Among the varying definitions of "Local" Demandforce CMO Patrick Barry boils it down to its root-level: SMBs. Though we're seeing lots of activity in location based ad targeting, and brand advertisers localizing campaigns, it's all about the SMB for Demandforce.…
At BIA/Kelsey's Leading in Local conference, Facebook VP of Product Marketing Brian Boland amplified a local business theme we've been hearing from the social network for a while: simplicity, engagement and outcomes rule. The company has actually reduced the number…
What we hear from everyone is that SMBs can't figure out what marketing solutions they should employ, how to go mobile, or measure how well they're doing on the Web. That realization is driving the direction of a number of…
A few years ago, Merchant Circle pushed the boundaries of SMB marketing,-- getting claimed profiles from over one million SMBs with just minimal staff but the latest in social marketing (and telemarketing) techniques. The site has continued to develop after…
Shopping through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is re-shaping how purchases are made during one of the biggest consumer spending weekends of the year. According to the National Retail Federation, more than 141 million Americans shopped over the holiday…
ReachLocal announced today that it is moving away from its new ClubLocal business, which connects consumers with service providers. The publicly-owned company said that it is now considering a deal that would allow ClubLocal to be taken over by a…
A new Local Commerce Monitor™ (LCM) UK Spotlight report examines UK SMBs that self-identify as newspaper advertisers in the UK reveals a huge opportunity for growth and adoption of digital and non-traditional media channels. UK newspaper SMBs are adopting newer…
Even newspaper advertisers, long seen as favoring traditional media, are increasingly shifting their ad spend to digital. More and more these SMBs are exploring the advertising opportunities digital media has to offer and with that spending is shifting in…
According to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor, Wave 17™, 72% of the SMBs surveyed use social media to promote their business. Of the different social media used for advertising and promotion that BIA/Kelsey tracks in the LCM survey, Facebook Page ranked…
vSplash's Board Advisor and former BIA/Kelsey executive Neal Polachek briefed BIA/Kelsey on some recent milestones achieved by vSplash with their sales engagement tool - BuzzBoard. Launched by vSplash the BuzzBoard sales tool has gained significant market adoption since Charles…
U.S. SMBs are increasingly using social media, such as Twitter, to advertise and promote their business to customers and to connect with them. According to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor™, SMB usage of Twitter for advertising and promotion has been steadily…
As the 2013 holiday shopping season gets underway, BIA/Kelsey's Consumer Commerce Monitor (CCM) survey offers insights into how local shoppers in the U.S. are likely to find, engage and transact with local-serving businesses. Showcasing insights from the survey, our webinar…
Whether U.S. citizens actually have any type of privacy anymore seems to be a growing topic of discussion among Americans. Concerns range from the government spying on phone conversations, to online ads that are just a little TOO applicable, to…
SMBs that utilize mobile advertising distinguish themselves by more than being trendsetters. They are spending more advertising dollars, tend to be early adopters in their use of digital compared to their counterparts and are savvier in how they leverage data…
Speaking at Digital Media East 2013 today, I shared five themes we're seeing in local media and among Small-Medium Businesses (SMBs): 1. Traditional Media rule... and will continue to do so. 2. Content (generation, discovery, distribution) as ever stronger nexus…
One of the underlying themes at BIA/Kelsey's recent SMB Digital Marketing conference was extending beyond marketing services for SMBs. This includes operational tools that address their pain points and "lock-in" deeper (read: higher retention) relationships. This is something we've covered several…
The first of our Local Commerce Monitor United Kingdom™ (LCM UK), Wave 2 reports is being released exclusively to our clients today, highlighting our key findings. In it, BIA/Kelsey surveys 300 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the United Kingdom…
Print Yellow Pages was (just barely) on top in the General Services advertising category in 2012, generating almost $3.8 billion from this vertical. General Services is comprised of 12 different categories, including legal, accounting, janitorial, landscaping and various professional, scientific…
One theme that emerged at BIA/Kelsey’s recent SMB Digital Marketing conference was the emergence of content marketing for local merchants. This was kicked off in a session by Jed Williams and popped up a few more times.
As a retrospective on some of those themes and a look at their future implications, my Street Fight column this month unpacks it further. As a bonus, I even found a way to incorporate Twerking, speaking of trend analysis.
The column came out yesterday and an excerpt is after the jump, with the full article available here. We’ll continue to keep a close eye on this topic (but likely not Twerking).
Last week at SMB Digital Marketing, Russ Laraway, Senior Director, SMB at Twitter added to the marketplace chorus espousing the notion that Content Marketing is king. Many of Twitter's moves in this area are well known, as content marketing is…
