8 Reputation Management Platforms for Merchants
As customer review sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, and TripAdvisor proliferate, reputation management platforms are becoming an increasingly important tool in the local merchant’s arsenal. Nearly a quarter of small businesses now monitor their online reputations, according to BIA/Kelsey. Here are eight platforms that each tackle online reputation management in a slightly different way…
Swipely Adds New SMB Tools, Reports 100% Network Growth in Q1
Swipely, which provides local merchants with tools and data to help them accept payments and better understand their customers, has launched a new marketing tool that allows merchants to track online marketing, in-store revenue, and customer reviews that are tied to specific campaigns. The company also announced that its network of small businesses doubled in size in the past 90 days…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Gets $41M Infusion, Mobile Drives Hyperlocal Demand
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Foursquare Gets $41 Million Investment, Time to Grow (AllThingsD)… Study: Hyperlocal demand driven by mobile devices (Journalism.co.uk)… Our Discussion of Mobile Location Needs to Get Much More Nuanced, Sophisticated (ScreenWerk)…
Street Fight Daily: HopStop Channels Waze, Should Groupon Buy Foursquare?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… HopStop Live Brings Real-Time Crowdsourced Transit Information to the iPhone (Verge)… Check In, Flame Out: How To Save Foursquare (TechCrunch)… Patent filing Suggests Apple is Working on ‘Street View’ mMapping Technology (Apple Insider)…
Case Study: Brooklyn Spa Uses Credit Card Data to Identify Consumer Trends
At D’mai Urban Spa, owner Daniella Stromberg spends roughly $45,000 a year in credit card processing fees. Frustrated by the feeling that she wasn’t getting anything for her money, she turned to Swipely for help. Using the company’s payment marketing platform, Stromberg has been able to identify patterns and gain insight into how outside factors, like the weather, affect consumer behavior…
5 Analytics Platforms SMBs Can Use to Parse Customer Data
A number of platforms are making it easier for local merchants to track consumer behavior on mobile devices, allowing retailers to analyze the influence that check-ins, mobile apps usage, and foot traffic patterns have on their bottom lines. Here are five platforms that give businesses ways to utilize online data for better consumer targeting…
With Passbook, iPhone 5 Answers Mobile’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’
More data on a faster device means new opportunities for data-heavy hyperlocal developers, which should open up some new innovations by developers. And while the omission of near-field communications may dash the hopes of some who looked for Apple to push into payments, it does not diminish the potential impact of iOS6, the operating system announced in June, and its key feature — Passbook…
8 Strategies for Promoting Small Business Loyalty Programs
While big businesses have long managed customer loyalty programs with ease, the same can’t always be said for their small business counterparts. To find out how small business owners should launch their loyalty programs and encourage continued engagement, we spoke to eight experts in the field and asked what merchants need to do to get their programs off the ground…
Case Study: Providence Retailer Uses Swipely to Reward Customer Loyalty
As the co-owner of Kreatelier, a retail shop that sells gifts and textiles in Providence, R.I., Line Daems is always on the lookout for ways to reward her most loyal customers without overwhelming her staff with extra work. In 2011 she discovered that she could use Swipely, a loyalty platform tied to customers’ credit card transactions, to offer cash-back rewards with zero effort on her company’s behalf…
Street Fight Brings Popular Summit to San Francisco!
On June 5, hyperlocal’s brightest minds will converge on the Bently Reserve in downtown San Francisco for Street Fight Summit West, the first West Coast conference produced by Street Fight. Confirmed speakers and attendees include some of the top thinkers in hyperlocal. Early bird tickets are available at a 50% discount for a limited time…
Swipely Launches Direct Marketing Product Tied to Payments
The company’s new back-end solution brings ecommerce tools to offline stores. The “Main Street Marketing Manager,” which has been running in a closed beta for the past year, enables local merchants to build loyalty and marketing programs on top of their existing credit and debit card processing systems…
Efficiently Selling to SMBs: Finding Paths of Less Resistance
We’re entering a more fertile environment for what I’ll call the SMB advertising “Trojan Horse.” Local companies start by targeting SMBs’ CRM systems, payroll, back office management, reputation management and payment processing. From there, local advertising can be unveiled as a “one-stop-shop” upsell…