Three finalists in the SMB Future Stars Local Liftoff Award Competition each gave 6-minute presentation on their start-up business then faced tough questions from two season entrepreneur judges, Shark Tank style. Now it's up to the voters. The Judges…
This afternoon at SMB Digital Marketing, Simon Greenman, CEO, Home Advisor Europe, talked about how he is shaping a key European home services vertical, and also reflected a bit on an industry he has a long association with -- the…
This morning at SMB Digital Marketing moderator Jed Williams interviewed four companies in the middle of understanding how to deliver content market solutions to small businesses. One of the biggest challenges was balancing the scale of marketing automation with the…
The topic of sales transformation is a key issue for the media segment, and BIA/Kelsey brought to the stage four key media companies who have taken a more measured and systematic approach to focusing their sales teams on the new…
Amidst all the talk at the second day of SMB Digital Marketing, challenges faced by small businesses and hard recommendations on the best practices for lead generation was offered by Chris Mancini, CMO of Reply.com. Citing the need for easier…
This morning at SMB Digital Marketing, BIA/Kelsey Chief Economist Mark Fratrik and VP of Business Development Steve Passwaiter walked through a view of the U.S. local media marketplace, and offered a sample of BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View Plus, a…
Connect With Women LEADING IN LOCAL Last night in Austin was the first ever Women only session at a BIA/Kelsey Conference. This was the inauguration of a new focus on women in technology that will be part of conferences going…
Amidst all the talk at SMB Digital about marketing solutions for SMBs, we also had a chance to hear from several leading edge SMBs themselves. Several Yelp customers agreed to talk at the conference on Day 1, where they were…
Top insights into franchise marketing were provided today at SMB Digital Marketing, courtesy of Hunter Rose, owner of three Ben & Jerry's Scoop Stores, and longtime local executive and consultant Robyn Rose. Hunter Rose, a former Gartner analyst, is also…
A central theme emerged this morning at SMB Digital Marketing. It began in the Focus on Profits session, where former BIA/Kelsey analyst and current Yellowbot CEO Matt Booth declared, "In ten years, this conference will be all about software and…
Transaction marketing leads to a new level of revenue and engagement, according to LevelUp CEO Seth Priebatsch, who keynoted today at Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing Priebatsch has based LevelUp's success on driving more loyalty transactions, using lower Interchange…
Today at SMB Digital Marketing, BIA/Kelsey Entrepreneur in Residence Warren Kay led a panel of heavy hitters to bat around operational and financial strategies for local media companies and early stage startups. Matt Booth, CEO, YellowBot Mike Dodd, Partner, Austin…
As I mentioned last week while writing about PayPal's new app updates, we just published a big report on the state of the union of mobile shopping and payments. This is of course an exploding area with lots of interest…
Can the state of mobile advertising be indicated by the stock price of some of the industry's leaders? Google and Facebook -- the top two market share leaders -- have faced some investor unease due to users flocking to a…
Let's just concede that Silicon Valley is the biggest hub for Web activity, and that it has some real advantages over other locales in terms of engineering and programming talent, fundraising and industry attention. But Silicon Valley's tech-centric view --which…
BIA/Kelsey released a report yesterday on mobile shopping and payments (more on that in a separate post). It's choc full of analysis and case studies of the emerging standards that are competing for user and merchant attention in these early…
The $1.8 billion of leisure/recreation advertising on Out-of-Home media was its largest vertical, representing 25% of total Out-of-Home advertising in 2012, according to BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View Plus. The Finance/Insurance vertical was the second highest, with 10% of total Out-of-Home…
We're just two weeks from our SMB Digital Marketing Conference. That means we're gearing up to hear top notch speakers from Google, Facebook, Twitter Yelp and lots of other companies innovating and disrupting the world of SMB local marketing. I'm…
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Ryan Roch who is a member of the partner team at Bigcommerce. This firm just made headlines recently by raising an additional $40m in venture capital. Bigcommerce has its headquarters in Sydney…
According to BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View Plus, radio garnered nearly $14.7 billion in advertising revenue in 2012, representing over 11% of total advertising spend, placing it in fourth place behind direct mail, newspaper and television. Unlike other media, radio advertising…
