News and Analysis
Consumers Welcome Some Automated Business Messaging, But Humans Must Tag Along to Help
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
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.
Commentary
The Coming Polarization of the SMB Software Market
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.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Makes Local Push, Google Dominates Mobile Paid Search
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
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 […]
Case Study: Washington Retailer Drives Sales with Localized Campaigns
“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.”
Street Fight Daily: Yelp’s New Home Services Feature, Return of the QR Code?
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
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.
The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation