News and Analysis

Retailers Hoping for Record Cyber Monday to Follow Friday Windfall

Share this:

US retailers set all-time records on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, wracking up $11.6 billion in online sales. Adobe predicts that Cyber Monday will also set a fresh record of $9.4 billion, pushing the Thanksgiving weekend total to nearly $30 billion.

The increasing importance of online sales has forced traditional retailers to compete with e-commerce natives like Amazon not only by offering their own robust set of deals but also by investing in delivery infrastructure and reducing friction for consumers ordering online. 

Spa Facial

The Beauty Industry is Prepping for Small Business Saturday – Here’s How

Share this:

Small Business Saturday is one of the most important events of the year for local beauty and wellness providers. Spas and salons rely on sales of gift cards and beauty products to sustain their businesses during leaner times.

Developed by American Express in the depths of the recession in 2010, Small Business Saturday is placed in the middle of two of the biggest shopping events of the year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While proportionally fewer sales happen on Small Business Saturday than Black Friday or Cyber Monday, consumer awareness around the annual event is growing.

The Risks and Outsize Rewards of Political Branding

Share this:

In a time of unprecedented political partisanship, the risks and rewards of corporate political messaging are amplified. Viral marketing strategies including Nike’s partnership with racial justice activist and football star Colin Kaepernick, Gillette’s toxic masculinity ad, and Chick-fil-A’s anti-LGBTQ stances rally political sympathizers to a brand’s side and alienate ideological foes.

Street Fight checked in with Jen Capstraw, director of strategic insights and evangelism at growth marketing company Iterable, to get a sense of how significant the benefits and drawbacks of political branding are, which ideological direction political ads are predominantly taking, and how strong the evidence is for the efficacy of partisan messaging.

Commentary

4 Ways to Track Traditional Local Media Using Digital

Share this:

Digital and traditional media can work together. Traditional efforts often drive users to search engines, websites and social media platforms. If you own the SERP for your brand, you’ll be able to control what the user sees as they respond to your traditional media campaigns.

Survey: Enterprise Marketers Are Increasing Local Digital Mix

Share this:

As enterprise local marketers become experienced with digital tactics they originally used to promote their corporate sites, they are getting more savvy about digital marketing. Today, most of them spend less than a third of their digital budgets on local campaigns and programs, but 40% say they are increasing the local mix.

The Impending HTTPstrophe — And What it Means for Local Businesses

Share this:

“Google is rapidly moving towards a time when HTTPS will be an absolute necessity for websites,” writes David Mihm to Mike Blumenthal. “As soon as this month if an http:// website contains any input field, users will start getting scary security messages.”

Latest Posts

Openings and New Hires at Tapclicks, GotU, Matchcraft

Share this:

Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Google Ventures, Factual, Gooway Group, and Townsquare Media.

Raise Report: Fresh Funding for Townsquared, Yieldbot, Drizly

Share this:

Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes recent rounds for Carvana, SiteZeus, Spot.IM, and Insert.

LBMA Podcast: Snapchat + Yext, Gimbal’s Experiences, Unacast’s Thomas Walle Jensen

Share this:

Welcome to This Week in Location Based Marketing, a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. On the show: GoGoGrandparent, Pets At Home + GrandVisual, Macy’s + IBM’s Watson, Mentos + Posterscope, Apple iOS10, Sephora, Tinder, and Flirtey + 7Eleven.

Street Fight Daily: Brands Using Apps to Drive Revenue, Facebook Tweaks News Feed (Again)

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Three Brands Use Apps to Drive Loyalty and Revenue… Facebook Tweaks News Feed to Favor ‘Personally Informative’ Stories… How AMP Will Affect the Wider Web…

How DMN’s Speakeasy Became a Major Revenue Driver in the Digital Transition

Share this:

The newspaper’s in-house digital agency has grown to 70 client businesses that provide a significant share of the estimated $40 million of annual revenue that doesn’t originate within the walls of the DMN. The division has become the centerpiece of the company’s work to to re-establish a revenue growth model.

6 Ways Brands Can Automate Updates on Local Facebook Pages

Share this:

For a brand with 10, 100, or even 1,000 locations, having to create and manually update local Facebook pages can be daunting, but a number of hyperlocal vendors have stepped in with solutions to streamline the process. Here are six examples of platforms that multi-location businesses can use to automate their updates across local Facebook pages.

Street Fight Daily: Restaurants Eager for New Tech, P&G’s Facebook Experiment

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Yelp Plans to Consolidate Mobile Gains and Reach $1B in Revenue… Restaurants Would Implement Predictive Ordering, Drones if Available… Why P&G Decided Facebook Ad Targeting Often Isn’t Worth the Money…

What Local Consumers Really Want From a Loyalty Program

Share this:

To dig into what consumers expect in the loyalty programs they use most frequency today, we checked in with executives at a few of the most well-known loyalty platforms. Here’s what they said consumers are looking for in loyalty programs right now.

How Local Businesses Can Survive and Thrive in the Age of RankBrain

Share this:

A great site with proper titles, tags and meta descriptions alongside good and relevant ad copy, and an intelligent approach to drive the maximum number of relevant clicks, is the best defense for the local business against the self-awareness of the RankBrain machine.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s Drone Program, Location and Mobile Ads

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Future of Retail Delivery: Amazon’s Drone Program… Mobile Programmatic Ad Growth Propelled By Geotargeting… Facebook Combats Ad Blocking By Giving Users Control Over What They See…