The Local SMB Voice
April 5th, 2011 // 3:36 pm @ Greg
Google Places, Facebook Check In, and Yelp in store marketing collateral really extend the local review online experience offline. According to the Borrell Associates 2011 Outlook survey, the 2,872 small and midsize businesses that were asked about their advertising budgets, said they plan to increase their online ad spending by 29% this year, compared to a 4.5% increase for their offline ad budgets.
Leaving no argument as to the interest level of SMB’s in local advertising, makes me wonder how web and application developers will go about engaging and listening to the local SMB voice as they develop their local strategy. Often product management teams do a fantastic job of managing a products development life-cycle, but sometimes fail to incorporate the voice of the SMB. Since online local advertising is mainly driven by SMB content and input, a good local strategy expert needs to engage and incorporate that voice when developing product road-maps and feature sets. SMB local advertising is often generated from a “what the search engine wants” perspective without the dual viewpoint of “what the SMB wants” voice.
As a local strategy expert, when managing a product roadmap I heavily rely on my early career “brick and motor” experience as I design and develop new web and mobile app feature sets. As product managers, we often look to develop functionality that embeds the latest technologies and content syndication, but fail to put ourselves in the local SMB shoes. Busy, no time, limited resources… are all keywords that come to mind when thinking as a local SMB owner.
The point: Engage, listen and include the local SMB’s voice when tasking your local strategy expert to help build out your product road-map. Not only will your users thank you for it, but your revenue model will too!
Category : Blog
