News and Analysis

6 Next-Gen Review Marketing Platforms for Retail Brands

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Determined not to fall even further behind their online-only competitors, retailers are investing more heavily in a new breed of review platform. These next-generation solutions integrate written reviews with pictures and videos to create more cohesive omni-channel shopping experiences. Here are six next-gen review platforms that brands are using right now.

In Test of On-Demand Economy’s Durability, Postmates Files to Go Public

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There’s nothing more hyperlocal than the on-demand class of startups, which feed off the everyday use cases spurred by a mobile-first world: whipping one’s phone out to order food from a local restaurant (Postmates, GrubHub, DoorDash), hail a ride (Uber and Lyft), or cut out a trip to the grocery store (Instacart, Shipt). Postmates’ founding ingenuity was to apply the convenience of ride-sharing to product delivery. Eight years later, it’s a food-delivery powerhouse, and its value may strike nearly $2 billion.

What Is 5G? Some Facts and Marketing Implications

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As the next generation in mobile connectivity, 5G should promise smoother data transmission, higher-quality mobile streaming, and more efficient energy usage. And it’s those benefits consumers are excited about, newly available data from Verizon Media indicates, with 72% of surveyed consumers excited about faster data transfer speeds and 57% eager for higher-definition video content. But industry watchdogs are skeptical.

Commentary

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.

The Context for Contextual Marketing Is Changing

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The idea behind contextual marketing makes a lot of sense. But in practice, contextual marketing is getting pretty hairy, especially for location-based marketing. That’s because context is getting more complicated

Google Finally Reveals How to Improve Your Local Ranking

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Google has significantly updated its help page on the topic of local ranking to include, for the first time, specific common-sense guidelines showing businesses how they can increase the likelihood that online searchers will find them in Google Maps on desktop and mobile.

Latest Posts

Case Study: Mattress Retailer Captures Millennials with Digital Strategies

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The vast majority of mattress sales still take place in brick-and-mortar stores. However, America’s Mattress of Onalaska owner Dave Weinberger says he’s found that millennial shoppers are increasingly doing their pre-shopping research online. In response, he’s begun shifting his advertising budget away from offline channels and toward digital tactics, like call tracking and recording, search marketing, and online promotions.

Street Fight Daily: Snapchat Cuts Ties with Yahoo, Publishers Share Digital Advertising Strategies

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Why Snapchat Axed Yahoo from Discover (Fast Company)… What’s Actually Working in Digital Advertising? 8 Publishers on How They’re Bringing in Money (Nieman Lab)… Yelp Is Using Image Search to Change How It Finds You a Bar (Wired)…

How Gannett’s Cost-Cutting and Breakthrough Video Ads Helped Land Journal Media Group

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In less than six months, the newly constituted Journal Media Group did a 180-degree about-face, shifting from a strategy focused on acquisitions to being acquired by Gannett. The USA Today publisher brought two things that JMG couldn’t match: The proven ability to consistently wring substantial cost savings out of expansion and a digital ad strategy that holds the promise of making everybody — advertisers, audiences, and stockholders — happy.

Can Facebook Win Local?

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Facebook is known universally for its social networking features, but the company has quietly but consistently been rolling out a set of tools to make it the go-to platform for SMBs. From social buy buttons, call functionality, and Pages to messaging and free beacons, Facebook is staking its claim to online, offline, and online-to-offline marketing and commerce for SMBs.

Street Fight Daily: Target Partners with Techstars, Yahoo Exec Leaves for Square

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Target Teams Up with Techstars to Create a Retail-Focused Startup Accelerator (TechCrunch)… Top Yahoo Exec Jackie Reses Heads to Square as Senior Exec (Recode)… Publishers Straddle the Apple-Google, App-Web Divide (New York Times)…

6 Strategies for Improving Email Pitches to SMBs

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Email is the go-to channel for pitching within the hyperlocal community, but with 81 percent of small business owners now being contacted by between one and five sales reps each week, according to a survey by Street Fight and Thrive Analytics, it’s becoming harder for digital marketing vendors to stand out from the pack. Here are six strategies vendors say they’ve successfully used to break through the clutter in local merchants’ inboxes.

Raise Report: New Rounds for EzCater, Checkr, Netsertive

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Every two weeks we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. In this edition, new investments include rounds for EzCater, Checkr, and Netsertive.

LBMA Podcast: Walmart’s Simple Text Shopping Assistant, Walgreens Rewards Activity Tracking

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On the show: Walmart’s Simple Text shopping assistant; Walgreens rewards customers for activity tracking; ordering pizza from the street courtesy of JCDeaux; LOCALīz from Bulzi; Droneports in Rwanda; Sunshine crowdsourced weather app; your opinion pays at Portland’s SamplingLab; using digital solutions to enhance the customer experience. Plus, news from RevTrax; Salvation Army; and eyeQ.

Street Fight Daily: IAB Accepts Blame for Rise of Ad Blockers, Analyzing Yahoo Gemini

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The IAB Pivots on Ad Blocking and Issues a Mea Culpa: ‘We Messed Up’ (Adweek)… As Yahoo Gemini Ramps Up, How Well Is It Performing for Search Advertisers? (Search Engine Land)… First Data Slips in Trading Debut (Wall Street Journal)…

NinthDecimal Partners with TiVo to Measure TV Advertising’s Real-World Influence

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In today’s digitally-focused advertising climate, overlooking TV’s influence is easy. It still accounts for the largest share of U.S. media spending, but with marketers increasingly focused on generating hard metrics-based ROI for every aspect of their campaigns, the challenge has been tying TV’s impact to real-world business results. With the launch today of a TV measurement solution in partnership with TiVo, NinthDecimal is banking on TV becoming a bigger piece of the ROI puzzle.