers. Increased usage of local media outlets by national advertisers is just an example of that.

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National brands, franchises and multi-location outlets often lose business by only providing standard name/address/phone number information, instead of focusing more on discovery search, says Local Market Launch CMO Gideon Rubin. “Name, address, phone information only represents 15 percent of searches. If you know ‘Subway,’ you can look it up,” he says.

But the real market opportunity is in the discovery market, which constitutes 85 percent of searches. “What we do is add keywords and categories that increases the likelihood of showing up in non-branded searches,” he says. “We’ll add the name of the sandwich or other menu details. That creates additional revenues for merchants. It is a really large opportunity.”

Listings, LAT/long information, pictures and reviews are other key data points that national brands must keep up to date across all the search engines, adds Rubin.

Local Market Launch primarily works with digital agencies and certified marketing reps that have national brand accounts. It wins accounts after finding missing information for national brands during search audits of local locations. It all comes down to “completing the process of delivering products,” Rubin says.

The company also does a lot of work helping large, multi-location businesses claim listings. Many have locations that never show up, says Rubin. LML will work on them individually, adding them to sites such as Yelp, Bing and Google.

LML has just raised a new $1 million round led by former ValueClick execs Jim Zarley and Steve Umberger, adds Rubin. The revenue will help fund the Santa Barbara company’s expansion effort.

Rubin is speaking on search issues, along with LocalVox CEO Trevor Sumner and YP VP Chuck Lee at LIL: The National Impact May 7-9 in Atlanta. Register here

The post Local Market Launch’s Push on Discovery for National Brands, Local Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

National brands, franchises and multi-location outlets often lose business by only providing standard name/address/phone number information, instead of focusing more on discovery search, says Local Market Launch CMO Gideon Rubin. “Name, address, phone information only represents 15 percent of searches. If you know ?Subway,? you can look it up,? he says.

But the real market opportunity is in the discovery market, which constitutes 85 percent of searches. ?What we do is add keywords and categories that increases the likelihood of showing up in non-branded searches,? he says. ?We?ll add the name of the sandwich or other menu details. That creates additional revenues for merchants. It is a really large opportunity.?

Listings, LAT/long information, pictures and reviews are other key data points that national brands must keep up to date across all the search engines, adds Rubin.

Local Market Launch primarily works with digital agencies and certified marketing reps that have national brand accounts. It wins accounts after finding missing information for national brands during search audits of local locations. It all comes down to ?completing the process of delivering products,? Rubin says.

The company also does a lot of work helping large, multi-location businesses claim listings. Many have locations that never show up, says Rubin. LML will work on them individually, adding them to sites such as Yelp, Bing and Google.

LML has just raised a new $1 million round led by former ValueClick execs Jim Zarley and Steve Umberger, adds Rubin. The revenue will help fund the Santa Barbara company?s expansion effort.

Rubin is speaking on search issues, along with LocalVox CEO Trevor Sumner and YP VP Chuck Lee at LIL: The National Impact May 7-9 in Atlanta. Register here

The post Local Market Launch's Push on Discovery for National Brands, Local Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Right now mobile advertising accounts for about 9% of advertising spending for business franchisees or licensees according to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™. About 68.4% of business franchisees or licensees say they are planning to increase their current level of advertising and promotional spending in the next 12 months. This increase in spending will likely lead to a larger allocation of advertising budgets towards mobile with franchisees and licensees planning to use 42.2% of their future advertising budgets on digital/online advertising (7.1% more than last year).

For those franchisees and licensees who are not yet involved in mobile advertising, it is something they are considering for the future. About 34.3% of those who do not already advertise with mobile said they would invest in mobile search advertising, 34.3% showed an interest in mobile apps, 31.4% showed an interest in text message advertising and 31.4% in mobile deals according to the Local Commerce Monitor.

Many franchisees and licensees are taking advantage of bar codes in store. These bar codes are scanned by consumer’s smartphones with 54.7% of bar codes used being in print and 36.8% being posted somewhere in the store. Check-in information is also utilized with 70.5% of franchisees and licensees saying they actively use the information that is generated when customers check-in to their location, according to the Local Commerce Monitor.

Franchisees and licensees are clearly not ignoring mobile. In fact we expect their spending on mobile advertising to increase. To learn more about how national brands will be using mobile to appeal to the local population their franchisees and licensees cater to, come to BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference that will be held May 7-9 in Atlanta. Hot topics in national to local realm will be discussed by industry leaders so do not miss this opportunity to learn about and network with the experts.

For additional reasons to come to Atlanta in May, see below:

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Yesterday’s announcement of Comcast/NBCU buying Time Warner Cable was a monumental announcement as it consolidates more of the cable portion of the Multiple Video Programming Delivery services (MVPDs) that includes mostly cable and satellite delivery services. Instead of Charter moving up the list of cable MSOs, Comcast will now be clearly number one if the deal is approved by government officials.

The implications of this acquisition are significant. First. it will allow the merged company to compete more effectively with its increasing number of competitors. In addition to the satellite delivered services (DISH and Direct TV), nontraditional services such as Hulu and Netflix are becoming more competitive “Over the Top” video programming options to subscribing to local cable systems as sources for video programming. Poignantly on the same day as this deal is announced, Netflix announced that they have obtained the rights to a Star Wars animated series.

Second, dealing with the video programming providers (both cable-satellite delivered networks and local television broadcasters) will also be affected as Comcast/NBCU owns several in both categories. Negotiations between the newly merged company and those providers not vertically integrated will be more involved and possibly leading to lower prices (or smaller increases in those prices over time).

Finally, while the cable systems of the newly merged company do not overlap, the combination of these two companies should make them more formidable in the local advertising marketplace. Already, local cable systems are becoming stronger competitors in the local advertising marketplace.

Nationally, BIA/Kelsey estimates that local cable systems have 5.3 percent of the local advertising revenues growing to 5.8 percent by 2017, growing by nearly $1.8 billion. Comcast already is very aggressive in developing local cable advertising, see Comcast Spotlight. Certainly, when dealing with national advertisers, the newly formed company can offer a wider reach than before. National advertisers focusing more on local media markets is an important trend for all local media to consider and will be explored in detail at the upcoming BIA/Kelsey conference, Leading in Local: the National Impact.

While all of these improvements to the newly merged company could occur, the proposed acquisition will face significant scrutiny in Washington. Concerns about too much concentration in program delivery and its impact on negotiations with program suppliers will be front and center when the FCC and Department of Justice looks at this deal.

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The keys to any sales person being effective using LinkedIn are finding the right people with the right connections, leading with insights that are valuable to your target audience, and being able to leverage relationships to lead you to decision makers or other prospects. “There are on average 5.6 decision makers in most organizations and it is important to understand who those people are to be the most effective,” says Koka.

When advising sales teams on effectively using social media sites like LinkedIn, Koka recommends:

1. Build your profile to showcase your skills, insights and experience to build your reputation
2. Develop your network with people who can help you achieve your goals
3. Gather insights that are important to your audience and targets
4. Contribute your insights in meaningful ways within groups and forums

Sales people and sales teams need to understand that buyers are researching sales people and companies before ever allowing them to make a one-on-one connection. Sales people who position themselves as experts, who provide solutions from solid companies, are ultimately more successful than their counterparts who ignore the value of social selling.

The post At Leading In Local: ILM 2013: Selling Through LinkedIn appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

While The Weather Company VP Denise Chudy and Wanderful Media CEO Ben Smith work in different verticals (weather and retail), they shared a common mobile message at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference: that the experiences are inherently local, with users expecting that local experience to also serve up personalization and hyper-relevance. To deliver on this value proposition, data (and lots of it) is mandatory.

For TWC, that entails zip-code level data across 40,000 zip codes that creates greater location targeting accuracy. This also highlights primary retail areas for advertisers to isolate and enables TWC to “model hyperlocal behavior (sales/activity data) to weather patterns.”

The net effect is an understanding of the market-specific weather triggers that incent someone to engage in an activity or make a purchase. For instance, Chicagoans are more inclined to shop for tires when there is an increase in snow and wind. Sounds obvious, but TWC can model out the specific percentage lift in purchase intent.

The next step in TWC’s local migration is supplementing its mid-market sales team with local market-level sales partners (the Hartford Courant is an early example).

Smith’s vision for migrating retail print circulars to digital and creating a smarter shopping experience starts with a deeper understanding of “casual discovery shopping” (historically the print FSI model), then creating platform-specific experiences to match. iPad is a powerful play for Wanderful, with tablet users spending up to 15 times more time per session than PC users. “We want you to start in the stream of content and don’t stop streaming.” The more time on site, the more data Wanderful can collect, which leads to a more robust and personalized content experience.

In mobile, the experience is fundamentally different in order to leverage the platform’s distinct capabilities and use cases. It’s more about atomized content delivered when, where and how the user prefers as they’re making a buying decision. To help accomplish this, Wanderful is building out “point apps to solve a specific problem under a common brand.”

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Day 2 of Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media conference opened with BIA/Kelsey’s VP and Chief Economist, Mark Fratrik, who shared some exciting pieces of information from BIA/Kelsey’s Media Ad view. Media Ad View is BIA/Kelsey’s research product that offers a market by market view of the local media pie.

Fratrik stated, “Local media advertising revenues will climb to $151.5 billion in 2017.” He also communicated that BIA/Kelsey’s goal is to help clients leverage the real business opportunities inherent in this growth to solidify their leadership position.

“Our research-driven data, strategic analysis and competitive intelligence can help clients make the right decisions,” said Fratrik. Fratrik went out further to outline 7 steps that BIA/Kelsey does to help clients:

Step 1: Acquire reliable view of the local media landscape
Step 2: Size the current and future local market
Step 3: Profile the competition
Step 4: Track advertiser trends
Step 5: Understand the changing consumer
Step 6: Operate with reliable, actionable market insights
Step 7: Create a concise strategic roadmap

As the leading experts in cross-platform local advertising, BIA/Kelsey can help design a business strategy that drives new levels of success for media companies. BIA/Kelsey’s local media & advertising expertise helps clients understand the dynamics of their local marketplace, and identify, analyze and manage the competition. Media Ad View Plus delivers the media industry’s most reliable, comprehensive data and insights, Media Ad View is used by many of the largest media companies in the U.S. to evaluate market opportunities across multiple dimensions: market, media and business category.

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