News and Analysis
Sales Tech Fuels Frictionless Customer Experiences
Sales tech took a leap forward during the pandemic. Sales teams needed new ways to communicate, both with their coworkers and with customers, who were accessing digital channels at unprecedented volume. Sales tech emerged to meet the market need, helping sales reps manage customer relationships, provide more personalized customer experiences, and coordinate with their colleagues.
Convenience Stores Adapt Marketing Efforts for EV Era
The market for electric vehicles is growing steadily, with automakers like Tesla, Ford, and VW helping to boost demand across much of the country. As consumer habits in the auto industry evolve, and the share of fossil fuel-powered cars on the road decreases, gas stations and convenience stores are adapting their marketing strategies for a new electric-first future.
Commentary
In the Wake of Spam Reports, Google Focuses on Brand and Small Business Engagement
Google’s calculated risk in creating a low bar for verification works out fine in a world where most business owners simply want to gain legitimate access to their own listings, and most businesses do operate within those ethical boundaries. But as we’ve seen elsewhere at this stage in the evolution of social networks, fraud and deceptive manipulation have become a kind of ghost in the machine, dominating darker sectors of the local marketplace and creating an atmosphere of distrust that may eventually prove more broadly contagious.
All of this is only possible when lots of activity is consolidated on a few platforms. Just as fake accounts attempting to engineer the 2016 election thrived in the vast and complex Facebook ecosystem, so too has Google’s dominance in local attracted its own horde of opportunists, drawn like moths to its flame. Indeed, fraud in local listings is just the latest in a long history of attempts, from link farms to keyword spam, to manipulate loopholes in Google’s regulations and algorithms.
The Retailpocalypse Doesn’t Have to Be Scary for Local Businesses
Headlines about retail closures suggest it’s Amazon’s world and we’re all just living in it, but there’s more to the story. For local businesses, in particular, there’s ample reason to be optimistic that the retail apocalypse doesn’t have to spell end times. In fact, exactly the opposite could be true. Let’s walk through a few of the reasons for optimism.
Latest Posts
SMB Ecosystems vs Universes: What’s the Difference and What Do They Tell Us?
From analyzing the companies that specifically target the SMBs, this space is better depicted by a series of galaxies that swirl independently of each other and offer the SMB a myriad of choice. The upshot of all this work is that some stars are shrinking and others are growing. Bigger companies are actively acquiring and consolidation is increasing.
Whole Foods Comes Out a Brand Winner on Super Bowl Sunday
Eagles fans weren’t the only ones cheering about Super Bowl LII on Sunday. Upscale grocery chains like Whole Foods saw increases in foot traffic in the hours before kickoff, even while multi-purpose stores like Walmart saw fewer shoppers than normal, according to newly released data from Simpli.fi.
Cost-Per-Visit and Bad Location Data: Are You Really Getting What You Pay For?
CPV is generating a welcome dialogue in the ad industry as it wrestles with questions such as how to value repeat customer visits and how much is a visit worth. Key to answering all these questions, though, is clearly understanding the accuracy of the underlying location data being used to score the visit.
Case Study: Using Business Texting to Reach Millennial Homebuyers
The value in business text messaging is for brands to be able to communicate with customers how they want to be communicated with. At Environmental Pest Service, director of marketing Mandi Harris has started using business text messaging as a way to increase customer engagement and improve the effectiveness of Google AdWords.
Street Fight Daily: Publishers Desert Instant Articles, Walmart Bets on VR
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… More Than Half of Facebook’s Instant Articles Partners May Have Abandoned It… Walmart Looks to Revolutionize Retail with VR Acquisition… Vogue and GQ Will Test Content Inside Amazon’s Echo Look…
The ABC’s of AR: Always Be Closing
In these early days of augmented reality (AR), we’re learning a lot about consumer behavior and preferences — the same learning curve defined the early days of smartphone apps. One lesson so far is that consumer AR use cases will be fairly limited. It’s not a silver bullet and it’s not for everyone.
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Why TV Remains the Heartbeat of Local Connection