As Instagram finds ways to monetize and expand internationally, some smart players in the local media space are already learning how to use it as a marketing and “presence” tool for SMBs. We discussed with MomentFeed and Ghengis Grill in this week’s conference video (embed below).

Instagram’s use by SMBs is something we’ve covered since our September conference with Perry Evans at Closely. It’s in fact the social sharing product that is showing the most user activity on Closely’s Perch platform. This plays out as users capture and share local moments via filter-laden photos.

This has become particularly fitting to the hipster-ific foodie set, which means an opportunity for restaurants. The question is how can restaurant owners (or other verticals) capture the Instagram action happening around their businesses. The answer is the Perch’s and MomentFeed’s of the world.

The post Leading in Local Video: Is Instagram the Next Big Local Marketing Play? appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

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 new services, including an upgrade this week of Closely’s Perch product. Denver-based Perch, a 10 person startup lead by industry vet Perry Evans, continues to evaluate real time streams coming from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, FourSquare and Google+ as well as various promotions aggregated by the Yipit deals network.

But the new version extends the product focus, measuring and comparing SMB marketing and social activity via social, mobile, promotions and reviews. SMBs are also able to compare themselves to select competitors, while providing referrals to solution providers based on shortcomings seen in the SMB traffic (i.e., lack of Facebook traffic, reviews, coupons etc.). The referrals seem to represent a new revenue stream for the company.

CEO Perry Evans, in a discussion with BIA/Kelsey, says his team has positioned Closely to “provide value to businesses. We are not there to sell them things. We are just showing them areas they should pay attention to.” He also notes that the referral network is based on actual needs and goes way beyond standard affiliate models. “It is a deeper level of integration,” he says.

One thing that has been deleted from the new version is a “near me” features. Consumers don’t search for businesses base on immediate proximity, says Evans.

Evans also notes that Closely has added YellowBook founder Joe Walsh to its advisory board.

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Loyalty and engagement programs are now flooding the local ecosystem. They see themselves as the next step up from daily deals. At the same time, they hope to be more effective than “buy 10 get one free punch cards,” according to execs from LevelUp, Swipely and Closely who were among those who spoke at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco.

LevelUp’s John Valentine said results from his company’s loyalty program are already apparent. The discounts and loyalty points give consumers a better feeling of value, and in a review of 500 locations, have resulted in consumers paying 7 percent more on average compared with regular tabs, he said.

Valentine acknowledged that the audience is self-selective. The fact that they have an iPhone suggests they’re more affluent. But it has “gone beyond the cool factor,” he said. “Using a phone for paying is becoming more normal.”

Mostly, however, Valentine said, the race is on to gain a strong customer base. LevelUp claims 200,000 users after just nine or 10 months, and it is growing 20 percent month over month. It winds up paying $5 to $8 apiece for customer acquisition, he said. Even if the industry does a fast switch into NFC, and starts working more with entities such as Google Wallet, “we don’t care,” Valentine added. “We will have a base of customers” and will be in a position of strength.

Swipely’s Angus Davis, meanwhile, suggests it is not going to be so easy getting that customer base. “Acquiring consumers is very difficult,” he said. Swipely’s approach is to build up customer loyalty, and after several months of experimentation, get them to develop restaurant specific loyalty programs.

Ultimately, it is all about fostering more repeat business for restaurants, said Davis. Sixty percent of their business comes from repeat business. Getting customer engagement and providing rich analytics will win merchant accounts over from the legacy of credit card accounts, “where bifurcation and crust has built up.”

A different approach is being taken by Closely. CEO Perry Evans said that the key is to give merchants “tools that get to the heart of loyalty.” Evans is especially intrigued by CardSpring, the new loyalty and promotions platform that allows consumers to opt in to various deals and services. It puts incentives in front of consumers at a time that makes sense. “You want to give them the remote control so they can turn things on and off and decide what channel they want,” he said.

“Consumers are living their lives facedown into their phones and into their network,” said Evans. “Shopping decisions are becoming more live and based on a new combination of quality [review related] and price [putting incentive in front of consumers at time it makes sense]. Give them the remote control to turn things on and off and give them a channel,” he said. That will beat Facebook. “The tools are not there. It centers only around the display ad category.”

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In true McLaughlin Group style, Greg Sterling moderated the final session at Deals 3D — “Deals: The Next Stage” — more as a rapid-fire roundtable than a traditional panel. He dished, they debated. So, consistent to the theme, here are samples of how Closely’s Perry Evans, Wantsa’s David Strebinger and Deal Current’s Jimmy Hendricks see the next 12 to 18 months in deals shaping up.

Where are deal provider/merchant margins headed? Is compression inevitable?

Evans: “Deals, offers and specials are on a collision course, morphing into a seamless stream of promotions. Merchants won’t pay 50 percent to get people to walk across the street.” Margins will only remain at a reasonable ratio for deal providers that create a solution that “businesses feel can become an everyday tool.” The numbers: 15 percent to 20 percent to market to your own network; 25 percent to 30 percent for high-quality lead generation.

Hendricks: The bigger question is “what else can we offer so that we’re not relying on one leg?” This could include email management and other marketing platforms, both of which could move group buying companies from touting a one-off trick to taking a more central position in the merchant CRM dashboard. The number: Presuming this occurs, then 20 percent to 25 percent is fair.

Strebinger: Speaking of bigger questions, Strebinger asked “20 percent of what? The market can’t work off of percentages the way it has. It has to move toward a marketplace where publishers get paid based on the actual result for the merchant [a.k.a. cost per acquisition, varying by business segment].” Call this the “fair market value,” or true performance, model.

What, if anything, creates merchant loyalty to deals providers?

Evans: “At the end of the day, it’s the merchant’s proposition that breaks through.” In other words, the fight to be affiliated with better brands is raging.

Hendricks: “Loyalty is to the merchant, not the deals company.” This is especially so with big-box deals companies — Groupon, LivingSocial, et al, that are marketing across multiple industries with little perceptible differentiation. The brands that break through will be those that “offer integrated services — two or three different products and analytics that convert customers into repeat visitors.” The outlook could be better for niche sites with targeted audiences that trust in the value they deliver.

Groupon’s Forecast — Sunny or Stormy?

Strebinger: Stormy. “It’s very difficult for any first mover to pick the exact perfect platform. Groupon doesn’t think the way that LivingSocial or Google thinks in terms of how to make things more relevant or social.” It’s the fundamental difference between “innovation and replication.” He thinks Groupon is doing the latter.

Evans: Potentially sunny, with this disclaimer/recommendation: “Groupon post-IPO should buy OpenTable, Yelp and Foursquare so it’s not just a one-trick pony.” Its “huge checkbook” will open doors to strategic acquisitions that could diversify the brand.

There are 500+ deals sites (and that may be conservative). When will we see consolidation, and how much?

Hendricks: Consolidation will also mean diversification. Larger players “won’t just buy deals site for email lists, but will look for content buys and lifestyle buys.” With that being said, “lots of small-to-medium players that serve a purpose in small, niche markets will do very well.”

Strebinger: “Private equity firms, venture capital groups and public companies are all looking at roll-ups. The number will be “cut in half in the next 18 months.”

Evans: Don’t forget about the potential consolidation of the enormous group buying sales engine. “There’s a whole new sales force being created on the back of this industry.”

The post Deals 3D: The Deals Horizon — What’s Next? appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

If you are a small business, what do you do after you run the daily deal? Or how do you run a daily deal-like promotion “safely,” without hurting your brand? These are the questions a number of start-ups have posed for themselves as they seek to dive in to the deals revolution, while differentiating themselves from the cluttered destination deal and white-label deal marketplaces.

At ILM East last week, we heard from WildFire Apps and Closely — a new Denver-based company from MapQuest and Local Matters founder Perry Evans that formally debuted its “Social Select” service at the conference (and which we wrote about last July.)

Evans says Social Select relies on social media to tackle the two major flaws of the daily deals space. The first is the “very, very low” percentage of return visits, which he says is often under 10 percent. The second is the sense that merchants look like they are desperate for business, harming their “brand and margin value.”

Closely’s solution is to work with merchants to bring in existing customers and attract new customers via a “connect, referral and social network.” It is an “everyday, social commerce” approach,” says Evans. The mass market appeal of a daily deal is under performing outside of “maybe 10 to 15 core categories,” he suggests.

The offering is made up of two parts. First is a “private deal” for preferred customers and friends, which is akin to a “manager’s special.” Merchants hand out preprinted cards with QR codes taking them to a 24-hour deal. customers can hand them to five friends. “It allows you to hand select your next lead,” and shift to “better targeting and engagement,” says Evans.

The deals are also very flexible, since cards can be handed out based on consumer interests, and can represent many different deals. “You could have nine different deals,” he says.

The card idea is thought to be ideal for such recurring categories as home services, automotive services and pet services. “You don’t get a recurring customer from one visit. It takes five or six visits,” says Evans. He adds that the use of a deal card does not preclude a loyalty card that provides discounts or free services after a certain number of visits. It is just a different concept. Evans notes that the program have now been field tested with three partner/agencies.

The other part of the Social Select concept is the management of social media promotions and includes widgets for updating merchant websites, Facebook and Twitter. The company enables all relevant categories to be displayed, and to develop a “curated social graph.”

The post Closely Debuts ‘Social Select'; Moving Deals Away from Mass Market appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Small businesses are gaining the ability to interact with customers anytime, as e-mail marketing gives way to “the social graph,” says local marketing pioneer Perry Evans, who is introducing Closely Inc., a new firm dedicated to helping SMBs leverage the new opportunities in online and mobile marketing.

Like everyone else, Evans says he has watched the rise of Groupon and pondered what role daily deals have in the new marketing. His answer: They are great “training wheels to demonstrate to businesses how powerful social networking can be to stimulate demand.”

But more comprehensive solutions are really needed. “The daily deal model simply organizes an audience for a specific metro-area deal, campaign-style. We need a broader term than ‘daily deals,’ ” says Evans, offering up “live local social marketing” as a candidate. “This captures the real-time and socially engaged ways that marketing will shift into a key small-business tool for demand stimulation.”

Closely is being designed specifically to meet these needs, adds Evans. Businesses should be able to create live deals anytime, when they most want/need demand. At the same time, Closely is building an engine for expanded offer distribution.

“Offers will get to consumers in variety of ways,” says Evans. “The industry has centered on a campaign e-mail model; yet the user spends a ton of time on local and social Web sites, in search and on mobile devices. Getting offers published when businesses most want leads, and delivered through multiple channels is the best way to describe what we’re about.”

Ideal SMB customers for such a service are more local service oriented than product commerce oriented, he says. Product commerce granularity can be overwhelming, while offers from local merchants and service businesses seem to be welcomed right now by consumer. “This implies a meaningful opportunity for Yellow Pages as partners, alongside daily media, mobile and e-mail distribution,” he adds.

The post Perry Evans on Closely: ‘The Social Graph’ Is Overtaking E-Mail Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Small businesses are gaining the ability to interact with customers anytime, as e-mail marketing gives way to “the social graph,” says local marketing pioneer Perry Evans, who is introducing Closely Inc., a new firm dedicated to helping SMBs leverage the new opportunities in online and mobile marketing.

Like everyone else, Evans says he has watched the rise of Groupon and pondered what role daily deals have in the new marketing. His answer: They are great “training wheels to demonstrate to businesses how powerful social networking can be to stimulate demand.”

But more comprehensive solutions are really needed. “The daily deal model simply organizes an audience for a specific metro-area deal, campaign-style. We need a broader term than ‘daily deals,’ ” says Evans, offering up “live local social marketing” as a candidate. “This captures the real-time and socially engaged ways that marketing will shift into a key small-business tool for demand stimulation.”

Closely is being designed specifically to meet these needs, adds Evans. Businesses should be able to create live deals anytime, when they most want/need demand. At the same time, Closely is building an engine for expanded offer distribution.

“Offers will get to consumers in variety of ways,” says Evans. “The industry has centered on a campaign e-mail model; yet the user spends a ton of time on local and social Web sites, in search and on mobile devices. Getting offers published when businesses most want leads, and delivered through multiple channels is the best way to describe what we’re about.”

Ideal SMB customers for such a service are more local service oriented than product commerce oriented, he says. Product commerce granularity can be overwhelming, while offers from local merchants and service businesses seem to be welcomed right now by consumer. “This implies a meaningful opportunity for Yellow Pages as partners, alongside daily media, mobile and e-mail distribution,” he adds.

The post Perry Evans on Closely: 'The Social Graph' Is Overtaking E-Mail Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.