News and Analysis
Holiday Sales Are Starting Earlier Than Ever. Here’s Why
“Retailers are responding to social distancing guidelines [this] year and preparing for potential decreases in spending by kicking off promotions earlier than we’ve ever seen,” says Dosh CEO Ryan Wuerch.
Wuerch says Covid-19 safety protocols require a more elongated approach to holiday marketing. Kohl’s, L Brands, and Macy’s have all referenced pulling forward holiday promotions, and Amazon’s Prime Day later this month seems perfectly timed to pull in early holiday shoppers.
Street Fight’s October Theme: Home for the Holidays
Entering Q4 means many things, but to us it points to the media and commerce world’s annual culmination. That’s right — in this time warp of a year, we’re entering the holidays. Considering the oddities of 2020, what will this year’s holiday season look like? We know for sure it will not be normal.
Answering that question will be Street Fight’s October editorial focus. Branded with the cheeky title “Home for the Holidays,” (title credit: Damian Rollison), this month’s focus will be defining the holiday shopping dynamics of a socially distanced and sheltered-in-place world. What will be different?
Interactive Maps Help Bring Back Shoppers After Covid Hiatus
As the pandemic has worn on, marketers have begun to ask what’s next. How do you keep open and click-through rates high, even as consumers shift back from e-commerce to in-person shopping? The answer, for many, involves maps.
Just look at Torrid, the women’s retail chain formerly owned by Hot Topic, with more than 600 stores across the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Commentary
5 Location-Based Tips for Brands Looking to Boost Mobile Visibility and Sales
Centralization of location data is key. With correct information at hand, a brand’s corporate office can effectively channel information to individual store/business locations for events like regional holiday sales. At the same time, stores can manipulate their own unique data and funnel that back up to corporate.
Four Years After GateHouse, Brad Dennison Has Become a Local News Rover
There’s a new nameplate in hyperlocal news publishing, and just about everything about it is boldly different, including the name—Rover. This combination digital daily and print monthly was launched in suburban Nashville last week. In this Q&A, Tom Grubisich talks with one of Rover’s architects, Brad Dennison.
Selling to Multi-Location Brands: Streaming Video Is On the Rise
Suppliers of local marketing technology and services should move streaming video up on their priorities lists and help their brand customers apply it effectively.
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Street Culture: inMarket Retains a ‘Startup Mentality’ as It Scales Up
“Startup culture doesn’t just mean a stocked kitchen with burritos in the freezer and tons of snacks in the kitchen, or jeans in the office,” says the company’s communications VP Dave Heinzinger. “It means everyone has the ability, from the CEO on down, to roll up their sleeves and really go to work on whatever needs to be done.”
Street Fight Daily: SMBs to Ramp Up Digital Marketing, Snap Adds Ad Targeting Based on Third-Party Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mobile Driving Marketing Spend Among SMBs… Snapchat to Enable Offline Purchase Ad Targeting… Marketing-Mix Modeling: A Road of Missed Opportunities for Brands…
Is It Time to Redefine ‘Local’ Marketing?
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.
SeeClickFix Grows Its Base to Over One Million Problem-Flagging Citizens
SeeClickFix has used 21st-century technology to fix 2,666,448 issues (and still counting) in municipalities and other jurisdictions around the country. In this Q & A, CEO Ben Berkowitz talks about how the company he founded eight years ago has forged partnerships with 300 governments and other entities.
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Drops Buy Button, Google Privileges Its Own Products in Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Twitter Unclicks Buy Button, Signaling Unclear Future for Social Commerce… Google Uses Its Search Engine to Hawk Its Products… Snapchat is Now Pitching Brands on Sequential Video Ads…
Post in the Machine: How Blockast is Taking a Shot at Local News Collection
The local news automation camp keeps graduating hopefuls. One of these is a four-year-old startup spawned from the mind of a former Microsoft-Amazon engineer who faced a very common problem: “how do I find out what’s happening outside my home right now?”
Near CEO: Bad Data Remains a Big Challenge for Location Platforms
Near enables brands and businesses to “visualize, engage and analyze audience data including their location and behavior for data-driven decisions.” Street Fight recently caught up with Near’s founder and CEO, Anil Mathews, to talk about location intelligence in 2017 and what types of new use cases we may soon see.
Street Fight Daily: DoorDash and Postmates Test Robot Delivery, Lighting Tech Helps Retailers Sharpen Location Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Postmates and DoorDash Test Delivery by Robot with Starship Technologies… Retailers Leverage Lighting Communication System to Sharpen Location Data… As Alexa Becomes Ubiquitous, Amazon Must Craft a Consistent User Experience…
Making Sense of Amazon’s Push Deeper Into Local
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. ”
Sponsored Content: Using Your Website as a Customer Engagement Tool
Websites remain a foundational marketing element for companies of all sizes and they are likely the “home base” for customers finding the detailed information they desire as well as the basics, like store hours, contact information, product details and links to social channels. While on the surface it may seem like websites are the opposite of engaging—static, one-size-fits-all, impersonal—the fact is with a little bit of strategy, businesses can create a website that provides customers with a truly engaging experience with clear calls to action as part of the customer’s journey.
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