Reveal Mobile Predicts Big Holiday Season Ad Spend for SMBs, With Social, Location At the Top
This coming holiday season, social, location-based advertising will dominate small business ad spend, according to a recent survey conducted by Reveal Mobile, a location-based marketing company. The survey also indicated that brands are increasingly comfortable with location-based tactics like geotargeting.
Is Google Playing the Long Game with SMB Websites?
“When you look at this Website growth + the Local Knowledge Panel with Posts + AMP + Progressive Web Apps, we are starting to see the outlines of an “open web” that Google totally controls. Or at least they control the profitable parts,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm in their latest biweekly column.
3 Tips for Managing Local Services Ads
Google expanded Local Services ads to the San Diego area in November 2016 and has been rapidly expanding this platform across different verticals and markets in the USA over the last two years. If you’re considering running Local Services ads, here are three things to know before getting started.
Facebook Takes a Stab at Local—Again
“As it stands, Facebook’s latest local effort is of academic interest but hardly seems a reason for businesses to actively re-engage with the free side of the social giant’s features. From a competitive viewpoint, it hardly seems the stuff of legend needed to take on the current local search hegemon, Google,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm in their latest biweekly column.
How the End of Network Neutrality Could Affect SMBs and the Public Interest
For many years, the government’s assessment of the public interest was to encourage Web access to all. The current FCC, however, contends that this position is better met by eliminating the net neutrality rules — that SMBs will be able to have a variety of ISP options based on their actual needs with the end of the net neutrality rules.
Empyr Partners with Vendasta to Expand Its SMB Reach
Online-to-offline marketing platform Empyr has announced a partnership with Vendasta that has the potential to rapidly scale up and deepen its customer base. The deal makes Empyr’s CPR (cost-per-revenue), performance marketing platform available on Vendasta’s marketplace, which sells digital solutions through more than 2,000 local marketing agencies.
Research Roundup: Comparing Franchisees and Independent Professionals
Comparing some surveys focused at opposite ends of the local small business spectrum — franchise operators and self-employed professionals — it feels like, though the industry is selling these groups the same marketing and commerce technology and services, the two segments are more different than similar.
Tried and True Marketing Tactics SMBs Can Borrow From Premium Brands
Many small-but-growing businesses have a multi-store operation and a dynamic online presence, but simply can’t afford the custom-built, integrated retail and ecommerce systems that keep a premium brand’s customer experience tight and consistent. Here are some tactics they can employ to hack that problem.
Sponsored Content: Using Your Website as a Customer Engagement Tool
Websites remain a foundational marketing element for companies of all sizes and they are likely the “home base” for customers finding the detailed information they desire as well as the basics, like store hours, contact information, product details and links to social channels. While on the surface it may seem like websites are the opposite of engaging—static, one-size-fits-all, impersonal—the fact is with a little bit of strategy, businesses can create a website that provides customers with a truly engaging experience with clear calls to action as part of the customer’s journey.
Selling to SMBs: AIDA and The Conversion Zone
I’m often asked by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists alike to talk about what changes throughout the course of the “bell curve ride” in selling to small and medium-sized businesses — and how organizations need to adapt at each stage in order to ensure continued success. Here’s the best way I can explain how it all works.
Amazon Furthers Embrace of SMBs with Storefronts
What Amazon has done is create a channel for the entrepreneurial impulse of small business owners that would appear to sidestep local commerce completely. But has local really been removed from the equation?