To wrap up the content-packed SMB Digital Marketing conference, a panel of heavy hitters zeroed in on the show's pervasive theme of content marketing. Perry Evans, CEO, Closely Adam Japko, CEO, Digital Sherpa (NCI) Randy Parker, CEO, PagePart; Founder, Constant…
Today at SMB Digital Marketing, Jeff Fagel, the new CMO of G/O Digital, Gannett's renamed local digital arm, offered a very Amazon-centric view of the local online ecosystem. Gannett has 82 daily newspapers and is the fourth-largest owner of TV…
Three finalists in the SMB Future Stars Local Liftoff Award Competition each gave 6-minute presentation on their start-up business then faced tough questions from two season entrepreneur judges, Shark Tank style. Now it's up to the voters. The Judges…
This afternoon at SMB Digital Marketing, Simon Greenman, CEO, Home Advisor Europe, talked about how he is shaping a key European home services vertical, and also reflected a bit on an industry he has a long association with -- the…
This morning at SMB Digital Marketing moderator Jed Williams interviewed four companies in the middle of understanding how to deliver content market solutions to small businesses. One of the biggest challenges was balancing the scale of marketing automation with the…
This morning at SMB Digital Marketing, BIA/Kelsey Chief Economist Mark Fratrik and VP of Business Development Steve Passwaiter walked through a view of the U.S. local media marketplace, and offered a sample of BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View Plus, a…
A central theme emerged this morning at SMB Digital Marketing. It began in the Focus on Profits session, where former BIA/Kelsey analyst and current Yellowbot CEO Matt Booth declared, "In ten years, this conference will be all about software and…
Today at SMB Digital Marketing, BIA/Kelsey Entrepreneur in Residence Warren Kay led a panel of heavy hitters to bat around operational and financial strategies for local media companies and early stage startups. Matt Booth, CEO, YellowBot Mike Dodd, Partner, Austin…
As I mentioned last week while writing about PayPal's new app updates, we just published a big report on the state of the union of mobile shopping and payments. This is of course an exploding area with lots of interest…
Can the state of mobile advertising be indicated by the stock price of some of the industry's leaders? Google and Facebook -- the top two market share leaders -- have faced some investor unease due to users flocking to a…
BIA/Kelsey released a report yesterday on mobile shopping and payments (more on that in a separate post). It's choc full of analysis and case studies of the emerging standards that are competing for user and merchant attention in these early…
We're just two weeks from our SMB Digital Marketing Conference. That means we're gearing up to hear top notch speakers from Google, Facebook, Twitter Yelp and lots of other companies innovating and disrupting the world of SMB local marketing. I'm…
There's been lots of speculation around Apple's moves into local search and advertising over the past year. This has accelerated in the past 30 days with the acquisition of three different local mapping-related companies (and a failed Waze acquisition). We've…
Yesterday at the Borrell, LSA, LMA Social + Mobile event at a Chicago airport hotel, Google executives made the case for Google+ as the centerpiece of an effective SMB digital presence before a roomful of current and potential resellers. The…
Seat Pagine Gialle, the troubled Italian search and directory company, placed its UK subsidiary Thomson Local into "administration" yesterday (the UK equivalent of receivership). Thomson immediately dismissed its field sales team in summary fashion. The company appeared poised for liquidation,…
Mobile local advertising's promise -- besides hyper-targeted ad placement -- has always been clearer ROI (enter John Wanamaker quote). This has taken form in "beyond-the-click" activity like call tracking and mapping/navigation. Location based data provider Placed has just taken this…
On this week's episode of BIA/Kelsey's new analyst round table series, we tackle the M&A activity that seems to be picking up all over the local media space. This is everything from Apple's recent mapping acquisitions to Yelp's moves in…
Yelp took a big step today that it had previously avoided for years: allowing mobile users to write reviews directly from their mobile devices. Recently tested through a selection of elite Yelp users, the feature is available starting today to…
Tech world chatter over the past few weeks (including ours) zeroed in on Apple's back-to-back mapping acquisitions, what they mean, and who's next? After learning that mapping is a game won on data, Apple is buying it's way out of…
Last week, outgoing Yellow Media CEO Marc Tellier presided over his final earnings call and ended the call with a recitation of his accomplishments during his 12 years at the company's helm. Tellier leaves his post this week, with no…