News and Analysis
Cousins Subs Leverages Social, Marketing Tech to Stay Local
Look at the menu board at Cousins Subs, and you’ll immediately notice how important local is to the restaurant’s brand. But the commitment extends beyond the Wisconsin cheddar cheese featured among the Midwest chain’s list of local ingredients—it goes all the way back to how the brand chooses to represent itself on social channels.
Commentary
How Consumer Messaging Is Going From ‘Push’ to ‘Pull’
The biggest battle coming in the world of marketing is a 180-degree shift in the routing of commerce-related messages. Today, we call them “advertisements,” one-directional messages FROM somebody with something to sell TO somebody who may potentially be a buyer. Tomorrow, the messages will come FROM those wishing to buy TO those with something to sell…
The Local Marketer’s Guide to Facebook
What steps should local marketers take to maximize the value of their Facebook presence? First, marketers should claim location pages and optimize their presence for Graph Search. Second devise a complementary content strategy for corporate brand pages. Local marketers should also consider using Facebook ads to supplement organic pages content…
On the Web (Especially in Local), Personal Branding Is Everything
Where media companies see themselves as unique, the Web sees, well, sameness. The pureplay companies have found ways to exploit that, while local companies — especially media — dismiss all that effort as irrelevant. To be a brand in the network is to behave unlike a brand and instead like a person. This is the secret to a strategic move into a world of connected human beings…
Latest Posts
At Tesla, a Peek Into Retail On-Demand
The company has developed a retail and marketing strategy aimed at getting people into one of its three fully electric models regardless of whether they can afford, or even are interested in buying, a luxury car. The model draws on some of the work of the legendary Apple’s Ron Johnsonas well as the emerging phenomenon of on-demand technologies such as Uber….
6 Waitlist Management Tools for Restaurants
Eager to eliminate the organizational challenges and financial liabilities that go along with traditional reservation systems, restaurants are increasingly turning toward digital platforms that allow diners to stay at home, or shop at nearby businesses, until their tables are ready. Here are six platforms that restaurants can use to manage their waitlists…
Street Fight Daily: Delivery Service Raises $44M, Uber Partners With ‘Transformers’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Investors Pour $44 Million Into Instacart as Google Is Forced to Take Notice (Recode)… Paramount Turns to Uber for ‘Transformers’ Promotion Pick Up (Variety)… In New Jersey, With $2 million From Knight, the Local News Lab Launches to Seek Revenue Models (Nieman Journalism Lab)…
Investing in the Future of Shopping
A few months ago, I predicted in Street Fight that “2014 would be the year that hyperlocal goes indoors,” and “the battle will turn to reaching the shopper walking in the mall and right in front of the shelf.” Simon Venture Group is looking to invest $250,000 to $5 million per company in up to 50 companies over the next 5 years to do precisely that…
6 Innovative Ways to Implement Beacons for Marketing
Brick-and-mortar merchants know they need to step it up to compete against e-commerce retailers, and they know that proximity marketing with indoor positioning technology can be an effective mechanism for driving customer acquisition and retention. Here are six examples of innovative ways that businesses are implementing beacon technology right now…
Street Fight Daily: Priceline Buys OpenTable, Pinterest Expands Place Search
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Priceline Agrees to Buy OpenTable for $2.6 Billion (Wall Street Journal)… With 1 Billion+ Travel Pins, Pinterest Gives Place Search An Upgrade (SearchEngineLand)… Location Sharing Startup Glympse Raises $12M As It Looks For More Device Integration (TechCrunch)…
To Wait or Wait Not: The Changing Dynamics of Eating Out
In New York, a growing number of the city’s most popular eateries have decided to eschew reservations, in yet another example of how local technology is affecting the restaurant industry. Now startup NoWait has developed an app to improve the waitlist experience for both restaurants and diners…
LBMA Podcast: Mobile News at Apple’s WWDC, Thinknear’s Location Score
Top stories of the week include Brian Eno’s new acid trip, Hoxton Analytics profiles based on the shoes you wear, Prexter’s location-based app marketplace, AT&T tracks overseas customers, Floow2 Uber-fies farm equipment, Coca-Cola brings college students together, Yext raises $50M, Uber raises $1.2B and Verizon’s Run…
Street Fight Daily: Mobile Soars in Q1, Nokia’s Shopping Spree Continues
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Nearly $12B In Q1 Ad Revs, Mobile Likely Above 20 Percent (MarketingLand)… Nokia’s Here Buys Medio Systems To Push More Personalised Location Services (TechCrunch)… GoDaddy Financial Metrics Flatter Ahead of IPO (Financial Times)…
Attention and Timing Are the New ‘Clicks,’ Chartbeat Says
The analytics firm digs deep into how users behave at their computer, smartphone, and tablet. Then it flows the data points (including visitor frequency, top pages, referrers, and traffic sources) to the client’s dashboard, where editors, in real time, can see how their users are behaving and take steps to increase traffic and engagement…
Street Fight’s Big 3
Street Fight Columns
Street Fight Categories
The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation