Leads are coming from everywhere, and the digital marketing firms have adjusted to this reality. ReachLocal, for one, has now opened up its ReachEdge lead conversion and marketing automation software. It now has the capability to track leads and other activity from a wide variety of unassociated marketing sources.

Chief Product Officer Kris Barton briefed BIA/Kelsey on ReachEdge’s evolution, noting that the company’s efforts to increase transparency and simplicity will ultimately boost conversion rates. Barton says that “decoupling” the software is the direct result of customer input. Some customers, for instance, had invested in redesigned website and didn’t want to have to abandon it in order to sign up with Reach.

The new version of ReachEdge is $149 a month and includes a free trial. It also features plug-ins for publishing systems such as WordPress and Drupal. The software has also been enhanced for mobile. Customers can use their phones to receive emails and text alerts. It also has integrated reports that are “focused entirely on ROI” and are much clearer than Google Analytics, says Barton.

The post ReachLocal Now Captures SMB Leads from Across the Web appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Selling National Accounts for Local Targeting

Travis Arthur, VP of Partner and Strategic Accounts, ReachLocal
Rick Hanna, CEO, Mspark
Corey O’Donnell, VP Marketing, Brand Networks, Yodle

Yodle’s O’Donnell said, “The big challenge for network businesses is to get rock stars to act like choir boys.” O’Donnell was referring to the challenge of getting individual dealer or franchise locations to cooperate with national marketing efforts.

Reach Local’s Arthur positions the company as a variation on SaaS. It’s Software with a service, he says, with a heavy emphasis on the service part: “A platform is table stakes. Consistency is a key point of difference.”

Mspark’s Hanna: “Some players have brands strictly controlled at corporate. Others give more leeway to franchisees.”

Arthur: “ReachLocal is launching in-app mobile advertising for our customers. I think there is a play for the services space to serve up coupons, etc.”

Hanna: “When you are calling on your customers, don’t be surprised they are not anywhere near where they should be.”

O’Donnell: “The term mobile is a misnomer. The print to digital shift is a large formula. It’s like a meal, you need an entree, appetizer and drinks. Mobile is just part of part of that formula… “I also have a distaste for the word ‘national.’ There is a 100:1 ration between searches for small discreet hearing aid v searches for miracle ear. Most spend happens locally.”

The post At BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL: Selling Locally Targeted Ads 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.

Transparency, education, and data: Those are the three keys to selling local advertising and reducing churn, according to ReachLocal CEO Sharon Rowlands during her SMB Digital Marketing Keynote.

Reducing churn in turn is an underrated way to grow revenue, as opposed to the more trodden path of chasing new business. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but it can receive a level of focus that is disproportionate with it’s importance…especially if it takes focus away from retention.

“If you can move the attrition rate by just one percent, it can have a high impact for business,” she said, adding that average churn rates in local media are 50 percent to 90 percent. “That is absolutely mind boggling.”

The first step in fixing this is to identify the problem:

— Bad sales experiences: Setting up the wrong customer expectations and bad alignment between sales and fulfillment.

— Selling the wrong product: Bad alignment between core competency and what’s being sold (bad attempts at bundling)

— Poor customer service: Talking down to SMBs, or overusing advertising jargon

Her advice to work against these factors:

— Educate the client base: Teach a man to fish, but you can’t put a tool into an SMB’s hand once. It needs repetition and training to embed into their daily work flow. “In advertising, this training isn’t our core competency, but it can be vital,” said Rowlands.

— Data science to drive transparency: Data about what is working for a given advertiser in order to empower local sales reps about what will drive (and of course, retain) business.

— Transparency in a common language: Translate the data outputs from the previous point, but it should be standardized ways of talking about a value proposition that is plain language that SMBs understand

“When we can’t communicate real ROI, we use things like clicks, contacts and leads,” said Rowlands. “Many small businesses don’t understand that. It’s an opportunity for us and an industry to step up.”

The post At Leading in Local: Talk Like a Human, Not a Marketing Exec appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

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.

ReachLocal today announced the appointment of longtime B2B and information services leader Sharon Rowlands as CEO, replacing interim CEO David Carlick, who remains chairman; and founding CEO Zorik Gordon, who left in December 2013 and is pursuing his vision for ClubLocal, a consumer-facing home service that has been spun off by ReachLocal. Groupon is among the lead funders of ClubLocal.

Rowlands, a 20+ year industry veteran is an English native currently based in New York. She is on the board of Constant Contact and previously served in many leadership capacities, including as CEO of Penton Media, the B2B publishing and events giant; and as President of Thomson Financial and The Financial Times.

In a conversation with BIA/Kelsey last week, Rowlands noted that she was drawn to ReachLocal?s efforts to provide SMB digital marketing services because the publicly-owned company has achieved “scale and a global footprint.” The SMB market has tremendous potential but “it is going through significant change,” said Rowlands. “SMBs must be overwhelmed with all the options facing them. I really think there is an opportunity to partner with SMBs and solve their problems in a more coherent way.”

One of the keys to Reach’s growth — and keeping its current base of 23,900 customers from churning — is to segment the market correctly, adds Rowland. “There is a lot of difference between someone signing up with one or two employees and someone with 30. The one-size-fits-all-approach is not the right approach,” she said.

The company is also seeking to develop more sticky tools for its customers, including ReachEdge, a comprehensive marketing solution that begins a $399 a month and now has over 1,000 SMB customers; and ReachSEO, a new search package. ReachEdge is also useful for attracting new customers — 65 percent of those signing up were not a prior customer of ReachLocal.

Saleswise, Reach has historically been focused on premise sales. But the company will now embrace “the whole breadth of go to market approaches, including telemarketing, partnership and ‘handholding,'” Rowlands said. “There is not one segmentation lens.”

The company is also moving beyond its emphasis on search solutions, which currently makes up 85 percent of revenue. While traditional search remain a strong anchor, discovery tools must make room for social media, which are increasingly important, Rowlands noted.

Sharon Rowlands, CEO, ReachLocal

The post BIA/Kelsey's Discussion with New ReachLocal CEO Sharon Rowlands appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

ReachLocal today announced the appointment of longtime B2B and information services leader Sharon Rowlands as CEO, replacing interim CEO David Carlick, who remains chairman; and founding CEO Zorik Gordon, who left in December 2013 and is pursuing his vision for ClubLocal, a consumer-facing home service that has been spun off by ReachLocal. Groupon is among the lead funders of ClubLocal.

Rowlands, a 20+ year industry veteran is an English native currently based in New York. She is on the board of Constant Contact and previously served in many leadership capacities, including as CEO of Penton Media, the B2B publishing and events giant; and as President of Thomson Financial and The Financial Times.

In a conversation with BIA/Kelsey last week, Rowlands noted that she was drawn to ReachLocal’s efforts to provide SMB digital marketing services because the publicly-owned company has achieved “scale and a global footprint.” The SMB market has tremendous potential but “it is going through significant change,” said Rowlands. “SMBs must be overwhelmed with all the options facing them. I really think there is an opportunity to partner with SMBs and solve their problems in a more coherent way.”

One of the keys to Reach’s growth — and keeping its current base of 23,900 customers from churning — is to segment the market correctly, adds Rowland. “There is a lot of difference between someone signing up with one or two employees and someone with 30. The one-size-fits-all-approach is not the right approach,” she said.

The company is also seeking to develop more sticky tools for its customers, including ReachEdge, a comprehensive marketing solution that begins a $399 a month and now has over 1,000 SMB customers; and ReachSEO, a new search package. ReachEdge is also useful for attracting new customers — 65 percent of those signing up were not a prior customer of ReachLocal.

Saleswise, Reach has historically been focused on premise sales. But the company will now embrace “the whole breadth of go to market approaches, including telemarketing, partnership and ‘handholding,'” Rowlands said. “There is not one segmentation lens.”

The company is also moving beyond its emphasis on search solutions, which currently makes up 85 percent of revenue. While traditional search remain a strong anchor, discovery tools must make room for social media, which are increasingly important, Rowlands noted.

Sharon Rowlands, CEO, ReachLocal

The post BIA/Kelsey’s Discussion with New ReachLocal CEO Sharon Rowlands appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey, forecasting $52.9 Billion in national local spending by 2017, has unveiled its new Leading in Local: The National Impact conference, which will take place in Atlanta May 7-9.

The 2.5 Day event is expected to be the largest gathering of national brands and local marketing players that has ever taken place. Brands, franchises, multi-location stores and others will be the focus.

We’re ready with national local’s top leaders, including Weather Company Global Revenue Officer Curt Hecht; Gannett/G/O Digital SVP Mark Marinacci; Foursquare VP of Sales Rob Wilks; Living Social SVP Mitch Spolan; AutoTrader Founder Chip Perry; YP EVP & GM of Digital Markets David Lebow; ReachLocal SVP John Gould; Yodle VP Corey O’Donnell; MediaVest EVP Maribeth Papuga; and many other leading innovators.

A number of speakers will be accompanied by top brands they are working with. The list already includes marketing leaders at brands such as Scion, Two Men and a Truck, Genghis Grill, and PostNet. BIA/Kelsey is also holding The GOLOCAL Awards for brands, which will include an on stage presentation.

This isn’t your typical “local” event. It’s all new, it’s all important. And it’s all here. Register.

The post 'National Brands, Local Marketing': BIA/Kelsey's Spring Event is May 7-9 in Atlanta appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey, forecasting $52.9 Billion in national local spending by 2017, has unveiled its new Leading in Local: The National Impact conference, which will take place in Atlanta May 7-9.

The 2.5 Day event is expected to be the largest gathering of national brands and local marketing players that has ever taken place. Brands, franchises, multi-location stores and others will be the focus.

We’re ready with national local’s top leaders, including Weather Company Global Revenue Officer Curt Hecht; Gannett/G/O Digital SVP Mark Marinacci; Foursquare VP of Sales Rob Wilks; Living Social SVP Mitch Spolan; AutoTrader Founder Chip Perry; YP EVP & GM of Digital Markets David Lebow; ReachLocal SVP John Gould; Yodle VP Corey O’Donnell; MediaVest EVP Maribeth Papuga; and many other leading innovators.

A number of speakers will be accompanied by top brands they are working with. The list already includes marketing leaders at brands such as Scion, Two Men and a Truck, Genghis Grill, and PostNet. BIA/Kelsey is also holding The GOLOCAL Awards for brands, which will include an on stage presentation.

This isn’t your typical “local” event. It’s all new, it’s all important. And it’s all here. Register.

The post ‘National Brands, Local Marketing': BIA/Kelsey’s Spring Event is May 7-9 in Atlanta appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.