News and Analysis
5 Innovative Ways to Use AR in Holiday Marketing
A technology that was once considered to be on the fringes of digital marketing has moved into the mainstream, as retailers around the country find new ways to use AR in their 2019 holiday campaigns. From virtual try-ons to camera filters designed to drive people into physical store locations, there’s no limit to the number of ways creative marketers can use AR. Enterprising retailers are capitalizing on the momentum as they come up with smarter ways to help shoppers contextually visualize what products will look like on their bodies and in their homes.
Let’s take a look at how five major companies are using AR for holiday marketing this year.
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.
Commentary
Could Chipotle Have Saved Millions of Dollars By Taking Online Reviews More Seriously?
If done right, online reputation management can act as an early warning system for multi-location businesses, and can ultimately prevent long-term brand damage and reduce the risk of decreasing profits.
A Look at Google’s ‘Quality Rater Guidelines’ Over Time: How to Put Information Into Action
Google is vague on a lot of things, but every now and then we get a glimpse into what the search giant values and deems important — as we do in the recently updated Quality Rater Guidelines.
Frustration With Digital Marketing Vendors Boils Over for One SMB
If it’s possible to distill the 30 million small business owners in the U.S. into a single persona, Marc Reisner strikes our columnists as a great candidate: “Marc has been disillusioned by past performance and that poor performance has understandably tarred the entire industry with the same brush.”
Latest Posts
What Designing an ‘OS for Restaurants’ Really Requires
When you look at the restaurant tech stack, there are clearly solutions, software, applications that should play nicely with each other, but the larger players have purposefully walled off their gardens. The next multi-billion-dollar company in this space will identify the mission-critical pieces of technology in the stack, and own them.
Amplified Robot CEO Lays Out a Case for the Role of AR/VR in Retail
At the LOCALCON conference in London last week, Amplified Robot CEO Steve Dann gave a keynote address on VR’s practical uses for the retail industry. VR is steadily “climbing up the slope of enlightenment,” Dann said, and it’s in our best interest to familiarize ourselves with it.”
Street Fight Daily: Search Engine Jelly Relaunches, How Foursquare Predicted Chipotle’s Sales Drop
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Relaunch, Jelly Makes Another Run at Q&A-Style ‘Social Search’ (Search Engine Land)… How Foursquare Knew Before Almost Anyone How Bad Things Were for Chipotle (Washington Post)… Google Is Reportedly Building an All-in-One Travel App Called Trips (The Next Web)…
Can Facebook Messenger Become an Effective Local Marketing Platform?
The pieces are in place for Messenger to become a major new marketing platform. Indeed, the various (mostly mobile) use cases range from customer service to e-commerce. So far, none of my experiences has been great. But there’s huge potential over time.
How Time Out Plans to Strengthen Its Vertical Offerings With Ecommerce
At last week’s LOCALCON conference in London, Time Out’s Russ Cohn, Zenchef’s Xavier Zeitoun, and FreshLime’s Bob Barnes discussed the impact of vertical approaches on local marketing. We followed up with Cohn again after the conference to learn more about how the publisher is working to become a comprehensive booking platform.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Mobile Advertising Dominance, Is This the Year for Beacons in Retail?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Cements Status as a Mobile Juggernaut with $4.2 Billion in Ad Revenue (Mashable)… Where Do Beacons Fit in the Retail Sensor Landscape? (Marketing Land)… Pinterest’s Plans for World Domination (Business Insider)…
Moving App Zootly Wants to Make Your Relocation On-Demand
Launched in 2015, the on-demand moving app connects anyone who needs a mover or delivery with a professional mover in minutes. Whether it’s for moving a couch, a whole home or even getting some big purchases home from a day of shopping, the idea is that you can get a van or a truck and some movers when and where the need arises.
6 Local Directories Every VSB Should Be On
Consumers are increasingly going online to research local services and products, but for very small businesses (VSBs), this trend is becoming a problem. Fifty-nine percent of VSBs still don’t have websites, with owners often citing perceived cost and lack of technical expertise as reasons why they haven’t made their way online. For business owners who […]
Street Fight Daily: In-Depth Look at Restaurant Tech, Consumers Getting Ads Through FB Messenger
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Restaurant OS (TechCrunch)… You Could Get Facebook Messenger Spam from Any Website You Visit (Business Insider)… Will Readers Pay for Local News? A Digital Startup in Tulsa Bets That They Will (Columbia Journalism Review)…
What It Takes for Legacy Media Companies to Innovate and Thrive
As the media industry spins further away from the long-established familiarity of print models, its companies — large and small, old and new, hyperlocal and international — are hurrying to implement a plan for sustainability. Three organizations with creative solutions spoke on a panel at Street Fight’s LOCALCON in London last week about their strategies.
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