Video is now available for purchase from the third and most evolved edition of BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, which took place March 25-27 in Dallas. At the show, we saw that industry leaders were in general agreement that major progress has been made among all the stakeholders in “national marketing, local targeting.” Many speed bumps, however, are still being felt along the way. Key stakeholders, including agencies, media companies, franchises and local franchisees are, by necessity, transforming their identifies as they adjust to the new digital (and mobile) marketplace.

During our Chairman’s Session that closed the show on Day 3, Houston Chronicle, Yahoo and Fox Interactive Media vet Warren Kay, Speakeasy CEO Mike Orren, SuperPages vet Robyn Rose and 3rd Act Marketing CEO Gregg Stewart provided their summary insights into four key topics in “national marketing, local targeting.” Among them:

1. The time is finally ripe for National Local. Research by the CMO Council — cited by BizHive’s Dave Walker — noted that 57% of CMOs say that local programs are important, but only 7% of CMOs have a successful program in place. Success, however, will soon become more apparent.

National local programs are “at the beginning of becoming the next big thing,” said Orren. “If there was a graph that showed where innovation and cost effectiveness begin to make sense for local, the line has now begun to be crossed.”

“Scar tissue” remains from the “embarrassment and disappointment” of early local marketing efforts, added Warren Kay. But now “informed decision makers really understand national local, and how they might apply the type of budget they have. That will drive the local marketing space in the future.”

2. Media and directory companies are transitioning to the new environment. Local newspapers and directories still play a real role in targeting locally — and regionally. But they are also being forced to re-evaluate their core strengths.

It is a simple admission to note that many advertisers really aren’t getting ROI from the traditional products, notes Robyn Rose. But they can reposition themselves by providing consultative services with their advertisers. “You really have to understand your partners. If you are targeting local or franchise locations, for instance, you need vertical and regional experts,” she says.

Mike Orren notes that media companies are well positioned to guide and sell local businesses and even national business in their market. But they can’t get “hung up” over moving their own inventory. Their core assets are not their product, but their “brand, reputation and feet on the street,” he says.

Gregg Stewart says that the key thing is that media companies are now being judged entirely on their effectiveness. “At the end of the day, the advertiser doesn’t care if (the media is) local or not. They want to sell something. They will look at whatever they can buy that is fastest and cheapest,” he says.

3. Some things are automated, and some things are not. Relying solely on automation and “air coverage” doesn’t work at every level, especially in local.

“There is a paradox in local,” says Gregg Stewart. Marketers build their attack the CMO level. Programmatic sales and other automation are highly effective for doing that, he says. But you need to also execute work with door to door sales.

“Companies need to understand the partnership with sales and marketing,” adds Warren Kay. They must ultimately collaborate to leverage customer insights and customize aspects of the marketing campaign. Companies such as Simpli.fi, for instance, do very well in developing content marketing programs to complement their programmatic sales.

4. Platforms can bring local franchisees in line, and also liberate them. Brands are “schizophrenic” from top to bottom, with the national brand representing one thing, and each local outlet representing something else. The question is to what degree is it healthy to have “local franchisee stars act like franchise choir boys” — as Yext’s Christian Ward put it.

“The trend with national organizations is to get more control,” says Gregg Stewart. “The stakes are too high. I see that as a trend for a while, until we get these things figured out.”

But franchises should do everything they can to encourage local innovation. “You need local stars,” says Rose. “You need to figure out how to embrace them, not bring them into everything. You need to get everyone else to emulate their success.”

The post The Chairman’s Session at BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL: The Top Four Things to Know appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Video is now available for purchase from the third and most evolved edition of BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, which took place March 25-27 in Dallas. At the show, we saw that industry leaders were in general agreement that major progress has been made among all the stakeholders in “national marketing, local targeting.” Many speed bumps, however, are still being felt along the way. Key stakeholders, including agencies, media companies, franchises and local franchisees are, by necessity, transforming their identifies as they adjust to the new digital (and mobile) marketplace.

During our Chairman’s Session that closed the show on Day 3, Houston Chronicle, Yahoo and Fox Interactive Media vet Warren Kay, Speakeasy CEO Mike Orren, SuperPages vet Robyn Rose and 3rd Act Marketing CEO Gregg Stewart provided their summary insights into four key topics in “national marketing, local targeting.” Among them:

1. The time is finally ripe for National Local. Research by the CMO Council — cited by BizHive’s Dave Walker — noted that 57% of CMOs say that local programs are important, but only 7% of CMOs have a successful program in place. Success, however, will soon become more apparent.

National local programs are “at the beginning of becoming the next big thing,” said Orren. “If there was a graph that showed where innovation and cost effectiveness begin to make sense for local, the line has now begun to be crossed.”

“Scar tissue” remains from the “embarrassment and disappointment” of early local marketing efforts, added Warren Kay. But now “informed decision makers really understand national local, and how they might apply the type of budget they have. That will drive the local marketing space in the future.”

2. Media and directory companies are transitioning to the new environment. Local newspapers and directories still play a real role in targeting locally — and regionally. But they are also being forced to re-evaluate their core strengths.

It is a simple admission to note that many advertisers really aren’t getting ROI from the traditional products, notes Robyn Rose. But they can reposition themselves by providing consultative services with their advertisers. “You really have to understand your partners. If you are targeting local or franchise locations, for instance, you need vertical and regional experts,” she says.

Mike Orren notes that media companies are well positioned to guide and sell local businesses and even national business in their market. But they can’t get “hung up” over moving their own inventory. Their core assets are not their product, but their “brand, reputation and feet on the street,” he says.

Gregg Stewart says that the key thing is that media companies are now being judged entirely on their effectiveness. “At the end of the day, the advertiser doesn’t care if (the media is) local or not. They want to sell something. They will look at whatever they can buy that is fastest and cheapest,” he says.

3. Some things are automated, and some things are not. Relying solely on automation and “air coverage” doesn’t work at every level, especially in local.

“There is a paradox in local,” says Gregg Stewart. Marketers build their attack the CMO level. Programmatic sales and other automation are highly effective for doing that, he says. But you need to also execute work with door to door sales.

“Companies need to understand the partnership with sales and marketing,” adds Warren Kay. They must ultimately collaborate to leverage customer insights and customize aspects of the marketing campaign. Companies such as Simpli.fi, for instance, do very well in developing content marketing programs to complement their programmatic sales.

4. Platforms can bring local franchisees in line, and also liberate them. Brands are “schizophrenic” from top to bottom, with the national brand representing one thing, and each local outlet representing something else. The question is to what degree is it healthy to have “local franchisee stars act like franchise choir boys” — as Yext’s Christian Ward put it.

“The trend with national organizations is to get more control,” says Gregg Stewart. “The stakes are too high. I see that as a trend for a while, until we get these things figured out.”

But franchises should do everything they can to encourage local innovation. “You need local stars,” says Rose. “You need to figure out how to embrace them, not bring them into everything. You need to get everyone else to emulate their success.”

The post The Chairman's Session at BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL: The Top Four Things to Know appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Chief Marketing Officers are in “an exclusive club that drinks a lot and makes bad decisions,” Dave Walker, Chairman, BizHive, told BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL.

His tongue-in-cheek opening statement set the stage for a rapid-fire dissection of the disconnect that afflicts the national/local conversation. An accomplished marketer who has led go-to-market strategies for Walmart, Microsoft, Toys R Us, and Home Depot, among others, he recently launched BizHive, an SMB advertising and marketing services marketplace.

Walker kicked off his session explaining the results of the CMO Council’s survey of CMO satisfaction with their local marketing:

* Only eight percent of CMOs reported being satisfied with their current local marketing.
* This despite the fact that 57 percent of national brand marketers say local is critical to success.
* 63 percent had “nothing in place for their local measurements.”
* Only seven percent of CMOs say they currently have a successful local marketing program in place.

Walker suggested that today’s CMO lives by The Three C’s: Capture, Captivate, Convert, which are intimately linked to their compensation, but can interfere with addressing the customer on their terms. A sea change in thinking is necessary for a transformation of local marketing, which currently lives on a leash held by national marketers who discount the importance of individual preferences.

A language barrier

“We are seeing that there are so many ways to describe “local” that this is part of the problem,” Walker said. “Everyone has a different definition. So, who is defining ‘local?’ Is it a service, a technology, a map?” In 1980, when he started his CMO career, Walker said, CMOs defined local with lines on maps.

By the 1990s, they were using demographic, density and drive-time maps in addition to simple geographic distinctions. In the 2000s, predictive heat maps gave CMOs the illusion that they could predict the outcome of programs. Digital changed all that, Walker said, exposing the chasm between the careful plans of national brands and the messy reality of local marketing.

“Today, the customer defines ‘local,'” Walker said. Marketers try to track customers all day, and have made “serving the new targeting.” Simple connectivity issues have redefined “trade areas” and “tracking,” leading CMOs to talking about “marketing localized in motion.” He described a fractured perspective, exacerbated a lot of products and services and technologies that are designed into the local model, but, Walker asked, “what goals do they serve?” That question is not answered, yet.

Instead of talking about local-to-national or national-to-local, marketers need to make the distinction between local and local-at-scale. Are local programs aimed at the market or are they national campaigns with many local instances that don’t map to the consumer’s definition of their local needs. “We’re not talking about the collective power of all the localized activities marketers undertake today,” Walker argued.

It’s still all about the numbers

Marketing remains all about making your numbers, and this has been true throughout Walker’s career. Yet make-or-break metrics are not applied in local — 60 percent of CMOs, as seen, don’t have local measurements in place. They are “flying blind,” Walker said.

To get into a marketing program’s efficacy at the personal level is tremendously difficult challenge. With so many different metrics now that we no longer need to bet the farm on one metric or one solution, Walker said, pointing out that this leads to marketers having no standards for success.

“We can leverage that [lack of consistent metrics],” he said. “Let’s encourage multi-variate testing and learning at the local level to help marketers tune their message and mechanisms.” Walker added an endorsement for QualPro which said is “the premiere provider in MVT testing [for] highly complex decision-support at speed.”

We know we need multi-variate analytics, that it is a daily challenge, Walker continued. “We’re waiting for more technologies to answer that call. Today, only 11 percent of CMOs have a local marketing program in place. This is because most logistics and supply chain and inventory management tools are not connected across local markets. Walmart can do it, why not bring that to the local marketplace? Then we have the ability to make decisions in a very sophisticated way across many different markets.

The Berlin Wall of Corporate Culture

Walker delivered a caveat for technologists seeing nails everywhere their hammers can reach: “Before you build the machine, you have to address the cultural barriers to adoption by companies.” Companies, including brands and media firms, need to change. It is not simply a matter of introducing new technology. The real cultural bias today is not “national-to-local” but “corporate-to-field,” he said. “Corporate makes the the plan and the field takes it apart.”

In the physical marketplace, all dimension of business are locally defined, but marketing has not localized. Marketing very often operates from the top a mountain, issuing dictates in a loud voice, versus acting as the hub of a wheel. Marketers must suppress the impluse to control and dictate everything, Walker said. There was a palpable wave of relief, followed immediately by nervous laughter among audience members. Truth, at last, with a dose of responsibility.

CMO principles

Walker shared the CMO Council’s response to the survey results, three simple changes that can transform the local marketing conversation:

Enable Local Web. “Just do it. Stop with the hand-wringing.”

Enable Local Networks. Let stores have their own sites, pages, and conversations with their customers, don’t funnel everything through a national filter.

Enable a Local Point of View. “Local is not a step-child, it is where business actually is transacted,” Walker said.

These three things will start the change marketing needs to address the local market, Walker concluded. Let things bubble up organically. Let contributions to your programs come from the local level, he urged as he concluded.

Walker summarized his three-year-old startup, BizHive: The company served more than 30,000 SMBs in the US, who shop for marketing and advertising services at the site. The SMBs become better educated and qualified leads for vendors and resellers. They also white label communities, such as for Sprint, which launched a BizHive-powered site called Sprint Resource Marketplace. These programs are combined with in-person events offered by BizHive that help SMBs make better decisions. Walker said it is a boot-camp approach that is working.

During the Q&A, Walker added these tips:

CMOs these days need to be CIOs. “If you are not technically savvy, you will not be a CMO long.”

“When we were planning national spending, we were ignoring local.”

The post At BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL: Dave Walker Obliterates the National-to-Local Myth appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL show is now fully in place, with 56 speakers set to define the cutting edge in national brands and local marketing. The show takes place March 25-27 at The Dallas Westin. Just added to the program: Internet visionary Mitch Golub, who leaves Cars.com today after successfully developing it into a $1.8 Billion enterprise that has, along with AutoTrader.com, helped define all the best practices of working with the world’s most aggressive national and local marketers (the car manufacturers and car dealers.)

Also added: key brands defining the best in vertical marketing. Dental One Partners, VCA (Animal Hospitals) and Service Experts Heating and Air Conditioning have now been added to a lineup that also includes leaders from Brooks Brothers, UniGroup (United Van Lines), Rooms to Go, All My Sons Moving & Storage, El Pollo Loco, U-Haul International, Nestle TollHouse Cafe, and The Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Announced earlier: keynotes from Google’s Brendon Kraham; Facebook’s Jon Czaja; Bizhive’s Dave Walker, Kenshoo’s Aaron Goldman, Geary LSF’s Karen Traversi Kovaleski and The Weather Co’s Ryan Davis. There are also key sessions with thought leaders such as YP’s Melissa Burghardt, The Washington Post Co’s Ethan Selzer; The Dallas Morning News’ Grant Moise; Meredith Corp’s Pam Taylor; and TvB’s Steve Lanzano.

The program also marks the debut of key new BIA/Kelsey data on franchise marketing from our Local Commerce Monitor survey. And last but not least, we’ll be doing Dallas right, with two Best of Dallas receptions; a “Before the Bell” Dallas Innovator Breakfast at the Addison Treehouse sponsored by Speakeasy; Two social breakouts, including National DEMOs and Drinks and Women Leading in Local; and an After Hours Country Casino sponsored by Local Site Submit and Moon Valley Software.

Check out the full, 2 1/2 day agenda. You may register here.

Cars.com visionary Mitch Golub is set for BIA/Kelsey National

The post 56 Speakers Set for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, March 25-27: Cars.com’s Mitch Golub Added appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL show is now fully in place, with 56 speakers set to define the cutting edge in national brands and local marketing. The show takes place March 25-27 at The Dallas Westin. Just added to the program: Internet visionary Mitch Golub, who leaves Cars.com today after successfully developing it into a $1.8 Billion enterprise that has, along with AutoTrader.com, helped define all the best practices of working with the world’s most aggressive national and local marketers (the car manufacturers and car dealers.)

Also added: key brands defining the best in vertical marketing. Dental One Partners, VCA (Animal Hospitals) and Service Experts Heating and Air Conditioning have now been added to a lineup that also includes leaders from Brooks Brothers, UniGroup (United Van Lines), Rooms to Go, All My Sons Moving & Storage, El Pollo Loco, U-Haul International, Nestle TollHouse Cafe, and The Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Announced earlier: keynotes from Google’s Brendon Kraham; Facebook’s Jon Czaja; Bizhive?s Dave Walker, Kenshoo’s Aaron Goldman, Geary LSF’s Karen Traversi Kovaleski and The Weather Co’s Ryan Davis. There are also key sessions with thought leaders such as YP’s Melissa Burghardt, The Washington Post Co’s Ethan Selzer; The Dallas Morning News’ Grant Moise; Meredith Corp’s Pam Taylor; and TvB’s Steve Lanzano.

The program also marks the debut of key new BIA/Kelsey data on franchise marketing from our Local Commerce Monitor survey. And last but not least, we’ll be doing Dallas right, with two Best of Dallas receptions; a “Before the Bell” Dallas Innovator Breakfast at the Addison Treehouse sponsored by Speakeasy; Two social breakouts, including National DEMOs and Drinks and Women Leading in Local; and an After Hours Country Casino sponsored by Local Site Submit and Moon Valley Software.

Check out the full, 2 1/2 day agenda. You may register here.

Cars.com visionary Mitch Golub is set for BIA/Kelsey National

The post 56 Speakers Set for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, March 25-27: Cars.com's Mitch Golub Added appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

It’s here! We have just announced the agenda for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL. which takes place March 25-27 in Dallas.

The NATIONAL theme is especially important this year. Local technology and services have reached a level where they have fostered major relationships with national brands and retailers. At IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting last year, we noted a poll by Operative that showed that local sales has now become the seventh most important revenue driver for CMOs. Our own BIA/Kelsey research shows that national players will spend more than $68 billion on local marketing by 2018.

We know this: Brands want to be part of this. Retailers want to be part of this. Franchisees want to be part of this. And so does local’s growing community of digital channel players and vendors.

All of them will be front and center at the third edition of BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, which we are co-chairing with 3rd Act Marketing’s Gregg Stewart (ex 15 Miles, TMP and Wahlstrom).

The agenda is now posted, with an initial slate of keynoters that includes Facebook’s Jon Czaja, whose portfolio includes the national franchise opportunity, where he leverages his experience at core national local leaders such as General Mills, eBay and Walmart; “Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned from Google” author Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo‘s CMO, who shares his irreverent and critical take on search. social and mobile; and Geary LSF President and CEO Karen Kovaleski, who is spearheading national local strategies for such key brands as Bumble Bee, WD-40, Brooks Brothers and Ashley Furniture.

The brands themselves will be well represented at the show. The initial slate of brands at the event include key local targeting leaders from Brooks Brothers, El Pollo Loco, All My Sons Moving and Storage, ServiceMaster/American Home Shield and Rooms to Go.

Other speakers come from media leaders who are providing local solutions to national players, including Dallas Morning News SVP Grant Moise and Washington Post VP Ethan Selzer.

We’ll also hear from a number of top platform providers and agencies, including BizHive Chairman Dave Walker, ReachLocal VP Travis Arthur, Where2GetIt CEO Manish Patel, Simpli.fi CEO Frost Prioleau, SpeakEasy CEO Mike Orren, LocalBizNow CEO Todd Webber and Soci CEO Afif Khoury.

Anchoring the whole show is the second edition of our GoLocal Awards, honoring the best efforts from national brands and rretailers(and their agencies) in local. We’re just getting started. Watch this space for frequent updates.

The post Mark Your Calendars: BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, March 25-27, Dallas appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

On the heels of last year’s LEADING IN LOCAL: SMB Digital Marketing show in Austin, we’ve just announced our agenda for this year’s big event in “The Big Easy”: New Orleans.

Our initial slate of Keynotes include:

Acxiom CEO Scott Howe;
ReachLocal CEO Sharon Rowlands
Google’s SMB Revenue director Steve Espinosa
Facebook’s Leader of SMB/Product Insights Joe Devoy

Additional Featured Speakers:

Sprint’s Karen Noel, GM, Small Business
Groupon’s Dan Roarty, VP of Product Marketing

Also at the event: Search marketing leader Kevin Ryan. Ryan will be debuting his new business best seller, “Taking Down Goliath: The Digital Marketing Strategy Guide for beating competitors with 100 times your spending power.”

More great speakers (We’ll end up with 40 or more):

Yelp’s Darnell Holloway, Sr. Manager, Local Business Outreach
NOLA Media Group’s Ricky Mathews, President
Morris Communications’ Steve Gray, Director of Strategy and Innovation
The Houston Chronicle’s Warren Kay, CRO
ForwardLine’s Craig Coleman, CEO
Search Influence’s Will Scott, CEO
BizHive’s Kim Feil, CEO
Wanderful Media’s Doug Kilponen, COO
Perka’s Rob Bethage, Co-Founder and VP
Booker’s Josh McCarter, CEO
Agendize’s Alf Poor, President

Will we see you down in New Orleans? Check out the full agenda here. And please register here.

The post Just Out: Hot Agenda For LIL: SMB Digital Marketing (Sept. 22-24, New Orleans) appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.