SMBs use various factors to determine ad spend - profitability being key to how much they spend. With so many choices, the next deciding factor is based on how well the advertising meets the exposure to customers and level of engagement…
SMBs rate comments and reviews on Facebook as the most concern to them. In our current Local Commerce Monitor survey of small and medium businesses (Q3/2015), nearly six out of ten SMBs surveyed (58.7%) reported that they monitor customer comments.…
More and more SMBs are using technology to compete against much larger competitors. What's important to SMBs when choosing new advertising and marketing technologies? According to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor, Wave 19 survey of small and medium businesses (SMBs), when…
Deliver on Promises It's not surprising that the top characteristic SMBs said they want from their local sales person is that they deliver on what they promise. While sales is not fulfillment, when setting expectations with SMBs there should be a…
Social media is now the top marketing channel for SMBs, according to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor. And it goes beyond SMBs: national companies like franchises and chains are utilizing social media to engage local customers. Last week we covered how…
Franchises are a distinctive and vibrant SMB segment. By almost every metric, franchises act differently from the overall SMB population. Franchises tend to "live large" -- they do things in a big way, starting with ad spending. At an average…
While the top media used for advertising and promotion by new SMBs are a mix of digital and social channels, social media is also a tool for these new SMBs to connect and communicate with customers. Facebook Page, LinkedIn and…
While the top media used for advertising and promotion by new SMBs are a mix of digital and social channels, social media is also a tool for these new SMBs to connect and communicate with customers. Facebook Page, LinkedIn and…
As a group, SMBs with 2-9 employees have a distinctive profile that in many respects lies between the profiles of VSBs (Very Small Businesses - those with only one employee) and medium-size and larger-size SMBs. In some ways, SMBs in…
If there's one group of merchants that is likely to do its own advertising and promotion, it is those with only one employee, AKA "very small businesses" (VSBs), according to Wave 18 of BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor™ survey of small-and-medium…
The most popular advertising channels for SMBs in the Home and Trade Services vertical, according to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor™, Wave 18,survey of small-and-medium businesses, are a mix of paid and free media. Media Ad View Plus (MAV), BIA/Kelsey's forecast…
One big trend we are seeing in our Local Commerce Monitor (LCM) findings is that low-spending SMBs are taking advantage of the lower price levels of digital and social media and reducing their overall ad spend. This has big implications…
BIA/Kelsey continues to engage market leaders in its coverage areas in order to collaborate on research reports. There's one currently in the works, about optimizing SMB Marketing Efficacy, sponsored by Vendasta and written by our new associate Mitch Ratcliffe. To…
When walking around the local mall you rarely see a shopper without a mobile device in their hand. So it's no surprise that 37.1 percent of consumers use smartphones and 19.4 percent use tablets when shopping locally, according to BIA/Kelsey's…
For the last few months, you may have noticed an increase in the conversation on this blog and elsewhere about call monetizaton. Sometimes referred to as Pay-per-call (a branch of call monetization), this includes charging businesses for inbound phone leads.…
The term "Yellow Pages" isn't tossed around in the advertising world the way it used to be. The local conversation has shifted to online, social and mobile advertising. Yet according to BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor, 29.8 percent of SMBs still…
When it comes to advertising and promotion, franchises prove to be considerably different from non-franchise SMBs, according to findings from BIA/Kelsey's most recent wave of our Local Commerce Monitor. Franchises were much more oriented toward digital and online media. According to the…
Consumers today want to feel like they are recognized and known personally by the stores they shop at and by the brands they buy. For national brands, targeting consumers and reaching that personal level can be a challenge. Many brands,…
Google has done it. So has Yelp. Now Twitter is starting to add "click to call" buttons to its platform. The "click to call" button would allow mobile users to call advertisers directly from a Twitter ad with just a…
SMBs now have about 76 million reasons to get their social and e-commerce strategy married. Millennials, those between the ages of 18-34, are making social e-commerce more prevalent than ever. According to our Consumer Commerce Monitor™ survey, 56 % of…