For Small Businesses, A Reprieve After Decades of Retreat
Earlier this week, the National Federation of Independent Business announced that its small business confidence index rose 1.8 points to 95.2 in April, the highest reading since October 2007. With small business week coming to a close, small businesses are certainly better off today than they were a decade ago…
LBMA Podcast: YP’s Mobile Labs and Second Canvas
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association. Top stories of the week include Digby and Phunware, Amazon & Twitter, Uber & Google Maps, RoadID, PareUp & excess food, Selfridge’s Fragrance Lab, Rivada’s nascent mesh network, & Nivea’s SUN ads….
Street Fight Daily: Uber Seeks $10B Valuation, NextDoor CEO Charged With Felony
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Said to Be in Funding Talks for More Than $10B Value (Bloomberg)… Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia Faces Hit-and-Run Charges in San Francisco (Mashable)… Foursquare’s Swarm And The Rise Of The Invisible App (TechCrunch)…
Report: Mobile Will Account for Half of Social Advertising Revenue by 2017
Mobile is poised to account for a majority of spending on social media advertising in the U.S. by 2017, eclipsing spending on desktop a year later, according to report from BIA/Kelsey released this morning. The research firm estimates that spending on social advertising in the U.S. will nearly triple over the next five years, swelling from $5.1 billion last year to $15 billion by 2018. In 2017, the firms expects that marketers will spend $6.7 billion — or half of all social media advertising revenues — on mobile ad formats.
Street Fight Daily: Axciom Adds Offline Data, Facebook’s Foursquare-esque Cards
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Acxiom Acquires LiveRamp to Boost Offline-to-Online Data Capability (AdAge)… Facebook is Testing Foursquare-esque Cards to Tell You More About Where You’ve Checked In (Verge)… Square’s Status? It’s Complicated (Fortune)…
Two Years After Pulling Back, Gilt City Moves Ahead
Following a retrenchment, Gilt City is growing again. Street Fight caught up with Steven Schneider, the president and general manager at the local shopping site, to talk about the evolution of local commerce, the business of curation, and the changing relationship between ecommerce and brick-and-mortar marketplaces for retailers…
Finding the Right Point of Contact At: An Agency
Breaking into the big-time and selling to a national brand usually involves going through an agency. However, locating the best point of contact at a media planning and buying agency with hundreds—if not thousands—of employees is a process that requires experience, skill, and quite a bit of patience. Here are five strategies for finding the right person to pitch in an agency setting…
3 Mobile Marketing Musts for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers
Over the past few years we’ve seen the mobile marketing industry mature, with new standards and best practices emerging to help marketers reach mobile consumers as they move throughout their day. Here are three mobile marketing strategies which have become table stakes for physical retailers…
5 Platforms That Gather In-Store Analytics from Surveillance Footage
Nearly 64% of retailers have installed some form of IP-connected video surveillance system to protect against theft. Now, a relatively new category of hyperlocal vendors are providing businesses with new ways to capitalize on the technology they already have installed. Here are five tools that retailers large and small can use to make more strategic operational decisions based on the data they gather from video surveillance cameras…
Street Fight Daily: Square Kills Wallet App, Yelp Integrates Booking Service
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Square Pulls Failed Wallet App as Troubles Mount (Wall Street Journal)… Yelp Bites Back At OpenTable, TripAdvisor And Google With Free Yelp Reservations Service (TechCrunch)… Apple Reportedly Integrating NFC Technology into iPhone 6 (MacRumors)…
For Local Commerce Startups Like Homejoy, A Choice of Whom to Disrupt
Airbnb’s recent decision to become a hospitality brand has deep implications for a growing segment of startups that have built similar digital marketplaces for a number of traditionally offline industries. Today, these startups face a similar ontological decision: should they become a consumer brand, expanding deeper into a given industry, or should they expand horizontally, working to disrupt Yelp, Google and the other more horizontal mainstays of local search and discovery…
6 Tools Publishers Can Use to Monetize Their Business Directories
directoryHyperlocal publishers are frequently on the lookout for new ways to generate revenue from their sites, and one of the most straightforward revenue diversification strategies involves launching a business directory. Here are six tools that publishers can use to monetize business directories on their hyperlocal sites…
Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Eyes Travel, Square Goes After Grubhub
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…. Airbnb Looks Beyond Flat-Sharing to Tickets and Travel (Financial Times)… Square Branches Out Into Food Ordering With New Square Order Service (TheNextWeb)… Foursquare goes Oprah: You’re a mayor and you’re a mayor (Engadget)…
Why One Investor Thinks Foursquare Has a Future in Ad Tech
Add this to the interesting-but-never-going-to-happen suggestion box for Foursquare: ditch the consumer business altogether. Nihal Mehta, a New York-based entrepreneur-turned-investor, thinks that Foursquare might find a bigger business by bailing on its local search ambition to put its algorithm to work as an attribution product for mobile advertising…
Openings and New Hires at Mono Solutions, Google, Connectivity & Cxense
Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, new hires and jobs at Haystak Digital Marketing, Angie’s List, Local Yokel Media, Mediative and hibu…
Street Fight Daily: Intuit Makes Another Acquisition, Square Rival Raises $50M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyIntuit Buys Lettuce Apps For $30M To Add Inventory And Order Management To Quickbooks (TechCrunch)… Square Rival iZettle Receives Capital Injection From Group of Investors (Wall Street Journal)… Months Before CEO Shakeup, Leaf Investor Took Control of Startup (Xconomy)…
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…
How Training Has Helped Some Community Publishers Thrive
“Getting money from local businesses is a street fight,” says Rusty Coats. “The options and alternatives seem to grow exponentially every day, and many businesses live in a fog of not knowing what to do. … That’s why I applaud these community news entrepreneurs and what they’re trying to accomplish. They are mission-driven and determined to build sustainable businesses by serving their communities.”