News and Analysis

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Consumers Welcome Some Automated Business Messaging, But Humans Must Tag Along to Help

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More than half of consumers are frustrated by customer-service situations in which they can only interact with automated agents, and nearly one in five even reporting feeling angry in those situations. That’s per a new survey of U.S. consumers conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by call tracking and analytics firm Invoca.

Texting Allows Marketers to Reach Customers Where They Spend the Most Time

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Seventy-six percent of consumers are already receiving texts from businesses, and a majority of consumers across all age groups would prefer that more businesses take up texting as a mode of communication, a new report from business text messaging platform ZipWhip indicates.  

A whopping 83% of Gen-Z respondents and 82% of millennials said they “wish more businesses” would use texting. Even for older generations, that number made up a more than slight majority, including 76% of Gen-Xers and 64% of Baby Boomers.

5 Consent Management Platforms for Brands and Publishers

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For brands and publishers that work with multiple ad tech partners, the process of obtaining user consent for data processing is overwhelming. To simplify the workflow, publishers have started using consent management platforms (CMPs). Not only have CMPs been designed to help brands and publishers obtain and manage user consent, but they also help with monetizing users, even when users haven’t opted-in to sharing data.

CMPs were largely developed in response to the GDPR — most are built on the IAB’s transparency and consent framework — which means the systems themselves are still relatively young. Nonetheless, the popularity of this type of platform has led to a spring of new players entering the space. Here are five examples of CMPs on the market right now.

Commentary

3 Location Marketing Lessons That Healthcare Brands Can Teach Other Industries

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When the location marketing experts discuss best practices, they often focus on industries like retail. But the healthcare industry can teach us a lot about location marketing. Partly because healthcare faces constant turmoil, healthcare is a source of constant reinvention.

The Coming Polarization of the SMB Software Market

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Strangely, despite the size of the opportunity you don’t find too many SMB companies in most VC portfolios. You see plenty of consumer and enterprise-focused startups, but much fewer on the SMB side. The reason for this is that it’s “hard” for companies serving SMBs to grow at the rate that can deliver “venture” returns.

Mobile Payments: Does Local’s Holy Grail Have Holes?

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Mobile payments continue to be equally opportune and elusive. The potential benefits are huge, but I’m skeptical that mainstream consumers will alter their entrenched habits when they still don’t see cash or credit cards as a pain point.

Latest Posts

How Merchants Can Use Reviews to Influence Sales

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When local merchants turn online reviews into marketing collateral, posted on their websites, social media, or in print, they’re likely to encourage other positive reviews and also influence sales. Here are five examples of ways that merchants can leverage these reviews.

Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Makes Local Push, Google Dominates Mobile Paid Search

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Airbnb Wants Travelers to ‘Live Like a Local’ With Its App (New York Times)… Google Drove 95% of U.S. Smartphone Paid Search Clicks in Q1 (Search Engine Land)… Porch Partners with Wayfair to Take On Amazon (Seattle Times)…

Street Fight Daily: YP Plans Yahoo Bid, eBay’s Craigslist Competitor Has 7M Downloads

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… YP Plans First-Round Bid for Yahoo (Bloomberg) YP, the digital advertising business of what was formerly Yellowpages.com, plans to submit a first-round bid Monday to merge with Yahoo. YP is working with Goldman Sachs to investigate a variety of strategic alternatives, which could […]

Survey: Many National-to-Local Marketers Use Home-Grown Management and Analytics Tools

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Relatively few of these sophisticated companies make use of a common tool for managing and coordinating campaigns. That’s the case even though a third of respondents said various local programs were centralized at headquarters.

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Case Study: Washington Retailer Drives Sales with Localized Campaigns

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“Our goal is to concentrate on how we can engage better through mobile and video — quality content that people want to engage with is the measuring stick,” says Jordan Roorda. “It’s a complete change with how ‘success’ is measured, it’s like giving a thoughtful present, not a gift card.”

5 Monetization Strategies for Beacon Vendors

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Building a sustainable stream of revenue has proven to be harder than building a piece of hardware that detects nearby smartphones. In order for this burgeoning vertical to flourish, beacon vendors need to find a monetization strategy that makes sense.

SweetIQ CEO: Local Marketing Has Become ‘Far Too Fragmented’

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“There are too many [companies] trying to compete” in local, says Mohannad El-Barachi. He suggested that the industry needs to come up with a set of principles under which SMB owners can say: “These are my expectations and here’s what I should be getting.”

Street Fight Daily: Yelp’s New Home Services Feature, Return of the QR Code?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Now You Can Get Price Quotes for Home Services Inside Yelp (BuzzFeed)… Will Facebook Salvage QR Codes from the Dustbin of Local Marketing History? (Blumenthals)… Cross-Device Campaigns 60% Better Than PC-Only for Offline Conversions (Marketing Land)…

Inevitably, There’s a ‘Bot of Bots’ Digging Up Local Services

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Bot Hunter allows queries about the latest hot bots, and its makers envision lots of local bots populating the platform. Key use cases include scheduling appointments, retrieving basic information, receiving automatic follow-ups after certain purchases, as well as promotions and loyalty programs.

Why Local Publishers Shouldn’t Aim So Exclusively for Millennials

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I’ve been a cheerleader for local news organizations in their quest to attract Millennial audiences, but I’m starting to wonder if publishers are too convinced that reaching the youngest generation of adults is the magical elixir for all their problems.