Next Philip Rather from Facebook spoke on Facebook’s State of Local. He discussed how Facebook is looking to remove friction as well. This goal is founded in the trends Facebook is seeing in local. For example, by 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human and 1 in 2 consumers buy within one hour after decide on a product or service. This requires them to focus on creating a strong foundation, as well as providing support and education for their advertisers.
Channel partners want more integration
In addition to this we shared some data from our State of Local Marketing survey that validated these trends. At BrandMuscle we are seeing a demand for integration in our channel partners. In fact, 59% of channel partners want more integrated solutions. Additionally, we found that our most mature businesses based on the Local Marketing Maturity Matrix grew 2x faster than those business who were not mature in their marketing, indicating the importance of providing strong integrated, and frictionless programs. In response to these trends, one exec said, “we find ourselves doing more programs that are Do-It-For-Me or Do-It-On-My-Behalf.”
After the meeting ended, everyone gathered for a Taco Tuesday cruise on the Chicago River. We got to know each other better and further discussed the challenges in our businesses.
We are gathering feedback from this event and looking forward to continuing to partner with more of our clients to collaborate on the future of successful through channel marketing.