Behind Big Retail Brands’ Complicated Relationship With Loyalty
More and more, loyalty startups are looking beyond the SMB market, and to larger brands as a potentially lucrative market with substantially lower sales costs. But, the outcome could be more complicated than it first appears. In a recent conversation with Street Fight, Dawn Maire, creative director at Rockfish Interactive, suggested that retailers might be better acquirers than partners for many loyalty companies…
With New Products and Integrations, Belly Looks Beyond Loyalty
A year and a half after launch, and Logan LaHive, chief executive of Belly, has a clear message for the competition: we’re winning. The Chicago-based company has rolled out new integrations with Yelp and Facebook this morning, marking the beginning of the company’s push to move beyond loyalty toward an open, social CRM…
Street Fight Daily: Google Maps to Get Overhaul, PlaceIQ Raises $6.75M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Google Maps To Get A Major Design Overhaul (SearchEngineLand)… PlaceIQ Raises $6.75 Million To Serve You Ads Based On Your Location (PlaceIQ)… Yelp and the Wisdom of “The Lonely Crowd” (The New Yorker)…
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Tests Local Discovery, Bing Aggregates Deals (Again)
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Twitter Testing New Local Discovery Features — And It’s About Time (AllThingsD)… Microsoft Quietly Shuts Down Bing Deals, Launches Bing Offers As A Replacement (TechCrunch)… Belly Dance: Can Lightbank and Chicago’s Hot New Company Avoid Groupon’s Missteps? (PandoDaily)…
Channeling Starbucks, FiveStars Seeks Loyalty in the Form of a Gift Card
The Mountain View, Calif., company is launching a new gift card product aimed at helping businesses transform new customers into returning customers through its POS-integrated loyalty platform. The company has piloted a co-branded gift card with a handful of small retail chains since December, and plans to open the feature to its smaller merchants with the release…
Street Fight Daily: Intuit’s New Direction, Fousquare’s New Business App
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Intuit’s New Payments Directions In NFC, Passbook And Facebook Revealed In 20+ New Products (TechCrunch)… Foursquare’s New App Is Open for Business (AllThingsD)… Belly Bites is Free Sampling for Local Merchants Done Right (PandoDaily)…
SFD: Reviews Impact Business, Groupon Execs Back Competitor
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… How Online Reviews are Crucial to a Restaurant’s Takings (The Guardian)… Awkward Belly Dance for Groupon (Wall Street Journal)… Patch Losses Communications Direct Janine Iamunno (Romenesko)…
Case Study: Salon Keeps Customers Coming Back With Wacky Rewards
As a co-owner at Red 7 Salon, Jason Hall likes to think of his business as the “Cheers of the salon world.” Rather than encouraging loyalty with cash-back incentives, Hall has partnered with Belly to give away “fun” rewards — like the chance to shave one of the salon owners’ heads — that don’t cost his business a dime…
Case Study: Salon Attracts Clients With Mobile Site, Loyalty Program
Anne Kelley wasn’t sure that daily deals were the direction she wanted Wet Salon and Studio to go when she began handling the Austin salon’s marketing efforts last year. Rather than work with the traditional deal companies, Kelley opted to focus her digital efforts on creating a mobile website and partnering with Belly to implement a rewards program that encourages loyalty rather than deal-seeking…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Tests Payments, Belly’s 1 Million Check-ins
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology...
Groupon Is Testing A Payments System To Compete With Square And PayPal (Business Insider)…
RIP Yellow Pages? Phone Books Re-shape Themselves for Life After Listings (PaidContent)…
Loyalty Startup Belly Hits 1 Millionth Check-In; Active Merchants Say Belly Check-ins Top Foursquare (TechCrunch)…
Will Mobile Payment Companies Expand Into SMB Marketing?
Transaction processing will become only a moderately profitable business. Where the big POS guys will make money is in value-added marketing services. Square has already started to add in loyalty programs. It’s only a matter of time before digital loyalty card startups start to tap into the POS APIs to enable tight integration between their loyalty efforts and the POS vendors…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Coupons, Edo’s Real-Time Offers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology...
Edo Launches Real-Time Local Offers Platform, Tied To Your Bank Card (TechCrunch)…
Foursquare Joins the Coupon Craze (Wall Street Journal)…
Four Reasons Why Andreessen Horowitz Is Investing $10 Million in Belly (AllThingsD)…
Street Fight Daily: Hyperlocal Shopping at Sears, Pirq for Apple Staffers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology...
Sears Rolls Out Hyperlocal Shopping Site (Crain’s Chicago Business)…
Want To Know What Apple Will Do Next In Mobile Commerce? Check Out The Pirq It’s Giving To Employees (TechCrunch)…
The Real Reason Foursquare Finally Decided To Pursue Revenues Now (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 02.21.12
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Google Launches a Leaderboard for Check-Ins, But Foursquare Has Been Here Before (BetaBeat)…
A Customer Loyalty Program (From Some of the Folks Who Brought You Groupon) (New York Times)…
Supporting Profitable News (BuzzMachine)…
Street Fight Daily: 12.15.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.…
EBay’s PayPal Counts on Its 103 Million Users to Target Groupon (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)…
Examiner.com Will Provide Content For CBS Local Digital Media (PaidContent)…
NBC Maps the 2012 Election Campaign Trail With Foursquare (Mashable)…
Belly CEO: Loyalty Is a Relationship — And Relationships Take Work
The customer loyalty company currently operates in 10 cities as well as many one-off locations around the country, and it got a massive vote of confidence in May when Andreessen Horowitz invested $10 million in series B financing. CEO Logan LaHive connected with Street Fight over email recently about the process of scaling up, settling down, and the struggle between great ideas and execution.