Kelsey: Interactive Local Media 09
The Kelsey Group held their annual Interactive Local Media conference last week in Los Angeles, focused on the role of digital marketing in driving offline and local commerce. I didn’t make it, but there was ample Twitter and blog coverage. I posted many of the presentations from the event in the presentations section and many are worth a closer look. Reading through all the coverage there seem to be a few overarching themes:
- From the macro point of view, everything points to a significant opportunity here, high mobile phone penetration, more powerful and sophisticated devices, better mobile internet connections and experience, and the consumers strong predisposition to act offline and locally, etc
- many companies are swarming to create solutions ranging from digital out of home, to online local SEO, local display ad networks and online reputation management.
- The highly fragmented nature of the SMB market is challenging to sell into, and sales feet on the street seem to be a pre-requisite. It seems that SMBs won’t just find their own way to your online services and begin participating, you need a sales guy in the store at some point to get the ball rolling.
- as with a lot of things in this world, making offerings targeted to this market simple and easy to understand will go a long way. Many small business don’t even have a website and have never heard of Facebook or Twitter, so keep it simple!
Here are some of the top stats culled from the Twitter Streams (#ILM09) and various Internet coverage of the event. Read more
