Street Fight Daily: Uber Launches Food Delivery App, Walmart Develops Own Mobile Payments Service
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Tests Standalone Food Delivery App (TechCrunch)… Walmart to Offer Smartphone Payments in Stores (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook Is Updating Instant Articles to Help Publishers Make More Money (Adweek)…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Will Spin Off Core Businesses, Pinterest Buys Two Search-Centric Startups
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Is Said to End Plan to Spin Off Alibaba Stake (New York Times)… Pinterest Buys Two Startups to Bolster Image Search (Wall Street Journal)… Uber Is Testing a New Service That Sounds Exactly Like a Bus (Business Insider)…
Case Study: NJ Gym Uses Loyalty Program to Increase Sales from Existing Members
When consumers commit to joining a gym and paying a fixed rate each month, they’re indirectly confirming their loyalty to the business. But after years of working with clients at Gold’s Gym of Jersey City, sales manager Mauricio Calmet noticed that a secondary loyalty market exists, one that’s rarely tapped by businesses once they’ve signed customers up for yearlong contracts or memberships.
Case Study: Salon Leverages Free Wi-Fi to Evaluate Digital Promotions
Collecting customer email addresses and generating Facebook “likes” are two tasks that are at the top of virtually every small business marketer’s to-do list. Edges Salon & Spa has a system in place to streamline this process and encourage customer loyalty at the same time. For the past seven months, it has been offering customers free Wi-Fi in exchange for the chance to learn about their behaviors and engage them on mobile.
Case Study: Restaurant Increases Visit Frequency with Mobile Ordering Option
Cold-calling techniques have a notoriously low success rate for hyperlocal vendors trying to onboard new merchants, but it was an unsolicited drop-in that led to The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen’s successful three-year relationship with ChowNow, an online ordering system and marketing platform for restaurants.
Street Fight Daily: Google Gets Mobile Support from Facebook, Apple Maps Adds Foursquare Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Gets Surprise Ally in Mobile-App Search Push: Facebook (Wall Street Journal)… Foursquare Joins Apple Maps Data Sources as Company Builds Out Ecosystem (Search Engine Land)… Uber Is Creating a Ride-Sharing Mesh Network with Its New ‘Destinations’ Feature (The Next Web)…
Street Fight Daily: The Company Rejecting Offers from Amazon and Alibaba, Drizly’s Expansion Plans
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon and Alibaba Have Approached Five-Year-Old Startup Wish, But the CEO Seems to Want More (Business Insider)… Alcohol Delivery Startup Drizly Has Global Expansion Plans for 2016 (Boston Business Journal)… Shopify’s New App Sello Allows Anyone to Create An Online Store from Their Phone (TechCrunch)…
LBMA Podcast: Lowe’s Is Opening a Hardware Store in Space, eeGeo Launches Global 3D Mapping Platform
On the show: Lowe’s is opening a hardware store in space; eeGeo launches global 3D mapping platform; MLB used Snapchat Geofilters for World Series; Taggalo blends beacons with facial recognition; Sochat, which allows you to text anyone nearby, just raised $2 million. Plus, news from Sears; IBM + Weather Channel; Thinknear; and Facebook.
Street Fight Daily: Postmates Acquires Local Discovery Startup Sosh, Facebook’s New SMB Ad Products
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Postmates Is Buying Sosh, a Service for Discovering Local Activities (Fortune)… Facebook’s New Tools Let Merchants Tailor Ads for Nearby Consumers (Adweek)… How Handy’s Founder Oisin Hanrahan Is Scaling His Startup into an On-Demand Powerhouse (The Next Web)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Q3 Success Fueled by Mobile, Jet.com’s Emergency Fundraising
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook’s Transformation into a Mobile Company Is Complete (Gigaom)… Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round (Wall Street Journal)… Hiku’s New Connected Grocery Scanner Lets You Order Groceries from Walmart and Peapod (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s ‘Local Market’ Feature, Google Tries Foursquare Tips for Google Now
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Is Testing a New Feature That Makes It More Like Craigslist (Business Insider)… Google Is Testing Foursquare Tips in Google Now, Even When the App Isn’t Installed (VentureBeat)… Amazon Launches ‘Pay with Amazon’ Buttons for Mobile Apps (Recode)…
Case Study: Westport Restaurant Views Social Marketing as Digital Word-of-Mouth
Local merchants in every vertical are relying more on social media marketing for customer acquisition and retention, but restaurants in particular have become heavy users of social platforms. This year, 50 percent of casual dining and fine dining operators said they planned to devote even more resources to social media marketing. Hyperlocal vendors like Perch are providing business owners with a way to consolidate most social marketing tasks in one centralized app.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Location-Centric Notifications Update, Etsy’s Same-Day Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Updated Notifications, Facebook Pulls People Down the Rabbit Hole (GigaOm)… Etsy ASAP Brings Same-Day Delivery to NYC (The Next Web)… Square Reports Another Loss as IPO Roadshow Approaches (Wall Street Journal)…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Signs a Search Deal with Google, MapQuest Launches Brand Refresh
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Has Signed a Deal with Google to Provide Search Ads (Business Insider)… MapQuest Wants You to Love It Again (The Next Web)… Google Discloses More Search Data to Woo Retailers (Wall Street Journal)…
Can Facebook Win Local?
Facebook is known universally for its social networking features, but the company has quietly but consistently been rolling out a set of tools to make it the go-to platform for SMBs. From social buy buttons, call functionality, and Pages to messaging and free beacons, Facebook is staking its claim to online, offline, and online-to-offline marketing and commerce for SMBs.
Street Fight Daily: Target Partners with Techstars, Yahoo Exec Leaves for Square
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Target Teams Up with Techstars to Create a Retail-Focused Startup Accelerator (TechCrunch)… Top Yahoo Exec Jackie Reses Heads to Square as Senior Exec (Recode)… Publishers Straddle the Apple-Google, App-Web Divide (New York Times)…
INFOGRAPHIC: The Complex SMB Marketing Ecosystem 2.0
As the head of digital strategy for a broadcaster operating local TV stations, Lorren Elkins has been challenged to clearly understand the digital marketing space from an SMB perspective. In response, he developed an interactive chart, now in its second iteration, to both enhance his own understanding and assist SMBs in identifying potential suppliers.
SMBs and Self-Service: Are We There Yet?
The question of whether or when SMBs are going to self-provision online marketing has been a topic of intense debate for at least a decade. Signs now point to the emergence of solutions simple enough to make self-service viable within three to five years. Ultimately, rather than a do-it-yourself vs. do-it-for-me dichotomy, we’re likely to see an increasingly stratified local market that looks a lot like a three-cabin airplane seating chart.