News and Analysis
Happy Returns Expands Into College Market
Startup Happy Returns, based in Santa Monica and founded by alums from HauteLook and NordstromRack.com, offers a way for shoppers to return e-commerce purchases at real-world kiosks. Beginning this fall, Happy Returns will be setting up kiosks—which it calls “Return Bars”—at five campuses around the country to capitalize on the returns generated by back-to-college online shopping.
Street Fight Daily: Best Practices in Reputation and Review Management, Ad Tech Consolidation
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Survey: Identifying Best Practices in Reputation and Review Management… As Duopoly Reigns, Ad Tech Industry Consolidates… Happy Returns Expands Into College Market…
Street Fight Daily: How Businesses Can Prepare for Voice-Driven Commerce, Google Pursues OOH in Big Way
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… As Local Search Enters the Voice Era, Three Content Channels Dominate… Google’s Targeted Ads Are Coming to a Billboard Near You… DexYP (and Other Publishers) Transition to Digital, But Limited Revenue Suggests Bleak Long-Term Prospects…
Commentary
Putting Small Businesses on the (New) Google Map
Google Maps is a key resource that businesses can use to get more local searchers to discover them online. But can it also help them get more leads? The simple answer is yes, but it’s a not as easy as simply claiming a listing. It’s only by taking advantage of all that Google Maps has to offer — and then tracking how traffic from your maps listing converts into leads and customers — that you can see just how powerful accurate, optimized maps listings can be…
Recent Studies Show Mobile’s Broadening Reach
The reports underline what we might call the inherently local nature of mobile search. Whether you are in a store contemplating a high-ticket purchase or downtown hoping to discover a new restaurant, the phone in your hand is your portal to timely and actionable information as well as marketing incentives that are increasingly likely to gain your attention…
Reconsidering Location for On-the-Go Consumers
Out-of-home works because it is exactly what its name implies. That’s a powerful advantage. But with great power comes great responsibility. And in order to capitalize on this advantage, we need to re-think our approach. Once we start regarding out-of-home as a behavior (specifically, of consumers on-the-go) instead of just a set of location-specific screens, our success is almost guaranteed…
Latest Posts
Why Apple Maps Is Partnering With Local Search Companies
Last week, after I uncovered that Apple Maps had cut deals with at least ten new companies (including Yext, Location3, Yodle, et cetera) to provide business listings data, I got a few emails asking what the big deal was. Here’s what I see is going on…
For AmEx’s Small Business Saturday, A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats
Between 2007 to 2010, the rate of small business growth in the U.S. dropped by more than 12% annually. Fast forward five years, and the small business sector is showing signs of a comeback…
LBMA Podcast: Groupon Acquires Swarm, Lord & Taylor Deploys Beacons
On the show: LINKNYC replaces payphones with WiFi in NYC; Radio Shack goes back to its roots with Little Bits; LivingSocial lets merchants in on the deal; Snapchat partners with Square; Spotify partners with Uber; Target Partners with PointInside; Shazam partners with Adspace Networks; WholeFoods creates deeper local engagement with in-store kiosks in Atlanta…
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Adds Offers, Uber Eyes $40B Valuation
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Twitter Introduces Offers: Discounts You Claim in Tweets and Redeem in Stores (Recode)… Uber Said Poised to Raise Funds Showing $40 Billion Value (Bloomberg)… Clinkle Is Bribing College Students With a Vending Machine Full of Cash (ValleyWag)…
Study: 6 of 10 Shoppers Engage With Beacon Messaging
A new study shows that 60% of shoppers open and engage with beacon-triggered content, and 30% of shoppers redeem beacon-triggered offers at the point of purchase. Another 73% of shoppers surveyed said that beacon-triggered content and offers increased the likelihood that they would make a purchase during their store visit…
Meet Pager: The App That Calls Local Doctors To Your Living Room
The house call, once a staple of American medicine, is now typically reserved for the small set of wealthy clientele willing to pay out-of-pocket for a home visit. But a startup in New York believes that an evolving healthcare system paired with an increasingly delivery-friendly consumer may create the right environment for on-demand medicine…
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Enters Home Services, eBay Kills Same-Day Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Amazon Promotes Handyman and Installation Services (Recode)… Ebay Now Pulled From App Store As Company Rethinks Its Same-Day Delivery Plans (TechCrunch)… It’s Not Just About Print Vs. Digital Media — It’s About Culture (GigaOm)…
A ‘Radical Transformation’ Is Brewing in SMB Phones
For local businesses that rely on the phone for inbound leads (which is nearly all of them), the functionality of copper lines pales in comparison to what call-tracking-enabled lines have done for years. Unfortunately for business owners, the VoIP packages being sold to them also fall far short of the level of functionality that call tracking provides…
Creating a “Local Service Layer” — To Build or To Buy?
The question of “buy or build” is everywhere in technology, and for something as important as brand integrity, it is paramount to making the right choice. Marketers can use cloud software to empower local affiliates to evangelize the brand in a controlled environment while using data to localize messaging in an automated way…
6 Tools SMBs Without Websites Can Use to Sell Online
Understanding that many SMBs don’t have a business website, a number of hyperlocal vendors have introduced platforms that give merchants a way to participate in e-commerce and sell their wares online. Here are six examples of tools that merchants can try…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem