News and Analysis
While Sales Growth Rate Slows, Amazon Marketplace, Cloud, and Ad Businesses Point to Long-Term Prosperity
For brands hoping to compete with Amazon (and potentially looking on with relief at a sign of fallibility from their digital rival), the company’s earnings report brings the news that Amazon Marketplace, where third-party sellers can reach customers, is doing more than twice as much in sales as Amazon’s first-party retail platform. Marketplace is troubled by bad practices and fake reviews, and its prosperity suggests the growing challenge for brands to get customers to even go to their sites at a time when Amazon is essentially the homepage of the commerce-oriented Internet.
As Voice Gets Established, Brands Grapple with Implementation
Consumer demand for voice technology has never been greater, and industry heavyweights like Google and Amazon are gearing up for a platform war as they work to integrate voice assistants into virtually every area of the connected consumer’s life. But behind the scenes, many brand marketers are struggling to connect the dots and design campaigns around a technology they don’t fully understand.
Apple Takes Advantage of Facebook’s Foul Play to Make a Privacy Statement
Not only did Facebook’s “Research” app, which paid 13- to 35-year-old users $20/month to access their search history, emails, and private messages, set off every imaginable alarm on the this-will-look-bad-when-the-exposé-comes-out PR radar (one of the world’s most powerful corporations must be lacking one of those), but the app also blatantly violated the terms of Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program, which proscribes distributing apps to consumers. It probably didn’t help that Facebook was searching tweens’ data for dirt on its competitors.
Latest Posts
Realtors Can Recommend Their Favorite Local Businesses Using HomeKeepr
The days of homeowners looking up a local painter or handyman in the Yellow Pages are gone. Instead, consumers are turning to review sites like Angie’s List to find the right person for the job. HomeKeepr takes a different approach. “Rather than crowdsourcing lots of reviews from strangers, we source recommendations from ‘local experts:’ real estate agents,” said co-founder and CEO Rob Morelli.
Webinar: Location-Based Marketing Strategies to Lure Holiday Shoppers
The busiest retail season of the year is upon us, and it’s shaping up to be a good one. An upcoming free Street Fight Insights webinar, presented in conjunction with Brandify and featuring immr founder Dr. Phil Hendrix, can help local business owners and their marketing and technology partners get ready for the tide of online and foot traffic. Don’t miss out on key insights that can help make your holiday season a success.
The Price of Free Listings Revisited: A Hyperlocal Business Perspective
The proliferation of online directories and directory services has made the local business owner’s life harder. It means more places to manage vital information and more third-party providers that control access to directories. Between the time and effort required to manage aggregators and the volume of citations, few small business owners do it themselves. As a result, the only stakeholders that truly know what information is authentic often are left out of the conversation.
Street Fight Daily: In-N-Out Burger Sues DoorDash, Uber Partners with TomTom
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… In-N-Out Burger Sues DoorDash for Delivering Its Food Without Permission (Recode)… Uber Signs Digital Mapping Deal with TomTom (New York Times)… Angie’s List Shares Surge After Company Rejects IAC Offer (USA Today)…
In Local Marketing, ‘Obsolete’ Is All Relative
The pace of innovation is such that many new technologies are deemed “obsolete” before small business owners get the chance to fully understand them, let alone implement them in their business. Many feel left behind the curve as a result. But obsolete is not an absolute condition when it comes to marketing techniques. Where marketing tactics and technologies are underutilized, potential for competitive gains still exists.
Do You Bing? If Not, It’s Time to Start
Microsoft recently announced that Bing turned its first profit since being launched in 2009. The company continues to extend its reach, grow its share of the search market, and add features that make it a stronger commerce tool. The question businesses should be asking is not whether Bing will catch up to Google, but whether they view Bing as a critical publisher to improve the reach of their location data.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Food Delivery Expanding to More Major Cities, Google Maps Goes Offline
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Plans to Roll Out Restaurant Delivery in Cities Across the Country (Recode)… Google Maps Is Adding Offline Navigation and Search (The Verge)… Brand Advertising in Programmatic Era Fattens Margins for Big E-tailers (Ad Age)…
Dealmakers: Growth Hacking with Sales Automation Technology
We tend to think of fragmentation as a major hurdle, but it means opportunities as well — to leverage content, data, and analytics to create an efficient, effective lead pipeline. Investors are turning their attention to this opportunity, pouring money into and acquiring companies that facilitate sales and marketing automation. What distinguishes the companies receiving investment dollars this year is that they uniquely embrace the concept of “growth hacking.”
6 Tools Restaurants Can Use to Accept Mobile Orders
The mobile ordering landscape is quickly evolving, with increases in consumer demand fueling the growth. Even independently owned restaurants with just one or two locations are feeling the push to offer their customers mobile ordering. Here are six platforms restaurant owners can use to meet the demand.
Street Fight Daily: Google and Flipkart Partner to Eliminate Apps, Groupon’s Ideel Takes a Hit
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With a Mobile Website Like An App, Flipkart Takes a Swipe at Apple (New York Times)… Groupon Site Ideel to Pack Up and Ship Out of New York (Crain’s New York Business)… Legacy Retailers Struggle to Ramp Up Mobile Marketing (Ad Age)…
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