News and Analysis
Street Culture: SproutLoud’s Reinvention Requires Collaboration
Channel marketing automation company SproutLoud had a circular problem: the turnover was bad, which was bad for employee morale, which was causing more turnover. The company’s internal culture was deteriorating—a point at which many startups have struggled to reset their environments, and a point at which SproutLoud’s leadership team took responsibility.
Street Fight Daily: What to Know About Amazon’s Fast-Growing Ad Biz, Are Publishers Now Like Tech Vendors?
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… 5 Things to Know About Amazon’s Fast-Growing Ad Biz… Are Publishers Becoming More Like Tech Vendors?… Street Culture: SproutLoud’s Reinvention Requires Collaboration…
Street Fight Daily: Square Opens Its Platform to Developers, Google Pursues the Gamification Route
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Square Announces SDK, Opening Its Platform Directly to Developers for First Time… Google Hooks Up With Unity to Entice Advertisers with Game Supply… After Downgrading Publishers, Facebook Explores New Ways to Boost Them…
Commentary
Is Guest Blogging Dead? Focus on These Link Building Strategies Instead
While guest blogging used to be a respected link building practice – and still might be okay in some instances – it is now often considered a violation of Google’s quality guidelines. And in the future, Google could penalize websites that accept guest posts if Google believes the business is attempting to gain links without truly earning them. Instead of placing all of your eggs in the guest blogging basket, it is best to focus on authentic link building. Here’s how…
Let’s Simplify and Strengthen Business Listing Verification
Verification is a great idea in theory and, once you navigate the tangled process, it even works well for most business owners in practice. However, there is very little consistency across publishers as to how the process should work or what the result should be, and there is plenty of evidence that the supposed lockdown of business data via owner verification doesn’t always operate as it should…
5 Sales Practices Every Company Should Know
The following sales best practices, inspired by Aaron Ross’ Predictable Revenue, can help companies close more sales in less time. Ross’s framework helped Salesforce.com, one of the most successful startups in history, increase recurring revenues by $100 million…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Google Redesigns Maps, Walmart Searches Inside
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…… Google Maps gets better integration with Uber and OpenTable (Mashable)… Walmart Brings Product Search To The In-Store Experience (Search Engine Land)… Amazon Tries Out Taxi Deliveries In California Cities (CNBC)…
In Building Local Marketplaces, a Choice of Chicken or Egg
The success of Uber and Airbnb have spawned a deluge of startups that have replicated the on-demand marketplace model across a range of verticals. But developing marketplaces locally requires a deft approach to scale that balances a network’s need for liquidity with a startup’s desire for growth…
Investors Bet on Rethinking Old Categories — Not Creating New Ones
During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York Tuesday, Tige Savage, managing partner at Revolution Ventures, and Dave Ambrose, managing director at Steadfast Venture Capital joined Guardian’s east coast tech editor Dominic Rushe to discuss the growing opportunities — and future challenges — in rethinking traditionally local businesses…
Is Your MVP a Minimum Viable Channel?
“Just because you have product/market fit, don’t raise money until you have validated your channel,” said Closely CEO Perry Evans. “We might have been able to be a successful business — but we shouldn’t have been a business that took venture capital. We couldn’t produce the return the VCs needed.”
Five Hyperlocal Startups to Watch
At the Street Fight Summit on Tuesday afternoon, startup investor and mentor Laurel Touby quizzed five founders about their plans for world domination and developing a viable business model to support it. Here’s what we learned…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon’s Wine Label, Porch Keeps Growing
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…… Groupon Uncorks Its Own Wine Label (Chicago Business Journal)… Can Porch.com Become LinkedIn For Your House? (Fortune)… For Location-Tracking Startup, a Data-Privacy Odyssey (Wall Street Journal)…
The Rise of Marketing Automation in Local’s Next Act
Marketing automation isn’t just for the biggest companies in the world anymore. Thanks to companies like Booker, Signpost, Shopkeep, and others, small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) have access to the data and the tools to reach their customers in smart, efficient ways while minimizing the hassle on the backend…
Why Mobile Marketing Isn’t a Fit for Every SMB
Small businesses are being bombarded by marketing programs that promise to deliver calls, customers, and sales right from a prospect’s cell phone. But the facts on the ground indicate that mobile marketing is, at best, a mixed bag so far for most small businesses…
Street Fight Daily: Starwood’s Keyless Entry, Square’s Brand Strategy
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Starwood’s Keyless Entry Takes Self-Service To A New Level (GigaOm)… Square Looks to Expand its Reach Through Deals With Major Brands (The Street)… PlaceIQ Preps For Next Step, Hires Experian’s Nadya Kohl (AdExchanger)…
For Apple Pay to Thrive, Small Businesses Must Adopt
For a mobile wallet to really impact consumer behavior, its acceptance has to be ubiquitous — not just in the Targets and Macy’s of this world, but in our local bodegas, mom-and-pop shops, independent coffee shops and food trucks. You might think these businesses are a less important slice of the pie than the big-box retailers, but you’d be wrong…
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature