Archive for the ‘BIA/Kelsey Events’ Category
Friday, September 14, 2012
I’m off to Chicago on Sunday to attend BIA/Kelsey’s highly anticipated SMB Digital Marketing Conference 2012, taking place Monday-Wednesday at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.
As in previous years, I’ll be live-blogging the various expert speakers and panelists as they discuss opportunities for small- and medium-sized business to increase their investment in digital marketing and experience strong return-on-investment.
Two sessions I’m really looking forward to include:
- Managing Ever-Expanding Digital Portfolio Panel: Mike Centorani, cofounder, Sales Transformation Now, and Bob Sanders, president and COO, Axiom Sales Force Development, will discuss how local media companies are successfully blending their traditional and digital media products. The panel will explore evolving sales strategies, impact on recruitment and training, and effective multimedia selling tactics.
- Presentation by Fred Haung, manager, Partner Relations, Facebook: Haung, who previously led SMB marketing for Google in China, will discuss Facebook’s SMB initiatives.
There is still time to register, so don’t miss this great opportunity. You can check out the full agenda here and follow along throughout the week on the virtual conference website or with hashtag #SMBDigital on Twitter.
If you’re attending and get a chance, come by and say hi! See you in Chicago.
September 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Chicago, conference, Local Search Association, small and medium businesses, Small Business, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
We’re less than two weeks away from BIA/Kelsey’s highly anticipated SMB Digital Marketing Conference 2012, taking place Sept. 17-19 at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago.
There’s still time to save on registration for those who sign up in advance rather than at the door. Additionally, Local Search Association members receive an extra $200 off by using promo code “SMBLSA.” So don’t delay – register today!
Check our recent posts on the conference for more on the jam-packed three-day agenda, which includes key speakers from companies including Facebook, Google, Dex One, ReachLocal and more.
See you in Chicago!
September 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Chicago, Dex One, Facebook, Google, Local Search, Local Search Association, registration, SMB, SMB Digital Marketing 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
We’re just several weeks away from BIA/Kelsey’s highly anticipated SMB Digital Marketing Conference 2012, taking place Sept. 17-19 at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago.
This annual event, which brings together innovators, influencers, and inventors in the digital marking place, will focus on small and medium sized businesses’ increased investment in the space and their greater appetite for ROI-based strategies. Specific topics will include local sales strategies, merchant outreach, SMB engagement and promotions, local search, social media, mobile strategies and technology innovation.
The jam-packed three-day agenda will feature a variety of exciting speakers, including:
- Alfred Mockett, CEO, Dex One
- Bob Sanders, President & CEO, Axiom
- Court Cunningham, CEO, Yodle
- Ben Wood, Head of Channel Sales Partnerships Americas, Google
- Fred Huang, Manager, Partner Relations, Facebook
- Anthony Bratti, SVP – Business Development, vSplash
- John Busby, VP, Marchex Institute
- Barnell Holloway, Manager, Local Business Outreach, Yelp
- Sanjay Gupta, VP, Global Merchant Marketing, Groupon
Visit the conference website and register today! I look forward to seeing many of you in Chicago. For those who cannot attend, stay tuned to Local Search Insider for live coverage of the event.
August 29, 2012 | 1 Comment
Tags: agenda, BIA/Kelsey, Chicago, conference, Local Search, Local Search Association, SMB Digital Marketing, speakers
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Next month in Chicago, BIA/Kelsey will be hosting its annual conference for innovators, influencers, and investors in the digital marketing space. The SMB Digital Marketing 2012 conference will focus on small and medium sized businesses’ increased investment in digital marketing and their greater appetite for ROI-based strategies.
Leaders from local search and social media will be discussing what the changing landscape means for firms in those spaces.
Head over to BIA/Kelsey for a full agenda and list of speakers.
SMB Digital Marketing 2012
September 17 – 19, 2012
Chicago
Hyatt Regency McCormick Place
I’ll be there and will be blogging from the event, hope you’ll be joining the Local Search team in Chicago!
August 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, BIA/Kelsey Event, Chicago, Digital Marketing, Local Search, Local Search Association, ROI, small and medium businesses, SMB, social media
Thursday, June 28, 2012
The BIA/Kelsey Mobile Local Media conference finished up yesterday with an excellent group of speakers, highlighting a range of topics that covered the full spectrum of mobile revenue models, mobile content creation, investment in mobile and more.
I really enjoyed a standout interview with David Hornik, general partner at August Capital, who likened a successful business to an unmentionable virus. Hornik humorously described the ups and downs of finding the right start-up investments.
Hornik was followed by a variety of great speakers and panelists, including Aisle411′s Nathan Pettyjohn, Pandora’s Doug Sterne, Marchex Institute’s John Busby, DudaMobile’s Itai Sadan, WillowTree Apps’ Tobias Dengel, among others.
As always, the BIA/Kelsey team delivered a really full agenda, plenty of networking and an great location in San Francisco. I found the investment in time and resources well worth it. To learn more about their services, visit their website.
June 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Local Search, Local Search Association, MLM, MLM SF, Mobile Local Media
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Matt Booth, BIA/Kelsey’s chief strategist and program director, participated in a great conversation with Stewart Alsop, partner at Alsop Louis Partners, about investment in technology and entrepreneurship.
Stewart described his company’s approach to venture capitalism: being the first investors in a project and having a close connection with the technical team. He said his firm looks for outlier companies that require it to predict how they will fare in the market.
Stewart said his job is to take a normal investment and multiply it. He noted that he does not participate in “momentum” investing such as the app business, which he thinks is a temporary market. Stewart described how the app market solved the browser issue, and overviewed how new offerings like Funsockets enable users to play games without an app at all. He said that users are not interested in format, just the offering they receive. Stewart said that the market will get to a place where we don’t need to go to the store to get games, among other things.
Stewart said that Facebook continues to face issues on the mobile front, and that it’s a problem that needs to be solved. He suggested that Facebook put together a team to work on the issue.
Stewart concluded by saying the consumers still want to talk on the phone, so it will make sense to invest in companies that blend search and talk.
What an interesting conversation with a man with deep experience in so many areas.
June 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alsop Louis Partners, BIA/Kelsey, Local Search, Local Search Association, Matt Booth, MLM, MLM SF, Mobile Local Media, Stewart Alsop
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
BIA/Kelsey’s Mike Boland conducted an interview interview today with Mok Oh, chief scientist at PayPal. As we all know, PayPal is the preeminent digital transaction company with 100 million accounts worldwide.
Mok discussed PayPal’s 17 retailer direct POS integrations. PayPal is preinstalled with POS software vendors including Leapset, Vend and Erply and POS hardware partners including Veifone, Equinox, and Ingenico. Because of the hardware integrations, PayPal is now available at 40 million POS terminals.
Popular retailers Home Depot, Office Depot, JCP, Nine West and others now allow customers to purchase products via PayPal. But how can PayPal help bring in additional customers? How can businesses entice consumers to think about PayPal at the checkout counter?
Mike presented some interesting questions:
- What value-add does PayPal have versus credit cards, where are an entrenched habit for both merchants and consumers?
- What advantages does PayPal have over other mobile payment formats?
- What loyalty programs will be bolted on to leverage closed loop data?
- Will PayPal create front-end loyalty programs or provide platforms for third parties (or retailers) to build on to?
Mok said PayPal is ready to help merchants and has a lot of ideas, but is often still asking – what is the first step to get us in-store?
Mok also noted that PayPal is addressing privacy concerns and allow consumers to opt-out of information sharing, but legally things are changing constantly. Mok said PayPal follows the rule of always doing “the right thing” for its customers.
What’s next at PayPal? Mok talked about integration with cable providers and set top box hardware to bring its offerings to TV, as well as social media integration opportunities. For example, PayPal just recently integrated ads with Twitter.
We’ll surely be watching with interest as PayPal continues to address these challenges and expand its business.
June 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Equinox, Erply, Ingenico, Leapset, Local Search, Local Search Association, mobile, payment, Paypal, POS, social media, TV, Twitter, Vend, Verifone
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Jed Williams, analyst and program director, Social Local Media, BIA/Kelsey hosted a panel this morning entitled “Mobile and Social: Where’s the Sweet Spot?,” which overviewed the growing role of mobile and social in consumers’ everyday lives. Participating in the discussion was Mike Ghaffary, director of business development, Yelp; Beau Haugh, co-founder and CTO, Localmind; and Steve Jang, CEO, Schematic Lab.
Some interesting takeaways from the panel:
- There are more than 105 million smartphones in the U.S.
- 75% of smartphone users are conducting local searches
- 80% of consumers prefer ads that are locally relevant
- Consumers check their phones an average of 40 times per day
- 91% of consumers keep their mobile phones within arms length 24 hours a day
Steve said that the traditional goals of building websites were ensuring that content was viewed and attracted impressions. He said that the mobile phone is a great agent to capture and share experiences quickly, and noted that we all want our apps to be useful, powerful and provide a feedback loop. He also said that the reality is that the majority of us don’t travel everyday – but are eating, drinking and going to concerts locally, so local and social content is extremely important.
Beau said that mobile apps should be intuitive and navigate the way consumers want them to, providing them with a quick in and out. He said that if the process isn’t immediate, that the chance of achieving initial engagement is more difficult.
Mike noted that Yelp has an enormous database content and that the challenge is how its ported and what experiences are made new. He said that Yelp has decided to make every strategic decision with a “mobile lens.” For instance, restaurant reviews are subject to an algorithm that uses reviews to create rankings for specific dishes. He also talked about Yelp’s efforts to create specific apps for tablet use.
Mike also discussed the value of the check-in and the importance of developing a level of experitise through Facebook and Twitter. He said consumers are really looking for local, authentic experiences in their mobile searches.
June 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beau Hagh, BIA/Kelsey, Jed Williams, local, Local Search, Local Search Association, Localmind, mike Ghaffary, mobile, Schematic Lab, smartphone, Steve Jang, Yelp
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Earlier this morning, Surojit Chatterjee, Head of Mobile Search Ad Product at Google and his colleague Brendon Kraham, Global Mobile Sales and Product Strategy at Google, participated in a panel with Mike Boland about their company’s mobile strategy and approach to ads and monetization.
Surojit and Brendon outlined some of Google’s mobile products:
- Google Maps for mobile, one of the most popular apps available, allows advertisers’ websites to be launched directly and as opposed to being bounced from the browser. This prevents losing the user in the process.
- Custom in-app ads for apps within search. Google serves paid results within an app and splits the revenue.
- Mobile search ads that link directly to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, including app icons and details within the ads.
- Mobile search ads that link directly to a page within an installed app. If the users don’t have the app, the ad links to the app download page.
- Click-to-call features within search ads, providing 6-8% higher CTRs and approximately 15 million calls per month.
Surojit and Brendon elaborated on this last point, noting that mobile advertising is increasingly designing ads to drive calls. They highlighted that sometimes calling a phone number is the only action that a user can take, even when there is a website in the ad.
It’s clear that Google is looking down the mobile road and planning the right apps for mobile advertisers. Exciting stuff!
June 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Brendon Kraham, Google, Google Maps, Google Mobile, Local Search, Local Search Association, mobile, Surojit Catterjee
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
In his opening remarks at BIA/Kelsey Mobile Local Media conference, Mike Boland, senior analyst and MLM Conference Chair, set the stage an important conversation on tactical ways to maximize opportunities in local mobile.
Boland shared some interesting stats for context on the current environment:
- Consumers bought more smartphones last year than PCs
- 40% of mobile searches are for local information
- Mobile usage advertiser share is only 1%. There is still opportunity, but the imbalance is causing mobile ad rates to go down
Moving forward, Boland believes there is a lot of room for growth:
- Mobile usage is strong
- Advertisers are evolving
- Geo-targeting is enabling premium ad rates
For Yelp – which has been getting a lot of attention lately because of its role in supplying reviews to Apple’s planned Maps offering – mobile is only 10% of monthly traffic, but represents a high 40% of total search traffic on the site. Yelp and others have some work ahead of them to monetize this high usage rate, but the opportunity is clearly there.
Can you believe that OpenTable, the restaurant reservation service, seated 15 million diners via mobile last year? That speaks volumes to how significant mobile is in the local experience, especially the dining category.
Boland said that mobile campaign management deals, landing pages, pay-per-call and paid search were all opportunities for Yellow Pages companies to expand their reach. He also discussed future offerings like wearable technology (Google is working on this) and more in-car offerings.
With such strong activity in mobile, it’s clear there’s a lot for us to discuss today!
June 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Local mobile, Local Search, Local Search Association, Mobil Local Media, mobile, OpenTable, Yelp
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
It’s exciting to be in beautiful San Francisco today for BIA/Kelsey’s Mobile Local Media meeting. A number of great speakers will be here during the all-day event. Some of the big names that caught my attention include:
- Google Mobile leads Surojit Chatterjee, Head of Mobile Search Ads Products, and Brendon Kraham, Global Mobile Sales Product Strategy
- Mike Ghaffary, Director of Business Development, Yelp
- Mok Oh, Chief Scientist, Paypal
- Chris Folmar, Director of Mobile Development, SuperMedia
- Mihir Shah, VP, Mobile, Groupon
- David Kurtz, VP, Publisher Network, YP
- Anna Martinez, VP of Technology, CityGrid
- Heidi Browning, Senior VP of Strategic Solutions, Pandora
I’ll be blogging throughout the day and I’m looking forward to talking with the attendees. More to come as the day progresses!
June 27, 2012 | 1 Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, CityGrid, Google, Groupon, Local Search, Local Search Association, Localmind, MLM, Mobile Local Media, Pandora, Paypal, SuperMedia, Yelp, YP
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
As we all know, mobile local advertising is playing an increasingly central role in how consumer search for local business information. I’m very excited to get a deep-dive on the space at BIA/Kelsey’s new Mobile Local Media event, taking place next Wednesday, June 27 in San Francisco.
The A-list lineup includes legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalists Stewart Alsop and David Nornik, Groupon’s Mihir Shah, PayPal’s Mok Oh, Google’s Surojit Chatterjee and Bendon Kraham, Pandora’s Heidi Browning and Yelp’s Ghaffary. What a group!
I look forward to seeing you all there. Visit BIA/Kelsey’s website for more information and use discount code “MLMBLOG” at checkout for $100 off.
For those who can’t join us, I’ll be blogging my key takeaways from the event, so stay tuned.
June 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Kelsey, local advertising, local mobile search, Local Search, Local Search Association
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
You may have heard, BIA/Kelsey is hosting a new one-day conference on June 27 in San Francisco – Mobile Local Media San Francisco (MLM San Francisco). This event will examine the convergence of mobile, local and social and the opportunities for local media players.
Speakers at MLM San Francisco represent some of the top companies in our business, including Google, Yelp, PayPal, and shopkick, to name a few. Additionally, BIA/Kelsey just announced the addition of tech investor and Silicon Valley luminary Stewart Alsop to the speaker line-up. Looks like a jam-packed day focused on mobile local media! Check out the full agenda and list of speakers.
For a preview of the key topics to be discussed at MLM San Francisco, think about attending BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming webinar, “Mobile Local Media’s Top 10 Trends,” which is scheduled for Tuesday, May 22 at 2 pm ET. Click to learn more about the webinar and to register online.
I hope to see you at MLM San Francisco. Here’s an additional incentive: Save $100 when registering by using sign up with promo code MLMLSA. We’ll share more details in the weeks ahead, right here on Local Search Insider. Stay tuned!
May 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Local Search, Local Search Association, MLM, Mobile Local Media San Francisco, San Francisco
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
This morning wraps up a very successful BIA/Kelsey ILM East in Boston, with a final round of A-List speakers from across the country. Opening with a series of interviews, Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and program director at BIA/Kelsey, talked with Merrill Brown, principal at MMB Media, Josh Fenton, cofounder and CEO of GoLocal24 and Zohar Yardeni, CEO of Main Street Connect.
Later in the morning, Ted Leonsis, vice chair of Groupon and an American Express Board Member, delivered a thought-provoking keynote address and answered questions from the floor.
The morning ended with the “SMB SuperForum: Focusing on Local Business Success” session, a great wrap-up of the key takeaways from the past three days. A group of leaders also demoed some of their innovative “top” sites.
Wishing you had been here? Join us in Boca Raton next month for the Local Search Association’s Conference – Search Starts Here, in partnership with BIA/Kelsey, April 21-24. Speakers from Google, SuperMedia, MapQuest, Dex One, Convergent Mobile and many other top local search companies will be there, and there will be plenty of opportunities to network.
Don’t miss this chance to gain valuable, actionable ideas in a beautiful setting. Book your hotel room before April 2 to get our terrific discounted rate! For more information, visit the conference website.
March 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: annual conference, BIA/Kelsey, ILM East, ILM East 2012, Local Search, Local Search Association, Search Starts Here
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The afternoon sessions at BIA/Kelsey’s ILM East 2012 continued with Nitin Mangtani, CSO and program director at Google Offers, who spoke on the defining moments in commerce, commenting that local commerce is a zero sum game and one in which everyone benefits. He quoted a recent BIA/Kelsey study which found that 97% of consumers research products and services online before buying. Mangtani also described Google Offers fulfilling the five points of the purchase cycle through their Adwords Express, Places, Offers, Wallet and Punch’d services.
Christine Merritt, head of business development, channel sales North America at Google, discussed Google’s strategy of working with their partners to help local small businesses get the right level of help and service. She explained how Google services “long tail” advertisers and finds ways to pair up high-touch advertisers with the right partners.
For more on the ILM East 2012 agenda click here, or follow hashtag #ILMEast on Twitter. Tomorrow looks like another great day in Boston!
March 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Tags: BIA/Kelsey, Christine Merritt, Google Offers, ILM East, ILM East 2012, local business, Local Search, Local Search Association, Nitin Mangtani, Small Business
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