News and Analysis
6 Trends to Watch in Holiday Search Marketing
With fewer than two months to go until Christmas, retailers are already kicking their holiday search marketing tactics into high gear. Holiday sales this year are expected to increase roughly 4% over 2018, according to the National Retail Federation, and consumers are expected to be especially price-conscious. How will the retail industry respond to the changing dynamics in search marketing?
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest trends expected to influence holiday search marketing this year, from tactics for extending the local reach of holiday campaigns and how those tactics convert customers at the point of decision to newer products like Local Inventory Ads, which allows marketers to feed store-level inventory into Google search.
In Fitness Industry, Vertical Platforms Cater to Specialized Operations
Online appointment booking platforms are a dime a dozen, used by businesses in a huge range of industries. But among fitness businesses, specifically, general use booking platforms aren’t very common. That’s because fitness businesses are more likely to use vertical-specific tools designed to meet the needs of specialized operations.
Perhaps more so than any other industry, health and wellness has shown a great desire for verticalized technology solutions. Although verticalization isn’t limited to the health and wellness industry, fitness studios and related businesses are much more likely to use technology platforms designed specifically for their industry.
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash Fight Gig Economy Law in California
Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft are teaming up with restaurant delivery service DoorDash to fight California’s AB 5, a law that would force gig-economy companies that survive on contractor labor to register their drivers (or dashers) as employees and offer them benefits, Vox reported.
The coalition, the Protect App-Based Drivers and Services campaign, is attempting to place a referendum on the 2020 California ballot that would give voters the choice to exempt ride-sharing services from the law. That would presumably include DoorDash, which is not a ride-hailing service but essentially iterated Uber’s business model, employing drivers to escort food instead of passengers from A to B on demand.
Commentary
The Shift in B2SMB: It’s All About Platforms
Major changes are coming to SMB marketing as the market shifts away from media towards cloud-based services, artificial intelligence, marketing automation and location marketing. This cluster of tech movements represent real opportunities to help SMBs target and engage customers, and become more efficient.
Latest Posts
7 Call Analytics Platforms Using Machine Learning to Identify Caller Intent
Providers are introducing adaptive learning technology to categorize data and generate insights from inbound phone calls, giving merchants the ability to better understand what types of telephone calls are being driven. Here are seven examples of call analytics and attribution providers using advanced technology to identify caller intent.
Street Fight Daily: Shopper Intent and Location, Brands Tap Pokémon Go
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… flok Launches Chatbots to Bolster Customer Engagement for Local Businesses… Can Insights on Shopper Intent Improve Location Data?… This Brand Found a Clever Way to Connect with Pokémon Go Players…
flok Launches Chatbots to Bolster Customer Engagement for Local Businesses
With chatbot technology, communications between local businesses and their customers via flok can now evolve into more complex conversations. These conversations yield better data for the business owner and more detailed information as well as a more engaging customer service experience for the consumer.
The New Proximity: A Second Phase in Mobile Brings Here and Now to Life
The first phase of mobile software relied on us to express a desire and thereby to enable a service. Our actions initiated services that capitalized on the phone’s ability to maximize proximity. Now we’re entering a second phase where, for many of us, connectivity and location awareness will be active for longer stretches of our days.
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Debuts Attribution Dashboard, MyTaxi Merges with Hailo
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Foursquare Debuts a Dashboard for its Foot Traffic Measurement System… MyTaxi Reportedly to Merge with Hailo in Bid to Compete with Uber… Verizon-Yahoo Deal is the Best Possible Outcome for Consumers and Marketers…
Street Culture: Promoboxx Links Incentives to Achievements
CEO Ben Carcio said that it dawned on him one day that his employees would probably enjoy the perks of the job more if they were linked to company goals. One of the most recent incentives that the Promoboxx team earned was half day Fridays for the summer after hitting a revenue goal during the first week of June.
Streets Ahead: Google Chat, and Instagram Reels