News and Analysis

With Stimulus Funds Delayed, Small Businesses Digitize for Survival

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Experts at helping SMBs adapt to a tech-first commercial landscape say the pandemic has led some businesses to tap into their long-dormant potential as digital marketers and sellers, possibly setting them up for gains in the aftermath of the recession. Now that e-commerce is the only path to survival, mom-and-pop shops, aided by martech firms, agencies, and Silicon Valley giants, are capitalizing on cutting-edge marketing and retail techniques, many for the first time.

Thousands, if not millions, of Main Street businesses will close their doors for good as a result of the pandemic. Those that survive will be technologically savvier and sleeker than they were before.

What Search Behavior During Covid-19 Means for Healthcare Marketers

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The headlines are everywhere. Open any newspaper, and you’ll see story after story about coronavirus and its impact on American society. But new data on consumer search behavior shows Covid-19 isn’t the only healthcare topic on people’s minds right now.

In an analysis of consumer search trends during the coronavirus pandemic, a team from the healthcare provider scheduling and search platform Kyruus found that search terms seemingly unrelated to Covid-19, such as “diabetes,” “cancer,” and “depression,” continue to rank more highly than those associated with the virus.

As Agencies Feel the Squeeze, Covid-19 Reshapes the Martech Industry

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One in four small businesses has temporarily shut down, and 43% believe they have fewer than six months until permanent closure is unavoidable. With the small business community in panic mode, budgets for digital marketing have been slashed, and agencies are feeling the pinch.

“Everyone has been in panic mode, and rightly so. Businesses are worried about who might have to be furloughed [or] laid off, getting their PPP loans, what kind of regulations do they need to comply with, [and] what their contingency plans are for keeping any amount of revenue coming in,” says Simon Schwartz, founder of Locasaur. “Businesses are not interested in being pitched new marketing tech.”

Commentary

Unpacking the Increasingly Complex Local SERP

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“While I think [these local ad changes] might be better for many small businesses AND consumers, it gives Google a great deal of power to approve or disapprove participants,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm in their biweekly column.

People Are Talking About You: The Hidden Value of User-Generated Content

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Simply put, insights gleaned from reviews can help you do business better. Though reviews may contain bias of various kinds, they are still the best source you can find of detailed feedback from real customers.

Understanding the Proxies That Can Undermine Location Data

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For marketers, the ability to deploy technology that identifies and bypasses online users who may be masking their locations and digital traits yields improvement in the form of targeted campaigns and fewer wasted impressions.

Latest Posts

Which Apple Will Show Up For Local’s Next Revolution?

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Apple’s relative inaction on VR/AR thus far could either indicate that the company is missing this next tech shift (which I’ve speculated), or that it’s playing the long game. The latter could involve a deliberately late entrance to VR and AR, just as it did with previous technologies.

How Should SMBs Track ROI From Local Search?

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It’s likely that many local merchants misunderstand the importance of using tracking metrics to inform their marketing practices, or they feel overwhelmed at the thought of adding yet another task to their overcrowded plates. To find out how these business owners could be doing a better job of tracking local search metrics, we asked top experts in the field.

Street Fight Daily: Keeping Up With Mobile Shoppers, Google’s Mobile-First Index

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook, In Cross Hairs After Election, Is Said to Question Its Influence… FAQ: All About Google’s Mobile-First Index… How Walgreens’ App Update Will Leverage Beacons to Improve the In-Store Experience…

Street Culture: Threads Touts Holistic Understanding of Employees to Grow Culture

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The six-year-old software startup employs 21 people in total. Co-founder Sean Abbas is frustrated at some of the ways that companies relate to their employees, and Threads software aims to help managing executives describe and understand the issues in building their company culture.

LBMA Podcast: Instagram, Netflix, LiveNation & LetGo App

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This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. On the show: GM + IBM & Mastercard, AliPay coming to U.S., Staples Easy Button, Shell + NavAds, Lyft and JetBlue, Google pilots with Myer, and Custom Curated Experiences.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Buys CrowdTangle, PlaceIQ Teams with Nielsen Catalina

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Buys CrowdTangle, a Social Analytics Tool for Publishers… PlaceIQ Teams with Nielsen Catalina Solutions on Detailing the CPG Purchase Path… Google’s Tiny Radars Tweaked to Identify Everyday Objects in a Home…

Imagining a Local Search Pathway for Snapchat

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Snapchat may be considered by many to be “the next Facebook,” but its approach to social media and interactions couldn’t be more different. From its emphasis on moments to the uneasiness the founders have with ad personalization, the company is certain to blaze a trail all its own the the local space.

Community News’ Fight to Succeed: ‘Sustain Local 2016’ Put It All Together

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Seeing their very survival at stake, local news sites are starting to revamp their models and sometimes scrap them for new ones. Some of the best of what’s happening in the besieged industry was put on display at the recent “Sustain Local 2016” conference.

Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Says Verizon May Ditch Deal, Branded Content on Mobile Sees Success

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roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Raises Possibility Verizon May Back Out… Click-Through-Rates for Branded Content on Mobile Double That on Desktop… LinkedIn Makes It Easier for Businesses to Send Sponsored Direct Messages….

Mobile 1.0 Had Its Own Uber: Recalling the Birth of the Future

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Somewhere in the nascent days of flip-phones, when I headed up AOL’s mobile products division, we came across a little company with an ambitious goal: let people hail a cab or black car virtually using their cellphones. The company, Qsent, had been working on a mobile-phone version of a service called iQtaxi.