News and Analysis
Fresh Chalk Has a New Take on Local Reviews
Despite digital change, recommendations from friends remain one of the most credible forms of marketing. Now, a new startup called Fresh Chalk is aiming to capitalize on that, giving consumers a way to find local professionals with help from their friends.
Like Yelp, Facebook, Google, and other local business directories, Fresh Chalk is aiming to help people source recommendations from reliable, qualified businesses in their own communities. But unlike most other competitors in the market, Fresh Chalk is keeping a tight focus on personal connections.
This Largely Brick-and-Mortar Industry Is Resisting Digital Disruption
Despite Amazon’s high-profile acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017, grocery is the bastion of brick-and-mortar shopping proving unusually resistant to a takeover by digital channels. At least, that is the vision of consumers, only 15% of whom say they are excited about the technical “revolution” in grocery, according to a new report on the future of retail by Walker Sands.
Startups Adapt to Shifting Privacy Standards
Two steps forward, one step back. That’s what it can feel like to be a technology provider in the location marketing space right now, struggling to strike a balance between the demands of brand marketers and growing concerns over consumer privacy and data regulation.
That push and pull is challenging vendors in the location marketing space. At the same time their firms should be seeing exponential growth, data regulations—including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California’s forthcoming Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)—are establishing new rules for innovation.
But some companies are embracing the regulation as a challenge to innovate in its own right.
Commentary
Local’s Next Hurdle: The Impressionable Use Fallacy
No matter how good the targeting, creative, and “right person, right place,” the vast majority of our time contains urgencies that render us immune to push-based mobile ads. It’s basically a question of how often we’re actually idle, and therefore impressionable to being rerouted from a deliberate course.
Omnichannel Personalization: Striving to Increase Average Basket Size
Consumer goods and retail companies are using omnichannel personalization to engage consumers, and offer them the convenience to browse and buy products however and wherever they choose. With data analytics, retailers can engage in automated omnichannel personalization to deliver marketing that aligns with a customer’s specific behaviors.
Survey of Mobile Marketers Highlights Growing Focus on Location Data, Social Media
A new industry-sponsored study of mobile advertisers and agencies offers guidance for hyperlocal marketing providers. Big brands and their agencies are increasing their mobile marketing efforts, with a keen focus on location data and social media integration. The Mobile Marketing Association recently released a report sketching out the key findings from a survey it conducted this […]
Latest Posts
The Physical Web: How a New Type of Beacon Is Disrupting Proximity Marketing
The newer Eddystone-URL is truly disruptive. This web approach, also called the Physical Web, follows the unstoppable trend toward lessening friction, and will ultimately be the dominant beacon technology. Marketers should be aware of this trend.
Street Fight Daily: Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Arriving This Month, eBay’s Turnaround Plan
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Accelerated Mobile Pages Coming This Month, Google Aims to Reinvent the Mobile Web (AdAge)… How eBay Plans to Take On Amazon (Fortune)… Verve Opens Self-Serve Location Targeting Platform Aimed at SMBs (GeoMarketing)…
As Legacy Media Companies Evolve, ‘Culture Trumps Strategy Every Time’
“The legacy culture is the biggest impediment, for sure,” says LMA President Nancy Lane. “Those media companies that have separated traditional and digital are clearly ahead of others. But it’s a tough concept and it requires an investment.”
Case Study: Burger Chain Grows Facebook Reach By Prioritizing Local Pages
In the past 18 months, the ratio of spending between print and digital marketing campaigns has flipped at Hwy 55. Today, the company’s digital spend is more than 20% higher than print. The company has chosen to focus its efforts on platforms that can be used to reach consumers at the hyperlocal level.
Street Fight Daily: Gannett Met with Amazon to Explore Delivery, How Facebook Got More SMBs to Buy Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Gannett Explores Parcel-Delivery Business (Wall Street Journal)… Sheryl Sandberg Explains How Facebook Got More Small Businesses to Buy Ads (Business Insider)… Why Yahoo Couldn’t Adapt to the Smartphone Era (New Yorker)…
After School, Generation Z, and the Localization of Anonymous Expression
Investors have poured money into anonymous, local chat apps like After School (which connects students at every public and private high school) — but they can be prime venues for online bullying. To get a little more context about this issue, we spoke with After School’s content director Michael Luchies.
5 Proximity-Based Deal-Finding Apps for Retail Brands
With distractions around every corner, savvy retailers and brands are using location-based apps to put limited-time offers in the hands of consumers who just happen to be nearby. Here are five examples of proximity-based deal-finding apps available to consumers right now.
Street Fight Daily: AOL’s CEO Reportedly Leading Verizon/Yahoo Talks, Yelp’s Earnings Leak Early
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Verizon Said to Enlist AOL CEO Armstrong to Explore Yahoo Deal (Bloomberg)… Yelp’s Earnings Report Leaks, Reveals CFO Is Stepping Down (Fast Company)… Factual Enables Private Marketplace Deals with InMobi, Rubicon (GeoMarketing)…
How U.K.’s Trinity Mirror Negotiates the Intersection of Journalism and Local Tech
Trinity Mirror, the largest news publishing company in the United Kingdom, launched a hyperlocal mobile ad platform called pinpoint in 2014 that allows brands to send highly targeted campaigns to smartphone users. Street Fight recently caught up with the company’s director of new businesses, Matthew Colebourne, to talk about how business models for local journalism are evolving.
Is Apple Quietly Assembling an SMB Trojan Horse?
Apple is co-promoting Square’s NFC reader for SMBs. and selling the readers in Apple Stores. The $49 reader accepts Apple Pay, which significantly lowers the barrier for SMBs to get in the game. The move should boost Apple Pay, but there also may be much bigger ambitions to lock in market share in new areas.
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