“Local business partners want to increasingly execute in digital, but there is a reluctance or slowness in the brands or enterprises in shifting their dollars from traditional coverage in marketing and media to digital tactics,” said Paul Elliott of BrandMuscle.
Last week’s rebranding of its Events app as Facebook Local could be Facebook’s long-awaited foray into serious competition with the Googles and Yelps of the world for market share in local search. Meanwhile, another Facebook local product, Marketplace, has proved to be a sleeping giant.
Cohen’s message is that the old ways of trying to connect via TV and other media just aren’t as effective as they used to be. What you need now is to make a connection with the potential consumer of your product or service. And the person who now has a relationship with the brand can then help spread the message via word of mouth.
Major changes are coming to SMB marketing as the market shifts away from media towards cloud-based services, artificial intelligence, marketing automation and location marketing. This cluster of tech movements represent real opportunities to help SMBs target and engage customers, and become more efficient.
The automotive space is extremely competitive and with automotive sales down 13.2 percent, the competition could not be fiercer. In order to remain afloat in today’s challenging sales environment, auto marketers need to rethink how they get high-intent buyers to their stores.
At a time when customers are accustomed to looking up insurance quotes on the Web or through an app, Edward Gold, advertising director at State Farm, says his company thrives off of its local interactions. He spoke with Street Fight about the approach the insurer takes with marketing at the local level.
Summer is here, and it feels like a new beginning. The change in season also means a drastic change in consumer behavior — with temperatures on the rise, so is consumer spending. Vivial has released free new eBook to help SMBs enhance their digital presence based on seasonal trends.
With so much opportunity — and competition — how can marketers stand out from the crowd and forge meaningful relationships with sports fans? Here are some best practices that will enable marketers to identify their perfect audiences and build lifelong relationships with fans.
As social media advertising becomes more pervasive, businesses have to do more to get noticed. At Reliable Auto Repair in San Jose, California, Operations Manager Michael Jidkov says the hardest part about reaching customers on Facebook, Google, and Yelp is standing apart from the competition.
When the location marketing experts discuss best practices, they often focus on industries like retail. But the healthcare industry can teach us a lot about location marketing. Partly because healthcare faces constant turmoil, healthcare is a source of constant reinvention.
Strangely, despite the size of the opportunity you don’t find too many SMB companies in most VC portfolios. You see plenty of consumer and enterprise-focused startups, but much fewer on the SMB side. The reason for this is that it’s “hard” for companies serving SMBs to grow at the rate that can deliver “venture” returns.
Comparing some surveys focused at opposite ends of the local small business spectrum — franchise operators and self-employed professionals — it feels like, though the industry is selling these groups the same marketing and commerce technology and services, the two segments are more different than similar.
As the so-called customer journey takes new twists and turns, tech companies and agencies should help local businesses and brands differentiate themselves via user experience. Catering to virtual assistants might seem to be the path towards that goal. But it’s probably too early to make huge bets on these technologies.
We’ve reached a pivot point where local market nuances and differences can create definable opportunity. I am not saying that the age of the big box retail or e-commerce portal are over, but if a brand does a better job at leveraging local marketing it can create a competitive advantage and differentiation point.
“I’m not convinced small businesses without a full-time in-house marketer really care about analytics,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their bi-weekly chat. “They certainly don’t have the time or expertise to dive in each week and change their marketing or customer service behavior based on what a dashboard is telling them.”
As 2016 draws to a close, we’ve once again asked Street Fight staffers and columnists to look into their crystal ball and offer prognostications for what they think will be the biggest story (or stories) in local in 2017.
Even though Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company has customers around the world, its marketing strategy is focused on reaching local markets. Street Fight recently caught up with CMO Natalie Sexton to talk about the company’s approach.
“Last time we identified our essential digital bundle for small businesses,” says David Mihm to Mike Blumenthal. “This week I thought we might tackle how agencies and media companies might go about building and selling that bundle — and why there seem to be so few who are actually doing it.”
Marketers that fail to see local storefronts as a critical channel are missing out on a rich sales opportunity. Brands invest $70 billion in local markets each year, but a significant portion of that spend often goes to waste because they fail to work collaboratively with their local partners.
The company offers a number of perks, including membership stock shares making each employee an equity owner. “That’s the kind of tactical ownership that we’re going for,” says CEO Ari Kaufman. “Make everyone own a piece of the company. This is your company. Give a sh*t about it — it’s yours.”