"Not all data is created equal, but almost anything can be helpful," said Acxiom CEO and President Scott Howe, who keynoted at BIA/Kelsey's Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing in New Orleans Sept. 23. Now they can choose among connection…
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…
The big announcement this morning at Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing -- The Berry Company has acquired LocalVox for an undisclosed amount. Berry was already an investor in LocalVox and has been one of the leading resellers of the…
BIA/Kelsey continues to engage market leaders in its coverage areas, in order to collaborate on research reports. There are currently two in the works that we're excited about. One is on content marketing at the local level and the other…
Transformation is different from change, and has major implications on a company's fabric, said former Hibu (YellowBook) CTO Gary Shaw, who now heads consultancy Houstonian Partners. Shaw was speaking at BIA/Kelsey's Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing conference in New…
In true disruptive technology style, YPG is separating digital sales from print sales to allow the company to grow overall even as print continues to decline, noted YPG CEO Julien Billot, during a keynote at Leading in Local: SMB Digital…
BIA/Kelsey is releasing its new comprehensive forecast on local media spending for the coming year. On the eve of the release, we spoke with BIA/Kelsey SVP and Chief Economist Mark Frantik. What's the big picture with spending on local advertising?…
As we gear up for our LEADING IN LOCAL: SMB Digital Marketing conference, there’s a lot to look forward to. Local Market Launch, a startup that helps companies manage the online presence of local stores, just announced a suite of…
Last week, call tracking and analytics provider Ifbyphone announced not one, but two major milestones. First, the company announced that it has raised $30 million in series E funding -- bringing its total funding to $60 million. It…
YP has named David Lebow to the newly created position of Chief Revenue Officer, reporting to CEO David Krantz. Lebow was previously executive vice president, digital markets. This promotion puts Lebow in charge of YP's enormous 4,000 person sales…
The name of the game this week is gearing up for our big SMB Digital Marketing conference in New Orleans. I've been spending lots of time talking to speakers about what we'll discuss on stage -- which has mostly focused…
As part of our ongoing coverage of call monetization, we held webcast to further unpack our analysis and findings. You can watch the free on-demand replay (streaming slides and voiceover) here. This comes at an opportune time, when call monetization is…
According to our newly released LCM wave 18 data, SMBs find that call-based leads tend to be of higher quality than email (where SMBs reported 43% to be good/excellent), Facebook (35.3% good/excellent) and even in store visits (58.8% good/excellent).…
Cutting through all the Apple excitement, does Apple Pay have what it takes to finally gain the scale that other mobile payment technologies have failed to achieve? Despite Apple's halo effect my answer is no, at least in Apple Pay's…
As we prepare for our annual September conference (watch out, New Orleans) we are starting to release the data from our Wave 18 Local Commerce Monitor (LCM) survey, just "in from the field" a few weeks ago. The data we…
This week has been all about Apple. That’s included some decent analysis, and a whole lot of overblown adoration that “they’ve done it again.” Larger iPhone screens are great but I’m not sure they’ll fit into the skinny jean pockets of the millennial target audience.
In all seriousness as an Apple fanboy, longtime user, and industry watcher, I see implications for larger screens to jumpstart lots of cool app development. I’m bullish on what this will do for content and ad delivery, but downright skeptical about Apple Pay.
Building on our pre-launch analysis, let’s take those one at a time, putting aside the Apple Watch for another post.
Size Matters
Larger screen iPhones are important for lots of reasons. But let’s be clear that this is one of the cases where Apple isn’t leading but following. The SamDroid world is way ahead on this one. Regardless, the marketplace demands larger screens so that’s where we are.
This is also interestingly one of those times when Apple is going back on a vehemently drawn line in the sand. Few people remember Steve Jobs’ fastidious stance that 3.5 inches was the canonical sweet spot for a smartphone (size of original iPhone through the 4s).
Part of the marketplace demand for larger screens goes back to other macro factors such as better connectivity and Moore’s law-driven hardware improvements. These have converged to enable the age of social sharing through Instagram, Snapchat, etc..
Capturing and sharing multimedia via increasingly powerful optics is commonplace. So larger screens to consume that media is a natural progression that aligns. And we’ll see the app development community do some cool things to utilize a larger screen.
The Ad Angle
For the same reason, the ad ecosystem just got a lot more interesting. As we discussed in our last video roundtable, and Peter Krasilovsky’s post earlier this week, larger screens have lots of implications for ad delivery.
But importantly, this won’t just mean more real estate for larger banners. Successful ad strategies will take more of a holistic approach to delivering brand messaging in ways that are more native to a bigger screen… rather than making existing banners larger.
This week has been all about Apple. That’s included some decent analysis, and a whole lot of overblown adoration that “they’ve done it again.” Larger iPhone screens are great but I’m not sure they’ll fit into the skinny jean pockets of the millennial target audience.
In all seriousness as an Apple fanboy, longtime user, and industry watcher, I see implications for larger screens to jumpstart lots of cool app development. I’m bullish on what this will do for content and ad delivery, but downright skeptical about Apple Pay.
Building on our pre-launch analysis, let’s take those one at a time, putting aside the Apple Watch for another post.
Size Matters
Larger screen iPhones are important for lots of reasons. But let’s be clear that this is one of the cases where Apple isn’t leading but following. The SamDroid world is way ahead on this one. Regardless, the marketplace demands larger screens so that’s where we are.
This is also interestingly one of those times when Apple is going back on a vehemently drawn line in the sand. Few people remember Steve Jobs’ fastidious stance that 3.5 inches was the canonical sweet spot for a smartphone (size of original iPhone through the 4s).
Part of the marketplace demand for larger screens goes back to other macro factors such as better connectivity and Moore’s law-driven hardware improvements. These have converged to enable the age of social sharing through Instagram, Snapchat, etc..
Capturing and sharing multimedia via increasingly powerful optics is commonplace. So larger screens to consume that media is a natural progression that aligns. And we’ll see the app development community do some cool things to utilize a larger screen.
The Ad Angle
For the same reason, the ad ecosystem just got a lot more interesting. As we discussed in our last video roundtable, and Peter Krasilovsky’s post earlier this week, larger screens have lots of implications for ad delivery.
But importantly, this won’t just mean more real estate for larger banners. Successful ad strategies will take more of a holistic approach to delivering brand messaging in ways that are more native to a bigger screen… rather than making existing banners larger.
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…
Deals and coupons remain anchors for local business promotion. But they can now be customized based on customer behavior and better marketing automation tools. Signpost is eager to leverage these developments. While the 200 person company launched in 2011 as…