The energy in the SMB space is moving away from the narrow notion of selling advertising products for lead generation to provisioning a much wider range of marketing services. These solutions are focused not just on acquiring customers, but also…
Two well-known players in SMB marketing services today announced a partnership to integrate their platforms to provide end-to-end customer acquisition/retention services for SMBs. The new partners are WordStream, a major SEM and search services provider (and Google Premier SMB Partner), and…
Competition in the home services leads space has been heating up -- and so are the tensions. Just this week, Angie's List has filed suit against Amazon, contending that Amazon Home Services has been egregiously signing up for the member's-only service…
BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor (Wave 18) shows just how popular customer loyalty programs are to SMBs. Currently, 29 percent offer them, with the number skewing higher (43 percent) for retail businesses. But despite the introduction of several loyalty platforms and…
Retail SMBs are more poised than their counterparts in other verticals to adopt sophisticated digital advertising and marketing. This is clearly shown by BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor (Wave 18) survey of small businesses. Retail SMBs are already highly oriented to…
SMBs in the entertainment vertical love video advertising. We're talking movie theaters, event venues, catering, on-demand performers*, etc.. As is conducive to their craft, they're big fans of online video, particularly website and YouTube videos. They're also big on cable…
This post is the latest in a weekly series of excerpts from BIA/Kelsey's recent report on the Local On-Demand Economy (LODE). The series will lead up to BIA/Kelsey NOW, a conference on LODE that will take place June 12 in…
Professional Services SMBs* use social and digital channels the most for advertising. Professional Services SMBs most popular social media channel is LinkedIn, according to Wave 18 of our Local Commerce Monitor? survey of small and medium-sized businesses. They are the…
Here we are in the middle of National Small Business Week, which seems like a great time to unveil the agenda and key themes of our upcoming SMB conference, which happens Sept. 29-30 at the Marriott Denver Tech Center.…
What is the trajectory of U.S. mobile ad revenues? Is the emerging on-demand economy the "Anti-search?" And what is Facebook's master plan for SMB localized marketing? These are a few topics we tackled over the last week, curated and aggregated…
Facebook is felt by some to have the potential to dominate SMB online advertising because of its incredibly high organic usage. But the challenge to drive even more SMB advertisers remains. The company currently reports that it has 40 million…
According to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor, Wave 18?, 72.2% of the SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses) surveyed* use Social Media to promote their business. Of the different social media used for advertising and promotion that BIA/Kelsey tracks in the…
What is Google's Mopocalypse really all about? Is scheduling the new centerpiece of SMB platform players? And what are the biggest drivers of the local on-demand economy? These are a few topics we tackled over the last week, curated and…
FiveStars, the well-funded SMB loyalty company that competes against Belly, SpotOn and others, is projecting it will grow its merchant base to 8,000-9,000 businesses by year-end, up from its current base of 6,000 customers. Customers who subscribe to FiveStars premium…
Earlier this month we examined SMBs that prefer a "Do it Yourself" model, but that's only half the story. SMBs that told us they prefer a "Do It With Me" or "Do It For Me" model for their advertising and…
We've long seen scheduling as a possible anchor for SMB marketing services (coupons, leads, promotions, analytics, upsells et al). Obviously, we are not alone. More than 75 players are positioning themselves to lead the way in scheduling, including MindBody, Booker,…
More than 75 companies are now providing scheduling solutions, resulting in a super fragmented marketplace where no single company has even five percent of the existing market. One by-product of the glut: the need for a one stop, API-driven product…
More than 75 companies are now providing scheduling solutions, resulting in a super fragmented marketplace where no single company has even five percent of the existing market. One by-product of the glut: the need for a one stop, API-driven product…
After putting the final touches on the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) report from our latest Local Commerce Monitor™ survey of SMBs, I sat down* to write this blog post. This report is a view of SMBs that told us they prefer a…
Today at BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, real life national brands stressed the importance of social media and local reviews in any location-based ad strategy. This is an always-welcome perspective, given that the BIA/Kelsey stage is usually filled with media companies (sellers) rather…