Why 2017 Will Be the Year of the ‘Micro Moment’

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A micro moment is the point at which a consumer searches for nearby information, for things to do, buy, or learn in real-time. Essentially, it’s a description of a new consumer mindset: one that has switched from regularity to spontaneity in shopping and learning habits, due to ubiquity of smartphones.

Is It Time to Redefine ‘Local’ Marketing?

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We’ve reached a pivot point where local market nuances and differences can create definable opportunity. I am not saying that the age of the big box retail or e-commerce portal are over, but if a brand does a better job at leveraging local marketing it can create a competitive advantage and differentiation point.

Making Sense of Amazon’s Push Deeper Into Local

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Clearly Amazon is positioning itself in the sales funnel aggressively, Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. “And unlike Google their presale efforts lead directly to sales that they control. ”

Why Mobile Payments Will Heat Up in 2017

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Mobile payments have been inhibited by point-of-sale hardware upgrade requirements and the lack of a killer pitch for either users or merchants. But the movement to chip-based credit and debit cards in the U.S. could help.

Why Location-Based Machine Learning Is the Smart Path to Personalization

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With the right data, a brand can keep the relationship with the customer warm while they’re off-property, out-of-town or on a budget. Offering the right deals and communications that are relevant to real interests means that the relationship between man and machine is getting better all the time.

Local’s Next Battleground: In-Car Media

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A few recent moves have begun to triangulate how Uber might build out auxiliary revenue channels. It will be all about enhancing your ride, then, down the road, an ad model. And it won’t involve in-car signage or digital displays.

3 Mobile Changes That Will Affect Marketers in 2017

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In 2017, the total number of worldwide mobile users is expected to surpass 6 billion across 11 billion mobile devices. So, what does the future of mobile look like for marketers? More specifically, what data-related trends will dominate in the coming year?

Is There an SMB Analytics Market? And If So, What Should It Measure?

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“I’m not convinced small businesses without a full-time in-house marketer really care about analytics,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their bi-weekly chat. “They certainly don’t have the time or expertise to dive in each week and change their marketing or customer service behavior based on what a dashboard is telling them.”

New AIs Offer Surprisingly Traditional Results for Local

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At least for now, Alexa and Google are thinking of AI-powered local search in the traditional sense of providing the user with a range of relevant options — even when organic search is trending toward the single best answer.

Street Fight Staff and Friends Predict 2017’s Top Stories (Part Two)

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As 2016 draws to a close, we’ve once again asked Street Fight staffers and columnists to look into their crystal ball and offer prognostications for what they think will be the biggest story (or stories) in local in 2017.

Why Hasn’t a Killer App Emerged for Finding Local Events?

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The local events space is still waiting on its ubiquitous app. There’s Yelp for restaurants. And Uber/Lyft for getting to and from. But there’s not yet a go-to for the crux of the night – the thing you do when you’re out on the town.

How Cisco’s Meraki Became the Largest Vendor of Bluetooth Beacon Gateways

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While Meraki’s routers have long had the ability to broadcast iBeacon packets, in October they released a software upgrade which enables API access to these radios, activating a major new feature. Now customers can use their Wi-Fi access points to monitor beacons from third party vendors.

Under Pressure, Local TV Advertising Still Shows Lots of Opportunity

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Local TV ad spending is set to take a big hit next year, projected to decrease at a double-digit pace after an election and Olympics year. Nonetheless, local TV represents a solid opportunity for smart media and marketing tech companies, as TV remains U.S. consumers’ primary time-sink.

The SDK Equation: Four Questions for Restarting the Conversation on Publisher Integration

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How can mobile marketing restart the conversation around SDK integration with publishers, industrywide? Let’s start with distinctions and empowerment — key ways that the industry can arm publishers with the knowledge they need to evaluate a good SDK while detecting the badly built versions.

Why People-Based Marketing Platforms Will Begin to Dominate in 2017

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This past year laid the foundation for major transitions across the marketing landscape. Those trends will accelerate in 2017, ultimately reshaping our industry for decades to come. Ultimately, marketers want to engage real people in the real-world. Next year the impact of this will be felt in numerous ways.

How Marketers Can Convert Mobile Shoppers Into Sales

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Although consumers are willing to buy on mobile, the medium is primarily the gateway to get the consumer into the store to make the purchase. A business can prepare for mobile shoppers in many ways, but have you considered the many challenges that mobile shopping creates?

How Facebook Finally Reconciled Commerce and Connections

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The social media giant recently rolled out a suite of new experiences for Facebook Pages — most powered by third party technologies. These collaborations mean more engagement, visibility, and revenue for the companies that provide them; but what does it mean for Facebook?

Building the Essential Digital Marketing Bundle for Local Businesses

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“Last time we identified our essential digital bundle for small businesses,” says David Mihm to Mike Blumenthal. “This week I thought we might tackle how agencies and media companies might go about building and selling that bundle — and why there seem to be so few who are actually doing it.”

Local’s Next Hurdle: The Impressionable Use Fallacy

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No matter how good the targeting, creative, and “right person, right place,” the vast majority of our time contains urgencies that render us immune to push-based mobile ads. It’s basically a question of how often we’re actually idle, and therefore impressionable to being rerouted from a deliberate course.

Omnichannel Personalization: Striving to Increase Average Basket Size

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Consumer goods and retail companies are using omnichannel personalization to engage consumers, and offer them the convenience to browse and buy products however and wherever they choose. With data analytics, retailers can engage in automated omnichannel personalization to deliver marketing that aligns with a customer’s specific behaviors.