8 Ways Retailers Can Use Hyperlocal Tools to Capitalize on Black Friday
Black Friday sales accounted for almost 20% of total retail industry sales in 2011, and the National Retail Federation expects that figure to rise another 4.1% in 2012. In an effort to help local retailers boost their share of those sales, a number of hyperlocal platforms are stepping in with their own tools built specifically for local businesses. We spoke to several hyperlocal industry leaders to get their tips on how small businesses can promote themselves on Black Friday without overspending on expensive marketing campaigns…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Settles ‘Best of’ Suit, Groupon Fights for Survival
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Village Voice, Yelp Settle ‘Best Of’ Trademark Suit (PC Mag)… Groupon Fights for Its Life as Daily Deals Fade (Reuters)… Learning From a Failed IPO (Venture Beat)…
Mobile Payments For Deals? Slim Majority Says No in Street Fight Poll
A new Street Fight poll has found that about 43% of consumers are willing to use a mobile wallet service in exchange for receiving deals from retailers. The survey of 500 U.S. consumers finds that a shade more than 17% are very willing to pay via mobile for deals, and another 26% are somewhat willing. But 11% are unlikely to pay with a smartphone, 24% say they’re uninterested, and another 22% don’t know what a mobile wallet is…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Taps DudaMobile, Groupon Tests Search
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… DudaMobile Announces SMB Mobile Sites Deal with Yahoo (Screenwerk)… Groupon Testing A Deal Search Feature In Chicago And New York (TechCrunch)… Hyperlocal Hotbed Thrives in New Jersey (NetNewsCheck)…
Groupon Bottoms Out as Billings Hit Lowest Level Since IPO
Groupon’s stock hit an all-time low in after-hours trading Thursday after the daily deals company reported lower than expected revenues in Q3, driven largely by stagnant growth in its international business. Overall gross billings, which account for all customer purchases, slid by 6% in Q3 from the previous quarter as gross billings dropped nearly 10% internationally. It’s the second consecutive quarter that Groupon saw its total billings decline…
xAd Expands Mobile Ad Targeting, Launches New Location, Fencing Tech
Mobile ad network xAd has released new proprietary technologies to expand location analytics and geo-fencing, helping its local and national advertisers further narrow their campaigns based on intensive geographic and behavioral data. The new products, SmartLocation and SmartFencing, are a direct reaction to what xAd sees as a lack of precise, real-time location data in the mobile advertising space…
Creating a City Guide from Scratch? Maybe if You’re a ‘Cool Kid’
Carlos Gutierrez and and Erika Leal, founding editors of thecoolkidsguide.com, are building a city-guide-cum-entertainment-site for not only big metros but also for smaller, under-served towns (at least that’s the plan). I asked Gutierrez the obvious question first: So many have come and gone; others are moving along (Patch, Yelp, Zvents, Foursquare); still others (LivingSocial, etc.) are morphing toward city guides. Why a city guide?
Street Fight Daily: Square Rolls Out Starbucks Deal, Waze Launches Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… 7,000 Starbucks Locations Added to the Square Wallet (AllThingsD)… Waze Begins Monetization Push with Location-Guided Ads (GigaOm)… Trulia’s Sales Surge as Real Estate Agents Use Mobile (Bloomberg Businessweek)…
5 Ways to Track Calls Coming From Mobile Ads
The true test of a mobile ad’s effectiveness isn’t in page views or click-throughs, but in the number of actual phone calls it drives to a business. Tracking the number of incoming calls that result from a mobile ad is a measureable way for big brands and local businesses to gauge the effectiveness of their digital campaigns. Here are six platforms that businesses can use to get a better sense of how many calls are resulting from their mobile ads.
Antengo CEO: Why Local Classifieds Need to Go Mobile
Antengo is a local marketplace app that allows users and businesses in a city to post classifieds and engage in local, mobile-driven commerce. The app, which is trying to increase and simplify commerce on a local level, just re-designed their app, hoping to expand mobile on-the-go behavior to tablets. Street Fight talked to Founder and CEO Marcus Wandell about how Antengo is changing local commerce, the role of the tablet for location-based apps, and more.
DataSphere Adds Belo to Its Community News Clients
Hyperlocal middleman DataSphere has added Belo Corp. and 14 of its TV stations in top markets to its client list of broadcast chains who have gone digital at the community level. The Belo markets that DataSphere will serve with tech and sales services include Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Seattle/Tacoma and Phoenix…
Street Fight Daily: Waze Helps FEMA, Springer Continues Classifieds Push
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… How Waze’s Crowd-Sourced Data Helped FEMA Deliver the Gas After Sandy (GigaOm)… Buying Another Classified Site, Springer Sees Digital Filling Print Gap (Paid Content)… Tree Maps and Dwindling Cigarettes: One Hyperlocal Site’s Approach to Sandy (The New York Observer)…
How One Hyperlocal Editor and His Site Chased, and Were Chased by, Sandy
When a gigantic “frankenstorm” knocks out the power for your reporters and many other contributors, how can a hyperlocal site keep its coverage online and help its community? Here’s how The Alternative Press, the 19-site, 34-community network in suburban New Jersey, did it last week under the direction of founding editor and publisher Mike Shapiro.
Local Corp. Survey: SMBs ‘Cautiously Optimistic’
A new survey released by Local Corporation has found that 92% of small business owners are influenced by the national economy. In recent months, 46% have considered raising prices, while 40% have considered cutting back on marketing. Local Corporation CEO Heath Clarke says the uncertain economic climate has focused SMBs on getting the most ROI for their marketing dollars.
Managing Through Crisis: Yext, Patch & GramercyOne in Superstorm Sandy
We asked three hyperlocal companies based in New York City, Patch, GramercyOne and Yext, to share the details on how they dealt with Superstorm Sandy. Their experiences shared the same urgency around helping their employees find shelter and safety. But they way they kept the day-to-day work going differed, largely reflecting the differences in their businesses: while Yext set up temporary headquarters in Times Square; Patch told everyone to stay home and kept operations humming with a remote workforce; meanwhile, GramercyOne leaned on tools that didn’t require location or physical presence.
Inside Patch During Superstorm Sandy
In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, a big news event for hyperlocal publishers, we asked Patch’s chief content officer Rachel Feddersen to give us the scoop on how the AOL unit managed its own business during the storm: “When my colleagues and I weren’t able to commute to the city during the storm and in the days following, we just joined our field work force.”
2012 Election Points to Hyperlocal Future in Politics
Election coverage at the local level is going to grow in importance., Here’s why: The shift from air attack to the tech-enabled ground game means that, in all likelihood, the era of declining voter turnouts are over, in my opinion. With growing turnouts come a more broadly-engaged electorate not just on political matters but on local politics that constitute the true bread-and-butter issues for many towns and small cities…