Before too many days pass in travel recovery mode, I wanted to get some of my thoughts down from BIA/Kelsey's sessions at the EASDP Congress in Toledo Spain on Friday. As background, we programmed and ran the second day of…
The consortium of 12 major newspaper companies that last year purchased Travidia, a digital circular vendor, has relaunched as Wanderful Media. The consortium, previously known as ShopCo., has committed $22 Million to the venture. It has also introduced a new…
There's been lots of talk about Apple's mapping swicheroo, and how its new app is so far is a big #fail. The emphasis there is on so far, as the company has responded by emphasizing the cloud based nature of…
As the New York Times noted this morning, Apple’s initial iOS6 foray into mobile maps has been greeted with a thumbs down by iPhone 5 reviewers, who prefer the polished Google Maps experience that was the prior default. But maps…
Yodle CEO Court Cunningham, in a well received presentation at SMB Digital Marketing this week in Chicago, told attendees to constantly adapt to actual conditions in the marketplace, not what the “experts” tell us. The gist of Cunnigham’s comments were…
Pay for Performance is the Holy Grail in SMB advertising. SMBs only want to pay for leads that their advertising programs deliver. But moving SMBs from inclusion to performance has never been easy. Recent progress in lead quality assessment has…
Facebook’s Fred Huang spoke about the SMB mission with Facebook at SMB Digital marketing today in Chicago. He noted that the SMB product roadmap is about helping them spend less time managing their page, make it easier to have their…
Google’s role in the SMB Digital Marketing community is huge, and at SMB Digital Marketing in Chicago today, two Google execs described some of the company’s activities that have impacted SMB marketing. Speaking on reseller side as an exec in…
Constant Contact CEO and "Engagement Marketing" author Gail Goodman made a pretty direct pitch to those attending SMB Digital Marketing to partner with her company to build out a social contact management system, which she describes as the "rich social…
To kick off the afternoon of Day 2 of SMB Digital Marketing, a duo of social media experts explicated the fluid dynamics of delivering social media to SMBs. Mike Nabasny, Director of Midwest Sales, Wildfire Pamela Springer, CEO, Manta Moderator…
While SEO may still have a somewhat murky reputation (many still don't know what it is), the fact is SEO is now a big business that will only get bigger, and it drives very strong ROI for small businesses, with…
Kicking off Day 2 of our SMB Digital Marketing Conference, DexOne's EVP of Sales & Marketing Richard Hanna offered insights into the changing realities of selling advertising to SMBs. This is particularly timely in the immediate wake of his company's…
DemandForce's CMO Patrick Barry suggested during his keynote address at SMB Digital Marketing in Chicago today that Intuits $434 Million acquisition of his company last year might be meant to connect every small business to any consumer via a single…
Rounding out the first day of our SMB Digital Marketing Conference in Chicago was a panel well versed in the realities of working with local and regional advertisers. Darnell Holloway, Manager, Local Business Outreach, Yelp Shawn Riegsecker, Founder and CEO,…
ReachLocal President Nathan Hanks kicked off BIA/Kelsey's SMB Digital Marketing festivities with a stirring keynote about what's working and not working in local media. But to tell this story requires going past the boundaries of local media. There are learnings…
We're all in conference prep mode and looking forward to a robust SMB Digital conference starting Monday in Chicago. We hope to see you there. In the meantime, though there isn't time to disect it meaningfully, I'd like to point…
As widely expected, we have a new iPhone. Unlike the naming convention across Apple's product line (most lately the iPad), the company is sticking with the numerical-based system. So we now have an iPhone 5. Also widely expected in the…
Newspapers have local brand credibility and content; agencies have media expertise; and neither of them do especially well selling SMBs on today's social-infused media options. That's the challenge being addressed by Speakeasy, a new local social service being owned in…
MasterCard has dived feet first into the card linked loyalty battles with the acquisition of Truaxis. The company should prove to be an anchor for MasterCard Offers Services, where it has partnered with Local Offer Network and others. Formerly known…
In the loyalty space, we're closely watching how major tech players are vertically integrating loyalty offerings into their SMB product suite. Google, Facebook and Amazon each have acquired loyalty startups and will likely make them part of their SMB suite.…
