News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: A Major Ruling on Online Reviews; Local Publishers Bet on Marketing Services
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Can’t Be Forced to Take Down Allegedly Libelous Reviews… Amazon’s Will Supersize Its Second Grab-and-Go Grocery Store in Seattle… Programmatic Guaranteed: A Chance to Rethink Publisher Growth…
Commentary
Calculating the ROI of Local Search Campaigns
How can we calculate just how much return a given business can expect on the investment of time, money, or both into a local search campaign? For many business owners, it’s that type of dollars and cents calculation that will drive them to decide whether or not to move forward with a campaign. Other metrics are important but ultimately secondary to the bottom line…
Marketing to the ‘Happy’ Majority of SMBs
The local search industry needs to offer more responsive solutions for the average small business owner. The industry can’t simply drive more leads — it has to drive more, better-qualified, and better-paying leads at profit margins that incentivize buy-in from a business consumer that demands all or nothing. Only by catering to the “disconnected and contented majority” can the industry push itself to the highest standard of usability and convenience…
5 Things SMBs Can Do to Optimize for Mobile Search
Recent data from Google found that 94% of smartphone users have searched for local information, 70% have called a business after searching, 66% visited in person, and 90% of these users acted within 24 hours. So what do SMBs need to do to ensure they’ll get calls from potential customers who are searching on mobile?
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Clinkle Finally Launches, Ron Johnson’s New Startup
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Clinkle Finally Launches Its Payments Service (But Not The One Originally Promised) (GigaOm)… Former Apple Exec, J.C. Penney CEO to Launch Delivery Startup (Business Insider)… Macy’s Aims to Become Retail Tech Powerhouse With Latest Moves (Fortune)…
Yellow Pages Publisher Acquires LocalVox
TBC Holdings, the parent company of The Berry Company, announced earlier today the purchase of NYC-based LocalVox Media. LocalVox, which provides a wide range of marketing software platforms designed specifically for local and hyperlocal marketing, sees the deal as an opportunity to become the go-to app for hyperlocal marketers from coast to coast…
Five Lessons Google Learned About Selling to Small Businesses
For Google, the shift to mobile presents an opportunity to learn from mistakes made during the desktop internet boom. James Croom, head of marketing for the project, has spent five years in the company’s small business team. He said Monday that the company’s new Google My Business project builds on some learnings from the company’s Get Your Business Online effort launched in 2009 to drive business across the world to build websites…
Street Fight Daily: Radius Raises $55M, Square’s New Register
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Radius Raises $54.7 Million to Improve Sales Leads Using Big Data (Wall Street Journal)… Square Is Making a Register That Takes Bitcoin and Apple Pay (Wired)… Hotels Use Online Reviews as Blueprint for Renovations (New York Times)…
Ecommerce Companies Finding Success in Brick-and-Mortar
The move into physical retail has become a fashionable choice within New York’s growing ecommerce industry. Now, these firms are finding that industry watchers may have overstated the economic advantages of an online-only sales model particularly as new technologies allow retailers to reduce the footprint needed to generate sufficient revenue.
Report: Online and Digital Ads to Reach 25% of Local Media Revenues in 2015
Total local media revenues are expected to reach $139.3 billion next year, up from $137 billion this year, for a 1.6% growth rate, with digital and online advertising surpassing the one-quarter mark for the first time, according to BIA/Kelsey’s 2015 U.S. Local Media Forecast. “Mobile and social are growing faster than imagined,” said Mark Fratrik, the company’s chief economist…
Street Fight Daily: Samsung Teams With PayPal, Amazon Loses Local Commerce Exec
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Samsung is Teaming With Paypal for Mobile Payments on a Watch (GigaOm)… Amazon Loses Key Payments Product Leader to Microsoft (Recode)… More Than Half of US Consumers Don’t Want to Friend a Brand Online (Wall Street Journal)…
Eaze Sees Local Opportunity in Medical Marijuana On-Demand
Like other on-demand services, Eaze lets users easily order a specific strain and quantity of marijuana, finds the nearest deliveryperson with that specific strain in stock, and then tracks the delivery in real-time to get an accurate ETA. Eaze says it can deliver marijuana in San Francisco in roughly 10 minutes….
LBMA Podcast: Apple’s Big Event, TalkLocal Rebrands
On the show: Into the Storm’s augmented reality street sign; Unicef’s Digital Drum Project; Budweiser brings beer to your Facebook friends; WhatsApp and Skype add location sharing; Twitter brings buying to your stream; iScent thinks we want to smell our emails; T-Mobile becomes the UnCarrier….
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Beyond Search: AI Visibility the New Growth Lever for MULO Brands