News and Analysis

Local Businesses Face Negative Reviews Due to Coronavirus Safety Requirements

Google has taken several important measures to assist businesses during the pandemic, but none so far can prevent customers angry about coronavirus-related restrictions from lashing out at businesses attempting to follow public health best practices or the letter of the local law. “The review space has never been harder than right now,” wrote GatherUp co-founder and reputation management expert Mike Blumenthal.

But there are also possible strategies for survival.

With Walmart+, Retailer Combines Digital Subscription Service and Physical Stores

Regardless of which retailer comes out on top, there’s no doubt that many will see Walmart’s decision to launch a digital-first membership program as a turning point in brick-and-mortar retail and a concession on Walmart’s part that e-commerce is the way of the future, displacing rather than complementing old-school retail.

Marcel Hollerbach contends that Walmart’s decision to launch a membership program points to just how well positioned retailers with physical locations are in the current climate, with the ability to quickly facilitate things like in-store returns and same-day deliveries of items that take much longer to ship by mail.

5 Localized Ad Platforms for SMBs

Localized ad platforms could also see an increase in use in the coming months among SMBs that want to cut down on unnecessary costs. Many of the localized ad platforms aimed at the SMB market take a self-serve approach, allowing business owners to adjust their budgets and adapt their strategies as conditions evolve.

Here are five localized ad platforms that are focused on helping merchants get back on their feet.

Commentary

How to Create a Seamless Online/Offline Shopping Experience

Thanks to advances made in the digital world, in-store identification can be linked to existing digital identifiers and unlock sophisticated, real-time personalization that is seamless across channels.

6 Guidelines for the Path to Voice Everywhere

I want voice (control of everything), everywhere, but I have strict requirements for how it should be designed, engineered, and implemented. Here are six requirements for a reasonable deployment of voice everywhere.

The Cookie is (Still) Dead: Device IDs and the Future of Mobile Marketing

Some hybrid cookies-based scenarios will putter along, and some scale-hungry players will stick to old tech for a bit longer, but smart marketers are investing in customer data platforms that are mobile-first, connecting CRM directly to the mobile device.

Latest Posts

How Should SMBs Track ROI From Local Search?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

How Retailers Are Personalizing the Shopping Experience This Holiday Season

The biggest story this holiday shopping season isn’t expected to be any specific toy or garment that’s flying off the shelves, but the way consumers are being recognized and how they’re finding the products they ultimately purchase when they shop inside physical stores. With holiday retail sales expected to increase just 1.8% this year, retailers […]