Street Fight Daily: Beacons Retarget Ads, Mobile Wallets Eye Loyalty
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Now Advertisers Can Use Beacons To Make The Shoes You Were Looking At Inside A Physical Store Follow You Around The Internet (Business Insider)… The Next Step for the Mobile Wallet? Loyalty Programs (Wall Street Journal)… Let’s Stop Laughing At Groupon (Fortune)…
Street Fight Daily: Cities Sue Uber, Postmates’ Delivery API
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…… Uber’s Background Checks for Drivers Come Under Scrutiny (New York Times)… Postmates’ Plans Go Way Beyond Bike Messengers: Web Orders, Inventory Management And Major Partners (VentureBeat)… Porch Goes Beyond Data Services, Launches Tools To Connect Homeowners With Pros (TechCrunch)…
7 Ways Loyalty Programs Can Increase Social Media Exposure
More than one-in-three small businesses now has a loyalty program in place, but that doesn’t mean that local merchants are always taking full advantage of the benefits that these hyperlocal marketing platforms can provide. Here are seven ways that businesses can use existing digital loyalty programs to help increase reach on social networks…
Case Study: QSR Chain Drives Revenue With Hyperlocal Tools
When it comes to selecting which hyperlocal platforms he’ll adopt at Mixt Greens, co-founder David Silverglide is clear on what he’s looking for: “It needs to be driving incremental revenue. It can’t just be trying to siphon off our existing customer base in a different way, or shifting them to a new platform…”
Case Study: Golf Club Brings Back Deal Buyers With Rewards Program
In her role as manager at Southern Pines Golf Club, Elaine Millar is responsible for the digital marketing strategy for the 18-hole course. Millar uses her rewards program as a promotional tool to keep the customers she gains through local deal sites coming back for future visits after their promotions have been redeemed…
Case Study: Hospitality Group Replaces Direct Marketing with Hyperlocal Campaigns
As mobile marketing picks up steam and consumers get more comfortable downloading branded apps on their smartphones, Wind Creek Hospitality marketing VP Michael Perhaes is becoming less reliant on direct marketing techniques for customer retention and acquisition. Although Wind Creek’s mobile apps are still new, Perhaes is already seeing response rates that are much higher than those he has achieved through email marketing alone…
Case Study: Pizza Chain Uses Customer Data For Targeted Offers
At Patxi’s Pizza, a pizza chain with 12 locations in California and Colorado, marketing manager Jordana Heinke uses the purchasing data she gathers through her company’s mobile loyalty program to send highly-targeted offers to her most frequent customers. “We can immediately see changes happening with volume of interest and redemption if we change a reward,” Heinke says…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon’s Next Big Thing, Yelp Ad Growth Lifts Stock
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Groupon’s Next Big Thing? Helping Mom-and-Pop Shops Unload Extra Inventory. (Recode)… Yelp Reaches High as JPMorgan Says Ad Growth Will Lift Stock (Bloomberg)… Will (Local) Q&A App Jelly Succeed Where Others Have Failed? (Screenwerk)…
Case Study: Jersey Mike’s Integrates Mobile Ordering with Loyalty Program
When it comes to hyperlocal tools, the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what Jersey Mike’s chief marketing officer Rich Hope has discovered since launching a redesigned mobile application that integrates online ordering with a customer loyalty program earlier this year. “I don’t think anybody has combined the loyalty program and online ordering yet and completely integrated the two,” Hope says…
Case Study: Boosting Customer Retention With a Card-Based Program
Local merchants need to keep their customer base in mind when deciding which hyperlocal loyalty platform to use. After experimenting with a mobile-only loyalty platform, Alex Su, the owner of Tpumps Tea Shop in San Mateo, Calif.,was surprised to learn that his customers weren’t as interested in earning rewards through their smartphones as he had previously thought. A different kind of loyalty program from FiveStars provided an alternative…
Local M&A Activity Hits $7.2 Billion In First Half of 2013
Whether it’s through acquisition or investment, money keeps flowing into the local space. The first half of 2013 saw total investment activity, which includes both M&A and private financing, grow from a year earlier, as the number of deals stayed flat but total reported deal value jumped from $5.2 billion to $7.2 billion over the same period, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey…
6 Reasons to Opt for Card-Linked Loyalty Programs
Customer analytics have become an integral part of the local merchant’s marketing toolbox, and digital loyalty providers are increasingly leveraging their own data to help clients make more informed business decisions. Hyperlocal vendors with loyalty programs that are linked to credit cards or debit cards are especially well positioned to take advantage of this trend. Here are six reasons why loyalty providers should consider structuring their programs to connect with customer’s credit or debit cards…
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…
5 Reasons to Add Gift Cards to a Digital Loyalty Program
Promoting customer loyalty is a broad goal that local merchants are tackling in many different ways. While plenty of platforms utilize mobile redemptions and out-of-the-box rewards or coupons to curry favor with consumers, an increasing number of loyalty providers are moving outside the virtual environment with pre-loaded physical gift cards…
Case Study: Salon Increases Average Purchase Price With Card-Linked Offers
Everyone wants a prize, and most people are willing to spend a little more to get one. At least that’s been the experience of Tiffany Amorosino. The co-owner of Bella Sante Spa uses a platform called OfferLink by Cartera to reward customers with free gift cards when they meet certain purchase price thresholds. Since opening her spa in 1996, Amorosino has seen a significant shift in the way SMB marketing is done…
Pirq Closes $1.2 Million Funding Round, Launches New Version of App
Instant-deals and loyalty provider Pirq released version 2.0 of its mobile real-time deals app this morning, offering consumers digital punch cards to accumulate rewards in four new verticals. The Washington-based company also announced it’s closed a $1.2 million round in venture financing…
Case Study: Restaurant Rewards Customers With Cash-Back Promos
After being disappointed by the results of a yearlong advertising campaign with Yelp, The Range Kitchen & Cocktails general manager Edward Camarillo decided to partner with MOGL, a card-based loyalty platform that rewards customers with 10% cash back when they pay with registered credit and debit cards at participating restaurants…
Case Study: Pizza Place Favors Platforms With Low Upfront Costs
When Lance Robinson is deciding which marketing platforms are worth trying out at Brothers’ Pies N’ Fries, the Pasadena pizza shop he opened with his two brothers last year, he considers cost before anything else. Robinson prefers pay-as-you-go platforms with low upfront pricing structures, but isn’t interested in daily deal companies that take a cut of his revenue…