News and Analysis

Inform Your Multichannel Customer Experience Strategy

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

Can Open Source Thinking Create a Sustainable Business Model for Local Journalism?

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Open source software changed the landscape for the entire computing industry. Rather than commoditizing software completely, it actually made software development easier and more productive. I see tremendous parallels in the publishing industry today.

Research Roundup: Comparing Franchisees and Independent Professionals

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Comparing some surveys focused at opposite ends of the local small business spectrum — franchise operators and self-employed professionals — it feels like, though the industry is selling these groups the same marketing and commerce technology and services, the two segments are more different than similar.

Optimizing for Mobile Search: New Tips and Old Tricks

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It used to be that you wanted to be situated as close as possible to the city centroid, or clustered with similar businesses. Now you might literally have to be the closest shop to the place your potential customer happens to be standing. How in the world do you optimize for that?

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Kayak to Debut Restaurant Search, How Brands Can Use Chatbots Effectively

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Kayak to Launch Restaurants, Tours, and Activities Comparison-Shopping Features (Skift)… Can Brands Turn Real-Time Facebook Messenger Chats into Meaningful Engagements? (Mobile Marketer)… Ride-Hailing Start-Ups Compete in ‘Uber for Children’ Niche (New York Times)…

Survey: How National-to-Local Marketers Plan to Grow Their Digital Budgets

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Street Fight recently surveyed decision makers at over 200 national-to-local marketers and found nearly half of them spend a third or more of their digital marketing budget in support of their franchises, branch offices, and distributors.

Publishers Finding Success With Tech Niches Within Their Local Markets

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“Traditional media has national reach because if something has a big enough dollar sign next to it, it will get covered,” Streetwise Media’s Reid Snyder said. “We have national reach because we have this narrow and deep knowledge of local markets.”

Street Fight Daily: How Apps Are Changing Shopping, Facebook’s Plans for Messenger

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Shoppers Flock to Apps, Shaking Up Retail (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook Bets on a Bot Resurgence, Chattier Than Ever (New York Times)… The Newest Rainmakers at Publishers: Ecommerce Editors (Digiday)…

TableHero Serves Up Restaurants, But Can it Be the OS of Local?

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“There’s an entire layer of mission critical technology that small local business owners know they need, but absolutely abhor their current relationship with technology,” says TableHero’s Deap Ubhi. “And at the foundation of that is digital presence, their Websites.”

8 Branding Strategies for Hyperlocal Vendors

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A strong brand strategy is the foundation of a winning launch, even though developing the strategy can increase the time it takes to get a new product to market. Here are eight brand development strategies for hyperlocal vendors, from founders and executives who’ve been in the trenches themselves.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook and Ticketmaster Partner, On-Demand’s Limitations

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ticketmaster Will Sell Tickets Directly on Facebook in Coming Weeks (BuzzFeed)… The Looming Limits of On-Demand Delivery (Retail Dive)… Billy Penn Owner Narrows Search for Second City (Politico)…

Weather Company’s Webster Touts the Power of Forecast Data in Local Marketing

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“We’re starting to have conversations about how we can take data and predict consumer behavior based on weather conditions,” says the Weather Company’s EMEA chief Ross Webster. “We’re not just looking at the weather as absolute … It’s much more about the different layers of weather data.”

Case Study: Timberland Empowers Local Retailers with Branded Content

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“We know that our local retailers are the best way to engage and influence consumers,” says Frank Hwang, Timberland’s senior manager for digital and paid media. The company works with local retailers to provide product storytelling and brand lifestyle content for their digital and social media channels.

Street Fight Daily: Google’s New Tool for SMBs, Facebook Opens Up to Branded Content

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… One Year After ‘Mobilegeddon,’ Google Plans to Release a New Tool for Small Businesses (Business Insider)… Facebook Opens the Door to Branded Content from Top Publishers (Digiday)… Daily Mail Parent in Talks with Private Equity for Yahoo Bid (Reuters)…