News and Analysis
Consumer Dollars Are Up for Grabs—If Retailers Can Master the Basics
To maintain the business of today’s consumers, consistency is key. Just under 70% of respondents said they’re less likely to return to a store after just one subpar experience. As for what earns a shopper’s approval, only 19% of consumers said they seek out food or entertainment from stores. More important are fundamental technical capabilities like mobile app integration and access to WiFi. Two thirds of shoppers even said retailers are too focused on experimental tech and should pay more attention to the building blocks of good retail strategy.
Consumers Hungry for New Content Discovery Channels on Mobile
The content consumers are craving is personalized and brief. Over 40% said they would like content experiences between 15 and 30 seconds, and another 26% favored engagement somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds. Despite amplified privacy concerns of late, 68% indicated a willingness to trade some personal information in exchange for content tailored to their interests.
Brands still trigger-happy on mobile push notifications may want to reconsider. Twenty-five percent of respondents ranked them as their least liked content delivery method among current and future modes of discovery.
Does Influencer Marketing Have a Transparency Problem?
Although the average share of budgets spent on influencer marketing is just 10%, that figure is growing as visual platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest see explosive growth.
The problem? Brands are often focusing on misleading vanity metrics in an attempt to justify those investments. For example, many marketers track follower counts as a primary indicator for determining brand and influencer partnerships. Growing evidence shows that follower counts do not equate to true impressions or reach data, giving brands a false sense of how their campaigns are performing.
Commentary
Why Augmented Reality Will Eventually Take Over Local
Soon, graphical overlays to the physical world will amplify everything from retail shopping (store navigation and product info), to finding a restaurant (ratings & reviews) to buying a home (values & specs). Utility will lead; marketing departments and jargon police can follow.
How Online Lenders Can Refine Their Targeting of SMBs
The combination of doubling down on the minority of SMBs that are most likely to be receptive to capital and making it easy to engage these SMBs across on/offline channels with personalized, automated campaigns can make all of the difference.
Tech Takes the Battle for SMBs to Your Appointment Book
The unassuming calendar is emerging as a multi-billion-dollar gateway for companies trying to capitalize on the giant business of processing payments for small and medium-sized businesses.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Gawker Media’s Ecommerce Success, Amazon Will Have Its Own Fleet of Shipping Trucks
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Gawker Turned into Groupon (Motherboard)… Amazon Buys Thousands of Truck Trailers as Its Transportation Ambitions Grow (Recode)… Waze’s Growth Chief: Even Driverless Cars Need a Better Route (USA Today)…
Why a Remote Work Policy Is Worth Considering
More than 3.5 million employees work remotely at least half the time, a technology-enabled trend that’s on the rise. Many employers claim that workers are more productive when they work remotely, but some technology companies are not considering remote workers or don’t allow telecommuting at all.
LBMA Podcast: Kantar Shopcom and 4INFO Team Up, Tapad Partners with VisualDNA
On the show: Kantar Shopcom and 4INFO team up; Tapad partners with VisualDNA; JCDecaux Star Wars OOH campaign; Placester raises $27 million; Beretta showcases its new i-Protect bluetooth gun; Brazil’s L&PM Editores prints books that double as subway tickets. Plus, news from Airbnb and MLSE; Royal Caribbean; TCS and Loctronix; and Loblaws.
Openings and New Hires at Sears, Uber, and Yext
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s column, Sears snags the former CMO of Restaurant.com, Uber lands a Google product veteran, and Yext hires a sales executive for small business and partner channels.
Street Fight Daily: Uber’s $62B Valuation, Nextdoor’s New On-Demand ‘Casual Labor Exchange’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Valuation Put at $62.5 Billion After New Investment Round (New York Times)… Nextdoor Is the Lastest Company to Enter On-Demand Services (BuzzFeed)… Why a Remote Work Policy Is Worth Considering (Street Fight)…
5 Geofencing Tools for Customer Acquisition
Marketers increasingly are using geofencing and proximity marketing to send push notifications to existing customers located at specific events or landmarks. However, this technology still isn’t being used to its full potential as a new customer acquisition tool. Here are five examples of platforms that marketers can use to deliver offers to nearby mobile users, with the ultimate goal of promoting new customer acquisition.
On-Demand and Deep Linking Becoming More Deeply Linked
The worlds of on-demand and deep-linking took another step closer when ride-sharing giant Uber announced a new mechanism for app developers to incorporate a button for users to request an Uber driver. Expect to see more of this kind of app integration among on-demand services, giving the market leaders greater scale and distribution.
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo’s Advertising Woes, Starbucks Launches Delivery Service with Postmates
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Struggles as an Afterthought to Advertisers (New York Times)… Starbucks Launches Delivery Service in Partnership with Postmates (TechCrunch)… On-Demand and Deep Linking Becoming More Deeply Linked (Street Fight)…
How Multi-location Brands Can Keep Up with the Push for On-Demand
In the era of UberRUSH, Postmates, DoorDash, and others, every business with an in-house delivery fleet is feeling the pressure to provide the same kind of on-demand delivery experience. The driving force behind the demand for on-demand is time, or the perceived lack thereof. Consumers have shown they will pay a premium to save it.
Mobile-mentum Continues into Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday was one for the record books. U.S. shoppers spent nearly $3 billion through digital channels, making it the single largest online sales day in history, according to Adobe, and continuing a string of firsts this holiday season. Mobile continued to display strong momentum from the holiday weekend in driving website traffic and sales.
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