Street Fight’s July Theme: Targeting Location

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This post is the latest in our “Targeting Location” series. It will be an editorial focus for the month of July, and you can see the rest of the series here


For the past three months, choosing Street Fight’s monthly themes was a no-brainer exercise. All we and others could think about were Covid-era topics and dynamics. For us, that meant covering the pandemic’s continued effect on local commerce. High-touch businesses have been the hardest hit, and that’s where local commerce lives.

Last month, we adapted the theme with a retail sub-focus. As the country starts to re-open and recover (kind of…), how are retailers forming strategies to not only re-open but also inform their customers about new service protocols and business details? There have been many best practices developing, such as curbside pickup.

But after huddling with the editorial team about our July theme, we all agreed that it could be time to mix it up a bit. So we’re returning to a meat-and-potatoes theme in our lineup: Targeting Location. This will allow us to talk about something else while acknowledging Covid-19’s still rampant status.

What do we mean by “Targeting Location?” A central issue for location-based media and commerce, this is the moving target of how to pinpoint and optimize strategies around device location. It includes topics like location-targeted ads, building audience profiles, attribution, paid search, and location data strategies.

But it’s important to note that this will inherently include some pandemic and business re-opening narratives, as that’s the environment we’re in. In fact, location-targeted advertising will be an effective way to inform consumers about shifting business variables like hours of operation and in-store social distancing measures.

Here there’s a bit of déjà vu, as we covered similar principles during the pandemic’s early-March rise. At that point, we saw (and continue to see) quick pivots from Google, Yelp, and others to refine local business listings and make it easy to communicate shifting details to local customers. Accurate listings data has never been so important.

Notably, the same principle will apply to customer communications as the slow re-opening and rebuilding process commences. So we’ll be covering it closely, including our own daily reporting, deeper analytical dives from our columnists, and a steady flow of contributions from business leaders developing first-hand insights.

We’ll label posts on this topic so you can look out for them (see the preface and links at the opening of this article). We’ll also give you the chance to see them all at once. This is part of an ongoing editorial strategy aimed at helping you find our most pertinent content across monthly themes.

We’ll also take this chance to remind you about our editorial contributor program. If you have unique and concrete insights and perspectives, we’d love to hear from you. We’re currently prioritizing and fast-tracking any submissions that fall under our Future Finders column for concrete market projections.

Reach out to us with suggestions for monthly themes, opportunities to contribute, and to amplify your brand messaging alongside this thematic coverage. On that note, we’re excited to also announce that we’ve launched the latest version of our media kit. Check it out, and come be part of our narrative.

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Mike Boland has been a tech & media analyst for the past two decades, specifically covering mobile, local, and emerging technologies. He has written for Street Fight since 2011. More can be seen at Localogy.com