Street Fight Daily: Square Makes Loans, Why Microsoft Invested in Foursquare
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Square Capital, Square Begins Offering Controversial Merchant Cash Advances (Recode)… It’s Now Obvious Why Microsoft Invested Millions In Foursquare (Business Insider)… Uber Says it Doesn’t Discriminate by Neighborhood in Chicago (GigaOm)…
6 Ways Merchants Can Encourage Customers to Complete Mobile Transactions
Just 3% of SMBs in the U.S. have websites that can handle mobile transactions, according to a recent survey by hibu and Impact Research. One of the reasons why merchants have been reluctant to adopt the right tools for dealing with mobile transactions is because they don’t understand what’s in it for them. Here are ideas for local merchants who are interested in how they can encourage more customers to complete transactions via mobile…
Street Fight Daily: Microsoft Invests in Foursquare, Target Turns to Chip and Pin
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Foursquare Teams With Microsoft for Dollars and Data (Wall Street Journal)… Target Vows to Speed Anti-Fraud Technology (New York Times)… Satya Nadella: Our SMB ‘Ringer’ at Microsoft (Local Onliner)…
How Merchants Can Create a Comprehensive Strategy for Mobile
Building a mobile-optimized website is certainly a starting point, but it’s far from the last step a local merchant needs to take when developing a comprehensive mobile strategy. Although small business owners tend to be more interested in mobile than outsiders give them credit for, it’s the process of combining those solutions to create a comprehensive strategy that trips many merchants up. Here are six tips for local merchants who are interested in putting together mobile strategies for their businesses…
Street Fight Daily: Uber CEO Taunts Critics, RetailMeNot’s Simple Success
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Uber CEO Taunts Price Critics, Points to Airline “Surge Pricing” (GigaOm)… RetailMeNot Wins the Holidays by Not Overthinking It (PandoDaily)… Mobile: Preparing for the Third and Final Wave (Wired)…
6 Ways National Brands Can Improve Their Local Campaigns
The hyperlocal technology that brands need to reach consumers locally is available and ready, so why aren’t more brands taking advantage of the opportunity? Only 7% of national marketers say they have effective local campaigns in place, according to a 2013 study by Balihoo. Here are six strategies for helping brands make the most of their local campaigns…
6 Strategies For Helping SMBs Understand the Importance of Mobile
According to a Manta survey, 67% of small business owners don’t expect mobile to impact them this holiday season. Only 8% of the 1,003 SMBs surveyed said they expect mobile to drive shoppers to their brick-and-mortar locations. This presents a challenge for hyperlocal vendors looking to sell their mobile products and services, however it’s something that can be overcome through a combination of education and original thinking…
What Brands Are Doing Wrong On Mobile
As consumers spend more time using mobile devices than browsing the web and even watching television, a mobile strategy isn’t an opportunity; it’s a matter of survival, says Urban Airship chief marketing officer Brent Hieggelke. During a keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, Hieggelke argued that brands need to change the way they approach mobile, shifting from looking at the platform as yet another marketing channel to treating it as a central tool in creating a better consumer experience…
Mobile Dominates Local, but Are Wearables the Future?
Confirming a widely held belief, a new study from Yext found that the overwhelming majority of consumers – particularly those in younger generations – prefer accessing local information through a smartphone, even while a desktop computer is within reach. As the mobile market expands beyond smartphones into an array of internet connected devices, the next question for local technology firms is whether a new breed of mobile, and wearable, devices, might generate a similar opportunity…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Partners With Verifone, Smartphones Take Market Share
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Groupon Goes Beyond The Dongle, Links Up With Verifone, Ingenico Terminals For Breadcrumb Mobile Payments (TechCrunch)… Smartphones Outsell Feature Phones Globally for First Time (Mashable)… No, Craigslist Is Not Responsible For The Death Of Newspapers (GigaOm)…
Brands Hope to Use Mobile to ‘Conquer’ Competitors’ Locations
Mobile-local ad network xAd has released a new report that shows a substantive increase in interest from brands in so-called “geo-conquesting,” the technique of targeting messaging to users at or near a competitor’s location. During the second quarter, nearly one third of every lat-long targeted campaign run on the network included some form of geo-conquesting strategy…
Why Intuition Fails Us in Mobile Advertising
When mobile was in its infancy, it was appropriate to use intuition and past experience as a guide for how to run mobile ad campaigns. However, the time has come for us as an industry to evolve and begin to use data and empirical evidence to guide our mobile advertising. We need to test and validate our intuitions with unique mobile data to optimize campaign performance…
Street Fight Daily: AOL’s Armstrong Fires Patch Director, Twitter Goes ‘Offline’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… AOL’s Armstrong Fires Patch Creative Director During Conference Call (Screenwerk)… Mobile Ads Favor Coexistence, Not Disruption (Financial Times)…
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…
Bolstered By Bulls In North America, Global Mobile Ad Spend Jumps 82%
A new report from the IAB finds that global mobile advertising revenue jumped 82% in 2012, growing from $4.84 billion in 2011 to nearly $9 billion last year as smartphone adoption ramps and blue-chip marketers shift budget to mobile media. The bullish numbers, which are in line with other estimates, were bolstered by exceptional growth in the North American market…
‘Enhanced’ Local Listings Could Be Even More Important on Mobile
Enhanced listing services appeal to many SMBs and local brands because they are a holistic advertising medium that goes beyond the basic banner or text ad — not only do they stand out against free listings and hold the user’s attention, but they also drive conversion and social interaction at higher rates. But most sites currently lack unique enhanced listing features specific to mobile…
7 Ways to Increase Engagement With Mobile Ads
Marketers of all sizes are flocking to mobile ads in an effort to reach consumers on their home turf, sending targeted messages to smartphone users inside certain establishments (like coffee shops or bookstores) or within the confines of geotargeted perimeters. Here are seven ways that brands of all sizes can increase engagement with mobile ads…
5 Things SMBs Can Do to Optimize for Mobile Search
Recent data from Google found that 94% of smartphone users have searched for local information, 70% have called a business after searching, 66% visited in person, and 90% of these users acted within 24 hours. So what do SMBs need to do to ensure they’ll get calls from potential customers who are searching on mobile?