News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Google Debuts ‘Auto Ads,’ Digital Media Titan Vox Cuts Staff En Masse

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Debuts AdSense ‘Auto Ads’ with Machine Learning… Vox Media Cuts About 50, Scales Back Social Video… Snapchat’s E-Commerce Strategy Hit a New High…

Pursuant Health, Vistar Media Look to Change How Brands Connect In-Store

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In a move that could impact the way marketers connect with more than 30 million shoppers inside physical stores around the country, Pursuant Health is partnering with the location-based advertising technology firm Vistar Media to provide better access to its digital advertising inventory.

What 1-800-Flowers’ Search Dominance Means for Local Florists

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With more consumers researching purchases online than ever before, and major e-commerce retailers like 1-800-Flowers and ProFlowers flooding the playing field with paid search ads, there’s a looming question of what will happen to local florists.

Commentary

How Will the “Check-in” Behavior Evolve?

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Just as it began to wane, the attention paid to Foursquare as the darling of the geo-social world has reemerged in the wake of the app’s version 4.0.2 release. Two Foursquare execs were on hand to dive deeper into the update during the recent Street Fight Summit in New York…

How to Market to Local Moms

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As publishers of websites for suburban moms and advocates for the main street merchants trying to woo them, we spend a lot of time thinking about what matters to the maternally minded. Since women are responsible for 85% of household purchases, reaching the “Chief Household Operator” is a key objective for most local merchants. While these tips are squarely directed at local business owners, many apply to hyperlocal news and blogs as well…

Public Radio Gears Up for Hyperlocal News Innovation

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Federal, private and individual donors are all supporting myriad local and hyperlocal reporting experiments based at radio stations. The results of these initiatives have been mixed. Better and more replicable models are needed for cross-platform storytelling, participatory reporting that brings in a broader range of perspectives, and narrative forms that more closely reflect the shifting media consumption and sharing habits of younger users…

Latest Posts

Case Study: Lenovo Uses Local Search Tactics to Drive In-Store Sales

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How does a brand without its own brick-and-mortar stores drive offline sales? That’s the question that Donna Bedford and Rick Medeiros have struggled with as they continue to develop Lenovo’s local search strategy. “We’re starting to think, how do we start becoming more hyperlocal? We’re a global company, so how do we develop that hyperlocal presence and really try to make sure that people clearly know who we are,” Medeiros says…

Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Pins Location, Macy’s Integrates iBeacon

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyPinterest Does Location: Not Just Pin Boards, but Now Pin Maps (AllThingsD)… Macy’s Is The First Retailer To Use Apple’s iBeacon For In-Store Presence (GigaOm)… Groupon Gets Into Coupons, Challenging RetailMeNot (USA Today)…

Finding the Balance Between Relevance and Reach in SMB Content

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It’s simple enough to say that creating great content or a great platform should be enough to bring users to your door; but if they have no idea you exist, getting the word out effectively is both a matter of reaching your intended user base and staying within the confines of an algorithmically defined concept of quality content. For small and medium-sized businesses, the challenge is to be present and available to customers and potential customers in multiple online venues in a way that conserves effort while remaining effective…

How Same-Day Delivery Can Give Brick-And-Mortar Retailers an Edge

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Over the past few months, Deliv, a same-day delivery startup, has inked a partnership with real estate giant General Growth Properties in August and nabbed $6.85 million in funding. Street Fight recently caught up with Daphne Carmeli, Deliv’s CEO, to find out what’s driving the revival in same-day delivery, how startups can compete with the big firms, and why same-day delivery is a big opportunity for brick-and-mortar retailers…

Street Fight Daily: Intuit Launches App Store, Signpost Raises $10 M

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyIntuit Launches An App Store For Business Owners To Find Software (TheNextWeb)… Signpost Raises $10M To Bring Online Marketing Tools To Small Businesses (VentureBeat)… Amazon Expanding Its Own Private Label Offering to Supermarket Goods (AllThingsD)…

Is Variable Product Pricing the Next Horizon in Local Advertising?

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Proximity-related factors enable predictive modeling around transaction probability. That can then be plugged into an equation to determine price sensitivity or elasticity on an individual level. What discount will get your attention? From there, it’s a matter of variable pricing to customers that are new, repeat, faraway, nearby on foot versus driving by at 60 mph, and so on. And that’s the key: though we have time-based variable pricing (a la airlines), proximity-based personalized pricing is the next phase.

6 Strategies for Managing the Expansion of Your Hyperlocal Business

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As the hyperlocal industry continues to flourish, more and more vendors are experiencing growing pains. Oftentimes, expansion means larger offices, more employees, and more headaches from a business management perspective. Here are six strategies for managing an expansion as an early-stage hyperlocal, from executives who’ve made their way through the trenches and lived to tell about it…

Street Fight Daily: PayPal Nabs Uber Deal, Facebook Revises SMB Count

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyPayPal Nabs Uber Partnership in Pursuit of Mobile Marketplaces (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Facebook Expands Its Definition Of Small Business Pages, Says It Now Has 25M Of Them (TechCrunch)… Digital First Media Will Add Paywalls At Most Of Its Daily Newspapers (GigaOm)…

Study: Mobile Revenues Growing Faster Than Expected

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A new study from BIA/Kelsey finds that mobile advertising revenues may be picking up more quickly than previously thought. In the fall 2013 update to its Local Media Forecast, the research firm projects that U.S. mobile advertising revenues will jump from $7.03 billion in 2012 to over $20 billion in 2017. Meanwhile, local’s share of mobiles spending continues to grow, with local targeting set to touch one of every two dollars spent on mobile advertising by 2017.

5 On-Demand Fulfillment Platforms For Holiday Shoppers

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As the days get shorter and the weather gets cold, shoppers are less likely to venture outside to make purchases from brick-and-mortar stores. But that doesn’t mean community businesses have to admit defeat in their battle for market share against online-only retailers. A number of on-demand fulfillment platforms are providing holiday shoppers with tools to make purchases from local retailers without leaving home…