Here is this week’s roundup of the top news items related to local marketing and advertising, local media, technology, local commerce, consumer behavior and more.
Insight & Commentary
Why Would 29% of SMBs Say They’re Not Using Digital Marketing This Year? (March 14, 2019)
LSA Insider: “Challenges of time and budget have been consistent themes for small business owners (SMBs) in executing online marketing. Even as many SMBs have become much more sophisticated about digital, there are SMB segments that feel frustrated, even overwhelmed by some of the challenges.”
As Visual Search Takes Off, Brands Adapt to Shifting Demands (March 15, 2019)
Street Fight: “Never mind the attention that Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home have garnered in recent years. When it comes to driving growth in retail sales, images are where it’s at. Visual search and image recognition are captivating the attention of investors, retail insiders, and everyday consumers.”
How Will 5G Unlock Location Targeting? (March 20, 2019)
Street Fight: “What is 5G exactly? There are some obvious benefits like faster speeds. 5G will be 100x faster than today’s 4G/LTE standard. So with parallel trends in increased mobile data consumption, 5G will reach screaming speeds to enrich our multi-media lives.”
Strategy & Tactics
Do You Know How to Avoid a Review Markup Penalty? (March 21, 2019)
LSA Insider: “As marketers, we were familiar with the stars local businesses could get on their Google My Business listings from customer reviews, but everyone about fell out of their chair when Google introduced stars for organic results.”
Thinking of a Martech Partnership? Ask These Questions First (March 18, 2019)
LSA Insider: “About half of global CEOs are going to pursue a strategic alliance to drive corporate growth or profitability. And that thirst for partnerships applies to the martech industry. I thought a lot about the role of partnerships in martech as I read Tiffani Bova’s Growth IQ, one of the best business books I’ve read in years.”
How to make old content marketing new again (March 20, 2019)
Marketing Land: “A major benefit of high-performance content marketing is that it doesn’t have to retire. If a blog post, article or any piece of content does exceptionally well pulling in traffic, even for a short span of time, the topic can inform future content marketing choices.”
Stats & Studies
Survey: Only 36% of SMBs Have an ‘SEO Strategy’ (March 18, 2019)
LSA Insider: “Despite the waning visibility of organic content, SEO is arguably more important than ever. The vast majority of search clicks occur on organic links/content. Yet, according to a survey from Clutch, only 36% of small businesses (SMBs) have an SEO strategy — though an additional 38% say they plan to in the future.”
Survey: 60% Not That Into Chatbots but 40% Really Like Them (March 19, 2019)
LSA Insider: “There are numerous consumer surveys about chatbots that argue people prefer interacting with them for certain tasks. Others come out the opposite way. The reality is somewhere in-between and fairly well captured in new survey data from Uberall.”
Study: Brands are failing voice search optimization in 3 key areas (March 15, 2019)
Search Engine Land: “Optimizing for voice search is synonymous with optimizing for local SEO since both are “about ranking as high as possible” in search results, says a new report by Chatmeter, which scored 12 major retail and restaurant brands to assess their voice-search readiness, including Target, Walmart, Apple and Wendy’s among others.”
Industry News
An Hourly Bidding Algorithm Launches For Amazon Advertising (March 20, 2019)
MediaPost: “Three years in the making, the hourly bidding algorithm is powered by an econometrics and machine-learning data model that for the first time, according to the company, allows Amazon advertisers to adjust bids automatically, adapting to changes in the marketplace.”
Bing Ads Editor releases updates to make Google Ads imports faster, easier (March 19, 2019)
Search Engine Land: “Bing Ads has made a few updates to the way Google Ads imports work in Bing Ads Editor. The enhancements focus on reliability, speed and parity.”
Instagram Lets Brands Sell Products Directly Through the App (March 19, 2019)
Search Engine Journal: “Instagram is rolling out an ecommerce solution for brands which will allow them to sell products in the app. ‘Checkout on Instagram’ is currently being tested in a closed beta with a select number of major brands.”
Member News
SOCi Launches Reputation Insights for Sentiment & Competitive Monitoring (March 21, 2019)
Business Wire: “Comprised of sentiment and competitive monitoring, SOCi Reputation Insights is designed to help multi-location marketers identify and manage emerging sentiment and competitive trends from online reviews and analyze shifts in online reputation over time.”
Tech Start-Up Broadly.com Opens First East Coast Office In Baltimore (March 20, 2019)
Cision: “Broadly moved into the 7,500 square-foot third floor of the Union Box Co. building at 1820 Lancaster Street, Suite 300, earlier this year. The company will fill a wide range of roles, including sales, support, engineering, and technical positions.”
