News and Analysis
Apps Dominate Mobile Holiday Shopping
App fatigue, the feeling that a consumer simply cannot add yet another corporate app to her phone at a time when all enterprises seem to be competing for a place on mobile displays, is a major roadblock to successful app-based mobile strategies for retailers. But data from this holiday shopping season suggests that consumers are willing to download apps for the right incentives.
6 Ways Wearable Tech Is Reshaping Retail
Rather than being spooked by these new retail engagement strategies, surveys show most consumers are excited by them. Sixty-seven percent of wearables owners say they find dynamic user experiences that vary based on location “useful and exciting.”
Here are six examples of strategies that retailers can employ to improve the shopping experience using wearable technology.
Report: Reviews for Local Businesses Are Essential. Ratings Below 4 Stars Are Deadly
If it had not already been clear that building up a significant inventory of positive online reviews is key to attracting new customers to a business, let doubt linger no further.
A whopping 52 percent of consumers ages 18-54 “always” read reviews when searching for local businesses, and only 53 percent will consider a businesses with fewer than four stars, according to survey of 1,005 US-based consumers by marketing platform BrightLocal. Eighty-two percent of consumers overall read online reviews.
Commentary
One Size Does Not Fit All in the SMB Digital Market
“At the very least you have to recognize your day-to-day experiences both discovering and interacting with small businesses are wildly different from customers in rural markets,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their biweekly chat.
Dead Fingers Still Walking?
While Google and Facebook may have a lock on consumers and big advertisers, in no way do they have a lock on SMB advertisers. If Dex Media/YP can provide a better experience for its advertisers, it’s got a real shot at keeping those fingers walking well into the future.
An Unsexy Truth: Emerging Tech Hinges on Local Data
The visual search future in which “the camera is the new search box,” will have a massive reliance on local data. Therefore value and demand are boosted within that world for companies that have unique local data sets — everything from NAP to snaps.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Apple Opens Up Siri and Maps to Developers, Snapchat Ad Expansion
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Apple is Opening Up Siri, Maps, and Messages to Outside Development… Snapchat Launches a Colossal Advertising Expansion, Ushering in a New Era for the App… Google Pairs Facial Recognition with Location Tracking, Potentially Boosting Available Location Data…
Bypassing the Hurdles to Bring Programmatic to SMB Advertisers
SMB advertisers care about reaching consumers, not the nitty gritty of technology covered in the ad trades. Local media companies and smaller agencies should focus on how programmatic technology helps them sell that outcome, rather than get stuck selling the technology itself.
Case Study: Virginia Retail Chain Shifts Print Ad Budget to Social Channels
Kim Glover, A. Dodson’s director of marketing, says that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest make up the core of the retailer’s online marketing program — however the company is “always ready to evolve” with its customers as new platforms gain in popularity and usage.
Street Fight Daily: Microsoft to Buy LinkedIn, Google Maps Local Search Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… 10 Things to Know About the New Google Maps Local Search Ads… Siri To Be the Focus of Apple’s Developers Conference… What Happened to Austin When Uber and Lyft Left Town …
8 More Community Sites Climb to Michele’s List Revenue Pinnacle in 2016
Overall, 78% of the 96 sites in the closely watched survey of independent news sites reported revenue increases in 2015, with 13% saying they doubled revenue and close to a third reporting gains of 50%.
Street Culture: Birdzi Finds ‘Liberation’ in Lack of Corporate Hierarchy
“What happens a lot of times in corporations is you find that decisions are made that can’t be questioned,” says CEO Shekar Ramen. “We don’t have any of that and we want to maintain the flat nature of our company as much as possible.”
Street Fight Daily: Uber Launches Advance Scheduling, Verizon-Yahoo Plot Thickens
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Begins Letting Passengers Schedule Rides Up to 30 Days in Advance… Verizon Might Have to Pay for More Pieces of Yahoo Than It Wants… Attention Facebook and Google: Apple is Selling Mobile App Ads Now, Too…
Picking the Locksmiths: Bizyhood Unlocks the ‘Ghosts in the Data’ Problem
What would you do if you wanted to game Google into thinking you’ve got a vast network of local shops servicing area customers based on their search queries? According to a recent New York Times article, some lead gen companies are creating thousands of ghost listings to achieve just this. Bizyhood is trying to combat the practice.
Scaling the Neighborhood: A Community Focus for Local Services
So far, digital services, even those focused on local, have done more to atomize local communities than unite them, training us to rely on anonymous resources for the information and recommendations we used to get from our friends and neighbors.
Street Fight Daily: Google May Make Billions on Maps’ Local Ads, Uber IPO Coming No Time Soon
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Thanks to Local Ads, Google Maps Could Produce $1.5 Billion in New Revenue… Uber CEO Says Company Will Go Public ‘As Late As Humanly Possible’… The Bezos Effect: How Amazon’s Founder is Reinventing The Washington Post…
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature