News and Analysis
PureCars CEO Talks Power of Location Data—And How Some Brands Can Build Beyond It
Street Fight talked with Sam Mylrea, CEO of PureCars, a marketing automation and business intelligence suite for auto dealers, to discuss how his company uses location data to help dealerships capture the attention of nearby customers.
Street Fight Daily: Mobile to Overtake TV by 2021, Influencer Marketing Needs a Clean-Up
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Zenith: Mobile Advertising to Overtake TV by 2021… Unilever Demands Influencer Marketing Business Clean Up Its Act… Google, Rebuilding Its Presence in China, Invests in Retailer JD.com…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Static Local ‘Potential,’ SMBs Assess Options to Replace Websites
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook’s Perennial ‘Potential’ in Local… Gauging the Opportunity to Replace Local Merchants’ Websites… Global Ad Spend Is Set for Monster Growth in 2018…
Commentary
How Marketers Can Help Merchants and Consumers Win With Local Search
For the sake of local businesses and local searchers, marketers need to come to the rescue. vSplash estimates that there is a $3.2 billion opportunity for local marketers to help clean up local search and help local businesses with their digital marketing efforts. And in that number there is some low-hanging fruit — especially for marketers that already have a foothold in local markets…
‘Enhanced’ Local Listings Could Be Even More Important on Mobile
Enhanced listing services appeal to many SMBs and local brands because they are a holistic advertising medium that goes beyond the basic banner or text ad — not only do they stand out against free listings and hold the user’s attention, but they also drive conversion and social interaction at higher rates. But most sites currently lack unique enhanced listing features specific to mobile…
Why Local Media Companies Must Practice ‘Self-Cannibalism’
Instead of protecting our products, we should look instead to protecting our customers, their experiences, and our relationships with them. Never begin a discussion about the future with a focus on our products or services. What does the customer want and need, even if our existing products are not a part of the answer? The world is changing and it begins with empowered consumers…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Tech Helps Small Business, Inside Uber’s War Machine
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Startups’ Modern Tools Help Small Merchants Compete (New York Times)… Inside Uber’s Political War Machine (DailyBeast)… Airbnb CEO: Cities Are Becoming Villages (Atlantic)…
LBMA Podcast: Glympse, Blippar, and Esri
Top stories of the week feature McDonalds Canada, Pinterest, Food Network, Lowe’s, Naziha Mestaoui, Match.com, Amazon, Oman, Kraft, and Wal-Mart.
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Charges Fees, Intuit’s M&A Machine
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Foursquare Will Start Charging the Heaviest Users of its Places Database (TheNextWeb)… With Its M&A Train Rolling, Intuit Looks to Prove the Big Company Can be a Good Home for Small Firms (Pando)… Apps Now Account for Half of All Digital Media Time (MarketingLand)…
Despite Many New Local News Sites, ‘Media Deserts’ Are a Stubborn Reality
More than 120 newspapers have shut down in the U.S. since 2008. Surviving papers have been forced to cut their local news budgets in the implosion of old media ad revenue. Hundreds of digital community news sites have been launched in the meantime, but journalist and educator Dr. Michelle Ferrier from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University says that millions of Americans have ended up in a “media desert.”
Is the U.K. Moving Ahead of the U.S. in Location Targeting?
If the American Revolution were fought based on technological powerhouses alone, we’d win in a heartbeat. Yet some advertisers in the U.K. are pulling off the sorts of campaigns that we only dream of here. It’s easy to chalk that up to the comparatively small size of the market, but that’s selling ourselves short. There’s no good reason that we can’t roll out the same location-based ad tech that has proven so successful in the U.K…
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Plans Grubhub Competitor, Google Moves to the Car
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Is Quietly Launching A Local Takeout Service To Rival Seamless And DeliveryHero (TechCrunch)… Google Moves to the Car with Android Auto (Recode)… Uber: The Great Disruptor of Pizza Delivery? (Fortune)…
How Retailers Can Bridge the Gap With Beacons
Using beacons, content can be delivered to a consumers’ mobile device that augments the shopping experience and bolsters the relevancy of the merchant’s real-time communications based on the consumer’s location and real-time behavior. As a result, the messaging can be perceived by the consumer less as “marketing” and more as “helpful.”
8 Strategies for Reaching Out to Online Influencers
Rather than sitting idly by while influencers dictate what’s being said about their businesses on social media and review websites, merchants are beginning to reach out to these social media users on a personal basis. Here are eight strategies that marketers should consider when reaching out to influencers online…
Street Fight Daily: ZocDoc Raising $152M, FAA Bans Delivery Drones
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… ZocDoc Raising $152 million at $1.6 Billion Valuation (Fortune)… FAA Bans The Use Of Drones To Deliver Packages (TechCrunch)… RelayRides’ Altered Future Points To A Ride Sharing World Dominated By Lyft And Uber, Not Zipcar (Forbes)…
Shopkeep Founder: Micros/Oracle Deal Won’t Help SMBs
With its acquisition of Micros, Oracle is affirming its commitment to making, selling, and continually repairing outdated technology that has far outlived its usefulness. This approach, while wasteful, works for big companies with million-dollar IT budgets — but small businesses neither want nor need technology that sits in a room and takes up space…
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