Archive for the ‘BIA/Kelsey Events’ Category
Monday, March 25, 2013
I attended BIA/Kelsey’s “Leading in Local: The National Impact” conference in Boston on March 18-20 and really enjoyed the terrific content and speakers. David Sharman, Dex One senior vice president and chief strategy officer, was particularly interesting during his keynote presentation.
Sharman discussed Dex One’s growth opportunity — providing SMBs with the latest marketing services. Using more than 1,000 sales reps, Dex One is making strides to build on its long-standing relationships with local businesses. While print still is an important aspect of the business, Sharman acknowledged the necessity of offering digital solutions that work for SMBs. To show its commitment to digital, Dex added digital expertise to staff and started to report digital revenues separately from print revenues.
Dex also has made some new partnerships with companies such as xAd, PaperG and Google to offer products that are fast, flexible and capital efficient. Dex’s digital product portfolio includes SEM solutions, Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), SEO, and websites which have helped Dex’s digital business grow by 30% making it worth around $300 million. Sharman attributed much of the digital growth to product bundles, which have a renewal rate of about 70%. Another driving force is the company’s Guaranteed Actions program, which is Dex’s commitment to deliver a certain number of leads across multiple media.
According to Sharman, Dex One still faces some challenges including finding new customers, identifying a way to soften the decline in print yellow pages revenue and being smarter with book distribution.
On the financial front, Dex reduced its debt by $1.8 billion, and the company has met guidance every quarter. Regarding the merger with SuperMedia, Sharman said it provides “more runway to transition to a growth company,” and both companies are focused on delivering value to their customers.
March 25, 2013 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, David Sharman, Dex One, digital products, local advertising, sales reps, SEM, SMB, speaker, SuperMedia merger
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
In my Locals Only column posted today on Search Engine Land, I shared 7 key takeaways from BIA/Kelsey’s jam-packed ILM West conference last week in Los Angeles.
As we head into 2013, local businesses have some important trends to consider when developing their marketing plans. The ways in which consumers are both searching and finding local businesses are rapidly changing, and local businesses and marketers are quickly adapting to take advantage of new opportunities to drive business in the door.
Read my full column on Search Engine Land.
December 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, column, ILM West, Local Search, Local Search Association, Locals Only, Search Engine Land
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Another great session yesterday at Day 2 of the BIA/Kelsey ILM Conference, entitled “The ‘New’ Newspaper: New Users, New Reach, New Revenues,” focused on the future of the newspaper industry. The session, moderated by Peter Krasilovsky, VP and Program Director at BIA/Kelsey, featured Dallas Morning News Publisher and CEO Jim Moroney III and San Diego Union-Tribune President and COO Mike Hodges and.
Newspaper industry innovations are always interesting to those of us with a traditional Yellow Pages background. Both newspapers and phone directory publishers have legacy systems, print products, embedded resources – and of course, similar challenges in today’s increasingly fragmented media market.
Moroney talked about how he is working with his team at the Dallas Morning News to ensure that the paper’s core advertising assets are being leveraged to their full advantage. He said that content marketing is at the core of the Dallas Morning News’ expansion: relevant, high-quality, targeted and interesting content that drives a consumer to make a decision or purchase.
To deploy existing assets to full advantage, Moroney created “508 Digital,” a new group backed by the Dallas Morning News’ trusted name, which is specifically tasked with reaching out to small businesses with an affordable, self-serve platform solution. For the paper’s larger existing customers (retailers, automotive, etc.), Moroney is developing another new business line, “Speakeasy.” This line is helping to increase sales with high quality content provided in partnership with an agency.
Moroney said that Dallas Morning News’ 125-year history in the market and its full spectrums of choices are giving his customers the confidence they need to continue doing business with the publication.
Asked if digital can save the newspaper industry, Moroney advised that new lines of business are needed to ensure the growth necessary for a healthy future.
Hodges discussed his digital background and said he harbors no preconceived notions about how to grow his business. The San Diego Union-Tribune is no longer just a newspaper, and his goal is to serve his advertisers regardless of the platform.
His publication entered the daily deal arena and is generating $13 million in new revenues as a result. U-T also started a rewards program for customers who demonstrate loyalty to local businesses.
In addition, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s broadcast business, UTTV, leverages 160 newsroom content providers to create sponsored content. Cox and AT&T UVerse are among the partners working with U-T TV.
Hodges said his future initiatives include a digital agency, real estate and mortgage brokerages, and a coffee delivery service with the morning paper.
All of these initiatives add up to some impressive innovation in a legacy product and great use of embedded assets. I think these developments definitely deserve some attention as our industry tackles some very similar issues.
December 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kesley, Dallas Morning News, ILMWest, innovation, Local Search, Local Search Association, newspaper, San Diego Union-Tribune, trends, U-T
Thursday, December 6, 2012
After a “musical” networking event Tuesday night that kept everyone entertained, Day 2 of the BIA/Kelsey ILM Conference kicked off yesterday with several strong presentations, including an interview with Google’s Todd Rowe and a keynote by CityGrid’s Jason Finger.
My favorite panel, “Search for It! Local Online Retail Innovation,” featured a great group including comScore’s Matt Archer, Where2GetIt’s Manish Patel and Kenshoo Local’s Paul Wicker. In just a half hour, the group discussed key insights into this year’s holiday shopping figures and product listing ads (PLAs).
To provide some context on where things stand in the online shopping space these days, here are some quick facts:
- The 2012 shopping season is off to a great start, up online sales up nearly 17% year-over-year.
- PCs still leading the way for online shopping, according to Archer.
- Cyber Monday sales have leapfrogged from $484 million in 2005 to $1.4 billion this year!
- Research shows that sales via mobile and tablets are gaining quickly, with tablets dominating the evening hours, as shoppers use them from the couch or in bed while watching TV.
- Mobile apps dominate access for most of the leading pure-play online retailers, with Amazon and eBay topping the list.
Wicker, who in a past life worked as a YP sales rep, described how his time in the job led him to love working with SMBs. He said he wants to help SMBs better understand the value of PLAs. Wicker talked about how Kenshoo Local has developed an algorithm to help SMBs increase the impact of their PLAs, noting that beta tests so far have showed positive metrics in terms of cost per call and ad effectiveness.
Patel said the solution for SMB advertisers is to embrace the online ecosystem by claiming their locations and verifying the consistency and accuracy of their data. He said no matter the size of one’s local business or number of locations, each one should have its own website to ensure accurate local content and optimized search results.
The panel closed with an interesting discussion of the ways to attract service companies to employ their own version of PLAs – or in this case SLAs: service listing ads. While all agreed that strong e-commerce capabilities are a requirement, the group felt that SMBs have a long way to go in that area.
The panel did a great job of leaving the audience wanting more, and several folks lined up to chat with the panelists at the session’s conclusion.
December 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, CityGrid, comScore, Google, holiday shopping, ILM West, Kenshoo Local, local, Local Search, Local Search Association, online advertising, Where2GetIt
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
I’m very much enjoying my time here at BIA/Kelsey’s ILM West conference, taking place this week at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
The event kicked off yesterday, and without question the highlight for me was the session “SuperForum: Sales Force Transformation,” which discussed the ongoing question on how to structure sales teams to successfully meet the demands of today’s fragmented media environment. Charles Laughlin, SVP and Program Director at BIA/Kelsey, moderated an expert panel that included Kris Barton of ReachLocal, Mark Canon of SmugCloud, Jeff Folckemer of LocalEdge and Kathy Geiger-Schwab of Geiger-Schwab Consulting.
Laughlin opened with the important reminder that in the realm of sales force transformation, “absolute success is hard to find, and fundamentally difficult to achieve.” He said that BIA/Kelsey would be publishing a foundational paper in early January that will explore attempts by Deseret Media Group, Dex One, Eniro, Yodle and others to make significant change in their approach to sales.
Pointing out that recent studies have determined that 79% of SMBs are either confused or don’t understand their digital options – and that 45% do not understand the ROI of their digital programs – Laughlin said that “the enormity of the challenge tends to be underestimated.”
Each of the panelists weighed in. Kris Burton explained that sending members of the tech team on sales visits has helped to close the gap in the understanding of client needs. Mark Canon observed that the SMB experience has changed, becoming much more complex with the proliferation of media choices. Jeff Folekemer said his company’s dashboard includes all of its products, making it easier to track supplier performance.
Kathy Geiger-Schwab, a former Berry executive and longtime expert in the sales improvement arena, suggested looking at the “CoreCo vs. the NewCo” She said companies should ensure that they continue to profit from their core business, while engaging a new team to build their future. She recommended “Profit From The Core” by Chris Zook and James Allen as a good read for those looking to transform their businesses.
The group discussed a variety of ways to improve sales teams, including:
- Automating SMB research as a tool for sales teams to use
- Watching your NPS (Net Promoter Score), but working with the baseline and be realistic about improvement
- Creating websites for SMBs that reflect the business’ identity
- Create a long-term business plan that emphasizes that success takes time
- Moving to resellers wherever possible and using their embedded investment to your advantage
And perhaps the most important message the panel had to sales teams out there was not to let what you know get in the way of what you don’t know. At the end of the day, change scares the entire management team. So to transform your sales force, start with the top and work down.
December 5, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Geiger-Schwab Consulting LLC, ILM West, Local Search, Local Search Association, LocalEdge, ReachLocal, sales, Smugcloud, transformation
Thursday, November 29, 2012
It’s not too late to register for BIA/Kelsey’s ILM West conference, taking place next Tuesday-Thursday, December 4-6 at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles!
The event agenda is jam-packed with a variety of exciting speakers from across the local search industry. I’m particularly excited for the following sessions:
- Search for It! Local Online Retail Innovation: comScore’s Matt Archer, Where2GetIt’s Manish Patel, and Kenshoo Local’s Paul Wicker will discuss how the development of product listing ads driving Google Shopping, map insertion and enhanced locators have altered the online shopping landscape.
- SuperForum: Mobile’s Impact on Interactive Local Media: National to Local: This four part series will look at the mobile local opportunity, local targeting and the evolution of mobile ads, the intersection between mobile and local, and how local businesses can plant the mobile flag. Representatives from BIA/Kelsey, Verve Mobile, xAd, Locu, JiWire, WillowTree Apps, and Duda Mobile will guide the conversation.
- The Advertiser SuperForum: A section of this conversation will feature Maya Kermath, former business development director for AT&T, who launched KOR180, a new fitness studio in Austin. One would think her deep experience should help make launching an SMB easy, right? Not so fast. Mari will discuss the promise and the pitfalls and what she is learning about digital marketing as a small business owner.
In addition to the speakers and panels, there will also be some great networking opportunities and a chance to meet with innovative companies looking for partners, vendors and advisors.
So book your hotel room, register for the event and pack your bags for LA! And if you can’t make it, check back on our blog next week for live blogging of our favorite sessions.
November 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, ILM West, local advertising, Local Search, Local Search Association
Monday, October 22, 2012
It’s not too early to register for BIA/Kelsey’s ILM West, taking place December 4-6 at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
The event agenda is jam-packed with exciting speakers from across the spectrum. I’m particularly interested in hearing from:
- Kris Barton, chief product officer at ReachLocal, who will talk one-on-one with BIA/Kelsey’s Charles Laughlin on Sales Force Transformation
- Tobias Dengel, CEO at WillowTree Apps, who will participate on a panel discussing mobile’s impact on interactive local media
- Andrew Shotland, principal at Local SEO Guide and a BIA/Kelsey associate, who will join Paul Wicker, director at Kenshoo Local in reviewing the new landscape in local/social SEO
There are also many, many others I look forward to hearing from. As usual, I’ll be blogging on-site for the duration of the event, so stop by here for the latest.
Register today – I hope to see you there!
October 22, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA, BIA/Kelsey, conference, ILM West, Local Search, Local Search Association, Los Angeles
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
We’re in the last day of SMB Digital Marketing 2012, presented by BIA/Kelsey here in Chicago. The final day is packed with speakers and analytics.
The morning will include John Pletz, Senior Reporter from Crain’s Chicago Business, a panel on Mobile Advertising for SMBs, a presentation by Valentine Matrat and Ben Wood from Google and more.
If you missed this event, take a look at BIA/Kelsey’s next meeting, ILM West, December 4-6 in Los Angeles. That’s your next opportunity to take advantage of BIA/Kelsey’s special blend of research and networking. Hope to see you there.
September 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ben Wood, BIA/Kelsey, BIA/Kelsey Event, Chicago, Crain's Chicago Business, Google, ILM West, ILM West 2012, John Pletz, Local Search Association, Mobile Advertising, SMB Digital Marketing, SMB Digital Marketing 2012, Valentine Matrat
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
A session entitled ’Social Media: Focus on Business Models’ was hosted by Jed Williams, who kicked off the session by revisiting LCM 16 and reiterating that SMBs number one objective for Facebook is new customer acquisition.
Pamela Springer, CEO-Manta presented metrics on online networking:
- 50% of SMBs (with fewer than 9 employees) are networking online and that number is expected to grow to 70% in 2013. The goal of such networking is to acquire new customers.
- SMBs are using a variety of sites to do so:
- 19% Facebook
- 12% LinkedIn
- 1% Google
- However, 58% say they are still struggling with Social Media.
“Revolution is being implemented in an Evolutionary way”, Springer explained to attendees. Manta is helping customers get in the game, find out what works and tie it all together.
From creating profiles for their SMBs, to providing tools and channels, Manta is working alongside their customers to find the right solutions. And soon they plan to add activity streams and status updates to their mix.
September 18, 2012 | 1 Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, BIA/Kelsey Event, Facebook, Google, Jed Williams, LCM 16, LinkedIn, Manta, Pamela Springer, Small Business, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing, SMB Digital Marketing 2012, social media
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Following a full morning of presentations, Gail Goodman, CEO – Constant Contact, took the stage after lunch to speak to a full room – attendance was estimated at over 400 for this event. Introduced by Rick Ducey (link), Goodman’s list of awards is lengthy and impressive. In addition, she is the author of the bestseller, Engagement Marketing.
Goodman, who worked to grow her company’s roster of SMBs to 500,000, took the audience through her recommendations for “Connecting the Dots” of digital marketing.
Constant Contact’s clients are truly small businesses – 70% have less than 10 employees and her company interacts with them exclusively online. They offer their clients:
- Email Marketing
- Event Management – on and off-line
- Social Campaigns – 80% of their SMBs have a Facebook page
They also enable their merchants to run their own local deals. Recently, they added Single Platform to provide digital storefronts.
Consolidating these services ensures that their clients get the services they need, so they can avoid answering repeated calls (up to 29 per month) from online marketing vendors.
Through the process of growing the company, Goodwin’s team made some discoveries that echo much of what we’ve heard for the past two days at SMB. Perhaps the most interesting concept is that consumers can be tracked from their first contact, to their offline purchase through their repeat purchases, without the SMB coming off as “spammy”.
Currently, small businesses are advised to ask the customer when they come into the store, “how did you find us?”. Goodwin gives that approach a #Fail. She believes that through the right combination of deal offers, social connections and engagement, SMBs can optimize the customer experience AND get the tracking information they need to create ongoing relationships.
Constant Contact wants to bring it all together for their clients and that’s a win-win.
September 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: constant contact, Engagement Marketing, Gail Goodman, Single Platform, Small Business, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing, SMB Digital Marketing 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Sanjay Gupta., VP – Global Merchant Marketing, Groupon, described their approach to winning new clients for the daily deal. He made the important point that the term SMB can be very broad – it covers a multitude of business owners from the one person kiosk to much larger, more sophisticated concerns, and each has differing needs.
His formula for reaching merchants seems to contradict accepted tropes about small businesses:
Keep it simple – everyone talks about how busy SMBs are. Groupon has found that they may be busy, but SMBs will spend time to learn complex ideas. He addressed what he thinks are some common misconceptions about small business:
Very Concerned About Price – Groupon has determined that with trust, SMBs will pay for product/vendor stability.
Don’t Have the Time – Gupta says that merchants will find the time for critical needs.
Know it All or Not at All – maybe, but he says that Groupon’s experience is that SMBs are willing to learn.
Groupon specializes in small, “Mom and Pop”, local merchants and is winning them over through 5 main tenets –
- Make them successful and your success will follow
- Support – provide both sales and account support, as well as self-serve and self-prep options
- Empower the merchant with tracking tools – a merchant center and customer interaction tools
- Continue that support through lifecycle management
- Align your strategy and offerings with the evolving needs of SMBs
BIA/Kelsey anticipates strong grown in the daily deals space over the next few years as large businesses enter the fray and add their loyalty programs to the mix. Meanwhile, it appears that Groupon is continuing to reach SMBs of all sizes with a combination of new tools and traditional customer care.
September 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: daily deals, Groupon, Local Search Association, Sanjay Gupta, Small Business, small businesses, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
After a quick review of yesterday’s meeting by Tom Buono and Mark Fratrik, this morning kicked off with Richard Hanna, EVP – Sales and Marketing, Dex One. His presentation of Dex’s journey of digital transformation clearly intrigued the attendees. Hanna outlined why the next two years are so important to both SMBs and providers, and how his team has worked to prepare for the challenges.
Hanna emphasized that advertisers are no longer satisfied with one-product solutions, but expect at least four or more options to meet their needs. Discussing the changes that have to occur to ensure a sales force equal to the challenge, he explained that Dex One has:
- Invested in a 21st century sales force and world class support technology
- Invested in product solutions
- Showed sales teams that “we mean business” – making an impression on the sales team through compensation plans, and by delivering products and services they can believe in.
“Easy to buy, easy to sell” – Dex One created an assortment of bundles and delivered them across multiple platforms, as well as creating Dex Guaranteed Action (DGA), to encourage customer confidence in their approach.
Hanna returned several times to the theme of high-tech training, describing how they have outfitted their reps with iPads, and now deliver training, sales results, new compensation incentives through webinars, videos and podcasts.
His plan to “motivate and captivate” has resulted in measurable success. And the strategy continues to deliver – a 40% growth in digital revenues since its inception.
Hanna did a great job of answering some probing questions from the audience and his presentation gave the audience a lot to consider.
September 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Dex Guaranteed Action, Dex One, iPad, Local Search Association, podcasts, Richard Hanna, sales force, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing 2012, videos, webinars
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Do you believe in omens and portents? Yeah, neither do I, especially when it comes to predicting how SMBs will deploy their marketing budgets over the next four years.
To help us understand more about ad spending, SMB Digital Day Two began with a special session for attendees, with Tom Buono and Mark Fratrik, BIA/Kelsey, presenting some of the recent findings from their Media Ad View (MAV). This study tracks competition, online dollars and share shifts in the local ad market.
The study outlines a bullish view of ad spending through 2016 and the continued shift away from traditional media to online and digital spending. It also captures the move to mobile ads and provides a tool to help your sales team rate that “trusted advisor” status, key to working with SMBs and growing your revenues.
Click here to learn more about how to get MAV and help your advertisers make those critical marketing decisions.
September 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Mark Fratrik, MAV, Media Ad View, Small Business, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing 2012, Tom Buono, trusted advisor
Monday, September 17, 2012
Matt Booth, Charles Laughlin and Steve Marshall, from the BIA/Kelsey team gave some tantalizing insights from the LCM 16 results which will be available to their clients in the coming weeks. Their findings will no doubt stir a lot of conversation at the “Best of Chicago” Reception sponsored by YP this evening.
For instance, it seems that 40% of SMBs purchase their online advertising themselves. And as they become more skilled at using Facebook, they are focusing less on creating awareness and more on customer acquisition.
The SMB Digital sessions will have some key themes:
- The “right” sale
- Beyond advertising
- Loyalty matters
- Keeping it real
- The Social SMB
They offered two more LCM 16 findings:
- Ad spend is stable
- SMB spending intent over the next 12 months = 36.3% increase!
(Acknowledging that what SMBs say vs. what they actually do isn’t always connected, they did say that they’d be checking back in a year to see if this pans out.)
With the exponential increase in mobile marketing (20% of the SMBs polled are now engaged), a result of either bundling media services or the doubling of mobile devices and SMB perceptual changes, the BIA/Kelsey team is watching that space with interest as well.
Up next – Nathan Hanks, president of ReachLocal, did an enthusiastic job of taking the audience through some of the key points that add up to his company’s “Five Ways to Win”. From discussing the Proctor and Gamble anthropologists in China looking at how to sell products to consumers who make less than $2 per day, to challenging the attendees to be ready for 020, from advising them to remember that “Job 1” is to make the cash register ring to invoking “ROI or Die!” as his company’s battle cry, he quickly proved why his organization is experiencing strong sales and satisfied customers.
He also shared that his organization is striving to be more than a point solution and to have a “client first” attitude in this deeply competitive space. I’ll be keeping an eye out for future updates from Hanks.
Patrick Barry, CMO of Demandforce/Intuit did a masterful job of taking the audience through an explanation of how applications and networks are converging to create new opportunities for SMBs. He stressed that there are thousands of workflow apps out there with tremendous diversity and specific designs allowing clients to meet their needs for scheduling, tracking inventory, marketing products and managing staff.
He also reinforced the need for SMBs to work harder, with their providers’ help, to retain existing customers, explaining that it is 4-10X more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one.
Both presentations were compelling and I’m sure we’ll hear more about these trends over the next two days.
Now it’s time to catch up with some of our Local Search Association members and meet some of the new faces here at SMB Digital!
September 17, 2012 | 1 Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Demandforce, Intuit, LCM 16, Local Search Association, ReachLocal, ROI, Small Business, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing, SMB Digital Marketing 2012, YP
Monday, September 17, 2012
This morning started off with a great line-up of speakers in a special preconference workshop, Building a Winning SMB Sales Organization.
Bob Sanders, president and COO of Axiom Sales Force Development kicked off the presentations with a thought provoking segment tracing the evolution of sales from the “peddler”, through needs-based sales, to the current “Trusted Advisor” approach which has proven important in a dynamic marketplace.
He emphasized the necessity for specific, industry-based questions for each customer – this approach takes the relationship with the SMB to the next level, and creates a successful environment for selling. Asking the advertiser, “What is the negative impact you want to eliminate?” allows the sales rep to get past the question of cost and into the SMBs specific needs and how they can be met.
Mike Centorani, cofounder of Sales Transformation Now, weighed in with a presentation that focused on the difficulty of gaining the attention of today’s overwhelmed and overworked SMB. Centorani has firsthand experience – he’s worked with three YP firms and has gone out on hundreds of sales calls with their teams.
In addition to suggesting something that is in very short supply these days – patience – he reminded the audience that SMBs by nature are: risk takers, tellers vs. askers, and want to get straight to the bottom-line. Usually, sales reps have the same traits!
He suggested learning to speak the language of the client and make it about them. Finding out:
- What they are trying to sell?
- Who is their target audience?
- What do their customers care about when choosing who to do business with?
- And why would the client be the best choice for their customer?
Next Todd Handy, VP at Deseret Digital Media, spoke about the guiding principles that have helped Deseret’s transition and boost revenues:
- Digital Requires Digital – your sales team should mirror your customers
- Leveraging Your Legacy – it’s not about your products, it’s about a solution for the SMB and a different model for sales
- Focusing on the Long Tail – the average SMB is overworked and under-educated when it comes to available media, they need guidance and help understanding the importance of ROI
Paul Plant, principal at Radicle Consulting, rounded out the opening session by taking a slightly different approach, pointing out that we are in a dynamic marketplace requiring a team approach that includes multiple customer touch points and access to media specialists to meet the needs of most SMBs. This creates a more positive experience for the SMB resulting in a stronger relationship with your brand.
Plant has consulted with Trader Media, O₂ and Pages Jaunes – all companies successfully using this approach. He suggested that there are some common themes at these organizations that have enabled them to succeed in a changing marketplace, including:
- Single-minded focus on delivering customer value
- Compensation tied to Customer Satisfaction Index
- Aligned leadership
- Impeccable execution
- Seamless business-wide technology
- Workplace satisfaction
It was a busy morning, but these speakers had a large audience, and provided a good opening to the remainder of the event. There’s still much more to come, so check in here over the next two days to see what’s going on at SMB Digital.
September 17, 2012 | 1 Comment
Tags: AXIOM, Axiom Sales Force Development, BIA/Kelsey, BIA/Kelsey Event, Deseret Digital Media, Local Search Association, Pages Jaunes, Radicle Consulting, Sales Transformation Now, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing, SMB Digital Marketing 2012, Trader Media
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