Fifty plus industry leaders will grace the stage at Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing Sept. 22-24 in New Orleans. We’re looking forward to a great show. Want to do some research before the event? Here’s some recent BIA/Kelsey blog coverage of the featured speakers (Click on the hyperlinks).

Acxiom: Scott Howe, CEO (Keynote, Day 2)

Alignable: Eric Groves, CEO (Future Stars, Day 2)

Booker: Josh McCarter, CEO (Scheduling ,Day 2)

Facebook: Joe DeVoy, Product Manager, Local Ads, Facebook (Social Media Shift, Day 2)

First Data/Perka: Mike Lazarro, Head of Planning (Beyond Advertising, Day 3)

ForwardLine: Craig Coleman, CEO (Cultivating SMB Success, Day 2)

Groupon: Dan Roarty, VP, Product Development (Keynote, Day 2)

Local Media Association: Nancy Lane, President (Local Media Heavy Hitters, Day 3)

Radius: Megan Austin Karlen, VP (Smart Data, Day 2)

ReachLocal: Sharon Rowlands,CEO, (Keynote, Day 2)

SignPost: Stu Wall, CEO (Beyond Advertising, Day 3)

Verve: Tom Kenney, President (Brass Tacks Mobile, Day 2)

Wanderful Media: Doug Kilponen, COO (SMB Retail, Day 2)

Yelp: Darnell Holloway, Sr. Mgr., Community Outreach (SMBs On Stage with Yelp, Day 1); Peter Curzon, Business Development ( Brass Tracks Mobile, Day 2)

YP: Jeff Federman, SVP, Digital (Brass Tacks Mobile, Day 2)

The post Useful Research for New Orleans: Recent Blog Coverage, SMB Digital Marketing Speakers 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.

Now we’re seeing a new batch of companies volunteering to work with SMBs as both marketing helpers and business managers. The rise of online scheduling has made such a marriage much more logical. So has the extension of web site presence management, and leads management.

ReachLocal and GoDaddy, for instance, have crossed the line — in different ways — to eliminate the silos separating marketing and back office ops. Another approach is being taken via ForwardLine. The ten-year old, 60-person company is primarily known for short-term SMB loans and payment processing — and has cleverly linked the two businesses for many customers. Roughly one quarter of ForwardLine’s customers are restaurants. Other large categories include salons, dentists and drycleaners.

CRO David Teichner tells us that ForwardLine is a natural partner because “capital is a key ingredient for SMB growth.” Furthermore, many SMBs renew their relationship with ForwardLine when they need money for new equipment; a new ad campaign; or other reasons. “More than eighty percent of our customers come back for additional funds when a new opportunity comes their way,” says Teichner.

Recently, ForwardLine began structuring strategic partnerships with companies offering services to SMBs. ForwardLine offers its partners data on credit card sales volume and other sales data to give insight into what makes SMB owners tick. This allows ForwardLine’s partners to offer up tailored services for SMBs and demonstrate the ROI.

Teichner, who came to ForwardLine in 2013 from Yowza, a mobile coupons company, adds that “small business owners want to grow their business. They need capital, which ForwardLine provides, but they also want effective marketing services that they can measure. We provide a convenient source of client-side visibility, so that SMB marketers and other service companies can demonstrate the value they are adding.”

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