Earlier this week, Placed CEO David Shim notified me that the company's "Insights" product would be launching today. As we wrote back in October, this is a key piece of the "big data meets local" trend to provide analytics around…
Companies that are successfully transforming their sales teams to serve a fast changing local and SMB marketplace tend to follow a common set of best practices. These include a focus on customer-driven key performance indicators, a heavy reliance on data…
xAd and Telmetrics today continue their rapid fire series of Path-to-Purchase studies by kicking off the research's second year. After doing a study last year and following up with subsequent category drill downs, they launched a UK version. Those past…
SuperMedia and Dex One completed their merger today, creating Dex Media, a company with annual revenues of approximately $2.6 billion (based on combined 2012 revenues), with about $500 million in digital revenue. The combined company also has 2,700 sales reps…
BIA/Kelsey recently rolled out the first in a series of reports offering very specific cuts of data from our Local Commerce Monitor research. LCM is BIA/Kelsey's long-running study of how U.S. small business advertisers are evolving their use of media…
Is appointment scheduling poised to be a new anchor for service promotions? That vision --"look for an appointment, get a deal or upsell " -- has been articulated by a number of scheduling vendors, such as Agendize, FullSlate and Schedulicity.…
Will tech companies like Google, Apple, eBay/PayPal, Amazon, Microsoft, Square and Intuit move in on the role traditionally played by banks? It is a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future, as digitized transactions, mobile payments and offers, and digital wallets…
As promised in our LSA conference coverage last week, here is a deeper dive on Facebook's positioning and possible directions in local. I covered the topic in a bit more depth in my monthly Search Engine Watch column, including more…
Disruption happens. In the local space, we’re seeing it happen with Yellow Pages and newspapers. Banks are seeing it happen as well, which will cause a major change in the way that customers keep track of their money, buy goods…
Facebook is the undisputed king of social media. The average Facebook user has 124 friends, and 70 percent of its users have "liked" at least one local business. But at this point, how local is Facebook really? And as an…
I think Yelp is a fantastic service and a top resource, especially when I am travelling. But it was disturbing to read a column in The Los Angeles Times on Saturday by Sandy Banks, which suggests that Yelp is suppressing…
After writing about Facebook Director of Small Business Dan Levy's Interview at the Local Search Association Conference yesterday, I've been thinking a lot more about FB's possible directions in mobile and local (more to come on that). For now, one thing…
Ads aren't just valued for bringing in calls and walk ins. Local businesses increasingly place value on consumers looking up maps and directions, or participating in loyalty efforts, notes SuperMedia Director of Mobile Development Chris Folmer, who was speaking on…
Seven years ago, in 2006, we began evangelizing a vision of local media driven by vertical specialties. These would drive high value leads with better, more relevant searches. In this light, Google was seen as a "perpetual vertical machine," driving…
To cap off the Local Search Association Conference, Facebook Director of Small Business Dan Levy fielded questions from Greg Sterling on the past, present and future of Facebook's SMB marketing activity. In short, FB hasn't actively done much, but lots can…
Solocal Group CEO Jean-Pierre Remy offered directory publishers a vision for print to digital transformation built on a strong focus on building content, vertical segmentation and a relentless focus on execution. Remy was the keynote speaker at the Local Search…
This afternoon at the Local Search Association Conference in Las Vegas, a panel of mobile ad companies batted around ideas and examples of where they're seeing efficacy. The panel, moderated by Greg Sterling, included: Tim Garcia, Vice President, Business Development,…
This morning at the Local Search Association conference in Las Vegas, incoming chair Bill Dinan and association president Neg Norton outlined how a changing marketplace in Yellow Pages and local search are driving the need for changes in the association.…
Today at the Local Search Association conference, Bob Sanders, President and COO, AXIOM Sales Force Development, zeroed in on some strategies for sales organizations to deal with quickly changing marketplaces. As was discussed in this morning's SMB session, it's a…
To kick off the Local Search Association conference in Las Vegas, we saw lots of data on where SMBs are in the current environment of media transformation, and what it means for providers of local advertising. Greg Sterling, Senior Analyst,…