SIM Partners Makes It Easier to “Ride There with Uber”

Posted on August 25, 2016 by ddeal

Location is a catalyst for the $57.6 billion on-demand economy.

Case in point: today SIM Partners, a location marketing technology platform provider (and one of my clients) announced that the company has made it possible for brick-and-mortar businesses ranging from restaurants to retailers to add a “Ride There with Uber” button to their location pages.

SIM Partners clients that use the company’s Velocity platform to add the Uber button to their pages will provide an easy way for anyone to order an Uber to their location. The button will appear along with the usual content, such as store hours and addresses, which you find on a brand’s location page when you use your smart phone to conduct a search for things to do and places to go nearby. So, for example, a shopper interested in checking out a sale at a shoe store can order an Uber right off the store’s location page, as shown in this image:

Velocity manages location pages for businesses with multiple brick-and-mortar locations. So for a brand with thousands of location pages, the addition of a “Ride There with Uber” button can convert searches to in-store business at scale. As SIM Partners noted in a press release, 76 percent of people who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a business within 24 hours, and 28 percent of those searches result in a purchase. SIM Partners aims to help its clients capture their share of those searches by nudging searchers one step closer to the store.

The announcement comes at a time when the addition of buy buttons on sites such as Pinterest has amplified the role that digital plays in the growth of an on-demand economy in which consumers can get what they want faster than ever before. Indeed, according to an August 2016 Harvard Business Review article, online businesses account for the largest category of on-demand spending. Brick-and-mortar businesses are responding by developing on-demand services that rely on a mix of digital and offline delivery tools. Brands such as Domino’s Pizza, Nordstrom, and Walmart are creating partnerships with business such as Uber, and developing integrations with technologies such as Amazon Echo, which promise shoppers faster delivery of goods and services from brick-and-mortar stores. Others, such as Shoe Carnival have succeeded by providing mobile wallet offers that lure shoppers to stores in order to enjoy time- and place-sensitive deals.

Uber is the engine of the on-demand economy, both online and offline. According to Business Insider (and reported by SIM Partners in its press release), Uber completed 62 million in July, a 15 percent increase over the previous month. As I have noted previously, Uber ushered in the on-demand economy by tapping into unmet consumer needs and offering services that have disrupted industries ranging from retail to healthcare. SIM Partners clients span multiple industries in which brick-and-mortar locations are at the center of the customer experience. It makes perfect sense for SIM Partners to add Uber functionality for its clients’ customers.

Technology becomes pervasive when it permeates multiple industries and when everyday people use it, which is the key to the success of brands such as Apple. Uber enjoys that kind of success. Anyone with a smartphone can order an Uber. Integrations with companies such as Foursquare and SIM Partners make Uber more pervasive for businesses, too — and make it even easier for people to use Uber to get what they want on their own terms. It helps that Uber makes its API available to businesses. Uber simplifies life for both consumers and businesses. Simplicity is the key to the on-demand economy, which is attracting 22 million consumers annually — and investments from some of the world’s most valuable brands. As the services being developed by the bellwether companies such as Walmart take hold, look for brick-and-mortar businesses to grab an even bigger share of the on-demand economy, with location being the battleground.

Every Day Is Black Friday

Posted on February 1, 2016 by ddeal

For years I used to wake up in the dead of night the day after Thanksgiving and interview Black Friday shoppers while they stood in line, enduring cold weather as they waited for stores to reward their patience with door buster sales. Eventually I stopped doing so, mostly because Black Friday has been gradually losing its significance. Oh, Black Friday still matters very much. But the holiday shopping season continues to expand its reach well beyond Black Friday and its love child, Cyber Monday. My new post for SIM Partners, “The 2016 Holiday Shopping Season Starts Now,” reflects this reality. In my post, I discuss how offline retailers especially are facing a stronger threat from online retailers, as businesses such as Amazon develop more on-demand delivery capabilities. My post urges retailers to adopt a one-two approach:

Be present when people use their mobile devices to search for things to do, places to go, and things to buy during the holiday shopping season. Mobile fuels holiday shopping behaviors.

Offer something that online retailers cannot. You cannot visit Santa on Amazon.com.

Between now and the holiday shopping season, retailers should hone their mobile chops and strengthen their offline experiences. One way is to practice through special events, both the ones you create and natural ones caused by milestones such as non-winter holidays. The holiday shopping season starts now.

Image credit: ABC News

Buy Buttons Try to Make Holiday Shopping Convenient

Posted on November 21, 2015 by ddeal

The holiday shopping season has become anything but seasonal. Brands ranging from Amazon to Target are offering Black Friday sales well in advance of Black Friday. And the development of buy buttons on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest has made holiday shopping as convenient as ordering gifts from your sofa: no more running around in the slush and snow taking in ornaments, carolers, and visits to Santa as part of the holiday rush. My new blog post for SIM Partners, “Will Buy Buttons Appeal to Holiday Shoppers?” examines the impact of buy buttons on holiday shopping and discusses how brick-and-mortar retailers might offer alternatives to them. Check out my post and let me know if the convenience of buy buttons is affecting how you shop.

Will Beacons Help Target Improve the Shopping Experience?

Posted on September 2, 2015 by ddeal

Target recently announced the rollout of beacons at 50 stores in Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, New York City, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. Beacons are devices placed in locations that make it possible to share content (such as offers) with a person’s mobile device. Through beacons, Target will offer deals and product recommendations as customers shop at their local Targets. With nearly 1,800 stores in the United States and a strong brand, Target joins a growing list of major retailers putting a greater emphasis on location marketing via beacons. The news is significant because it demonstrates how technology and data together can create more relevant and useful customer experiences at scale.

In its announcement, Target emphasized how beacons can deliver content such as deals on products that might interest shoppers while they are in a store. People who opt in via a Target app will receive offers for products on a “Target Run” app home page as they navigate their local Target stores. As Target explained on its website:

Let’s say you’re browsing women’s apparel. You might get an alert about nearby items that are trending on Pinterest. As you move over to get your groceries, and you may see the “Target Run” page updated with a department-wide offer or a Cartwheel deal for items like Archer Farms Organic milk or Market Pantry cheese.

I believe the success of the rollout depends on how well Target enhances the in-store shopping experience. Cross-selling products can help or hurt the experience depending on how well Target tracks customer activity and pinpoints offers at the right time and place. What really catches my attention is the potential for Target to make shopping easier without selling anything. For instance, customers will be able to dynamically re-sort their shopping lists as they move through a Target. (Target compares the experience to smartphone apps rerouting drivers depending on their routes.) Target also plans it possible for shoppers to use the Target app to ask for customer assistance — which could be a boon especially during the holiday shopping season, if Target staffs its stores adequately.

On the SIM Partners blog, I discuss more fully the implications of Target’s launch of beacons. I invite you to read my post and let me know your reaction.

Welcome to a New Era of Convenience Shopping

Posted on June 29, 2015 by ddeal

Buy buttons are taking convenience shopping to a whole new level. In recent weeks, Instagram and Pinterest announced new buy button features that make it easy for consumers to purchase goods and services directly from their apps. Facebook, which began testing shoppable ads in 2014, announced an expansion of its program. Google confirmed that the search giant is developing a buy button so that shoppers can make purchases directly from Google ads. Why the interest? In a word: mobile.

It’s easy to see why these digital brands are instituting buy buttons. In the United States, online commerce accounts for but 7 percent of all retail sales. According to Forrester Research, by 2017 the Web will generate $370 billion in U.S. sales, or 10 percent of the total. By making it easier to conduct transactions online, the likes of Google, Instagram, and Pinterest hope to stake a claim to the $3.3 trillion in sales that will occur offline.

But why are we seeing a proliferation of buy buttons now? There’s something else going on: since 2013, consumers have preferred using their mobile devices over laptops and desktops to interact with retailers online. The shift to mobile has profound implications:

Mobile consumers have strong purchase intent: Eighty percent of consumers who use smart phones to search for goods and services locally end up making a purchase.

Mobile consumers have an immediate intent to purchase: according to a recently released report by Google, I Want-to-Go Moments: From Search to Store, half of consumers who conduct a local search on their smartphones visit a store within 24 hours. Nearly half of consumers trying to decide on a restaurant do their local search within an hour of actually going.

In I-Want-to-Go Moments: From Search to Store, Google noted that the number of “near me” searches (searches conducted for goods and services nearby) conducted by consumers have grown by 34 times since 2011; and 80 percent of those searches are conducted on mobile devices.

“With a world of information at their fingertips, consumers have heightened expectations for immediacy and relevance,” wrote the report’s author, Matt Lawson. “They want what they want when they want it. They’re confident they can make well-informed choices whenever needs arise. It’s essential that brands be there in these moments that matter — when people are actively looking to learn, discover, and, or buy.”

You can sense the wheels spinning at Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, where consumers and brands share the same space: if consumers are collapsing the journey from awareness to purchase on their mobile devices, why not remove the friction of sending them offline to buy something? Why not use buy buttons seal the deal the moment when initial research and consideration occur on mobile devices?

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How SIM Partners and Vibes Are Changing Local Marketing

Posted on May 13, 2015 by ddeal

Let’s pretend for a moment that you are in Manhattan on a business trip. Just before an important meeting, you spill coffee all over your shirt. You’re too far away from your hotel to grab another one. You pull out your mobile phone and Google “shirts near me.” Lo and behold, a clothing store a few blocks away not only shows up in your search results, but the store displays an offer for 10 percent off your next purchase, with the transaction made easy via your mobile wallet. Do you think you just might be tempted to accept the offer? SIM Partners (a client) and Vibes certainly believe you will. Today the two companies announced a relationship that will combine local search and mobile technology to make it possible for businesses to make offers to consumers based on their proximity to a business. I believe the SIM Partners relationship with Vibes is changing local search by closing the gap between marketing and sales.

SIM Partners provides a software automation platform that big enterprises use to make their digital marketing more effective at the local level. Vibes is a provider of mobile marketing expertise. Both companies have something in common: they want to help businesses figure out how to capitalize on the popularity of local search. According to Google, “near me” searches have increased by 34 times since 2011 and doubled since 2014. And it’s no coincidence that smart phone usage in the United States has soared. The majority of “near me” searches occur on mobile devices. Consumers are using our mobile devices to find what we want, and when we want it, at the local level. The challenge that both SIM Partners and Vibes are tackling: how to turn local searches into revenue.

SIM Partners and Vibes are addressing a compelling issue. Local searches indicate intent to purchase. According to comScore, 80 percent of local searches on mobile phones convert to purchase — a powerful piece of data that makes perfect sense when you think about it. If you Google “pizza” on your mobile phone when you are downtown Chicago, chances are that you are looking for a place to eat pizza rather than researching the history of pizza. Big companies that operate hundreds and thousands of outlets are working with local marketing experts like SIM Partners to make sure that their names appear prominently in your search results and to ensure that it’s easy for you to find and do business with them. As SIM Partners CMO Tari Haro recently noted in a blog post, such brands have an opportunity to go beyond “being found” in search results and instead entice consumers to conduct business with them. She challenges companies to own “the next moment” of search, or the action that occurs after a consumer finds your business.

SIM Partners and Vibes took a big step in making it possible for brands to own the next moment of search. As discussed in the press release, the two companies are integrating mobile wallet campaigns with the SIM Partners Velocity platform to help national brands create online and in-store offers that convert shoppers into buyers based on a customer’s search intent and proximity.

The following graphic demonstrates how the technology works from a consumer’s point of view. In the example, a consumer uses her mobile phone or Apple Watch to conduct a “shoes near me” search in New Orleans. A shoe retailer working with SIM Partners and Vibes not only show its location in the search results, but also:

Displays an offer (“Get instant savings on your next purchase at Shuuz New Orleans”).

Allows you to download a 20-percent-off offer in your mobile wallet after you tap a “save now” button on your screen.

Notifies you when you are within 100 meters of the store (“Welcome to Shuuz”).

Once you are in the store, the merchant may also serve up more offers to cross-sell merchandise such as shoe cream. There is a lot more detail behind the scenes than I’ll explain here, but the press release contains more.

I believe the SIM Partners/Vibes relationship is a game changer for these reasons:

The two companies are helping brands tap into natural human behaviors such as search, mobile phone usage, and shopping. Enterprises provide the offer when it matters most to consumers, creating a more relevant experience.

The relationship is forward thinking, as it relies on iBeacon technology and accommodates the Apple Watch — which plays to the strategies adopted by major brands such as Macy’s (an early adopter of iBeacons) and Target (already embracing the Apple Watch to enrich the shopping experience).

SIM Partners and Vibes are closing the gap between marketing and sales. We’re not talking about creating targeted ads to serve up more relevant content based on your browsing history — rather, SIM Partners and Vibes are empowering companies to create a specific offer at the right place and time to drive foot traffic into a store when your purchase intent is strong.

The announcement also promises a win/win for brands and consumers. Consumers win because they not only find what they want, but they get rewarded. (Tari Haro noted in a blog post today that mobile wallet offers have a 64-percent higher conversion rate over static mobile Web coupons and a 26-percent increase in average order value over static mobile web offers.) And brands create more foot traffic and revenue at the location level. If you are a national enterprise with hundreds or thousands of locations, you win at scale, too.

Local Search: “The Next Digital Battleground for Brands”

Posted on December 15, 2014 by ddeal

If you had to choose the next battleground for digital marketing, what would you nominate? Gamification? Mobile? Content marketing? Well, how about local search? According to a new Forrester Consulting study commissioned by local search automation company SIM Partners (a client of mine), brands with local search strategies are enjoying crucial benefits such as improved leads and brand lift. SIM Partners CEO Jon Schepke says local is “the next digital battleground for brands.” But why? Two words: mobile and context.

First, big brands with multiple locations have made local a priority as mobile adoption increases. According to eMarketer, the global base of mobile phone users was expected to reach 4.55 billion in 2014, and by 2017, nearly 70 percent of the world’s population will own a mobile phone. And mobile phones facilitate commerce: 80 percent of local searches conducted on mobile phones lead to purchase, according to a study conducted by comScore. But local businesses (such as your local pizza parlor) and outlets of national franchises (e.g., Sonic Drive-in; Holiday Inn) aren’t going to get any of that commerce unless users can find them. Hence, search marketing retains the largest share of digital spend according to the Forrester Research US Digital Marketing Forecast, 2014 to 2019 (released in November 2014), with mobile accounting for 66 percent of the growth in interactive spend over the next five years. I don’t think the strength of spending on both areas is a coincidence, and neither does Forrester — the company identifies the mobile savviness of a brand’s customers as a key determinant of how urgent a brand should embrace local.

But something else is going on, too: the rise of contextual marketing. With contextual marketing, brands create more personal experiences based on the context of your behavior, such as where you are located. According to Forrester, contextual marketing is the new marketing remit. Customers, empowered with location- and context-aware devices, expect marketers to customize content accordingly instead of relying on generic messaging that is the same regardless of whether you are in New York or Seattle.

SIM Partners CMO Tari Haro recently noted that according to Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk, contextual marketing will “steal media dollars” to fund “customer-obsessed contextual experiences.” And VanBoskirk suggests that to become better contextual marketers, companies need to adopt a number of strategies, including going local. She recommends that brands have global business stories, but make them local in order to be more context-aware. U.S. Bank, for instance, works with SIM Partners to improve its local presence via social media, mobile, and search.

But the new Forrester Consulting report, Uncovering the Benefits of Local Search Marketing, also notes that many brands have not yet fully embraced local search. Limited resources and lack of expertise are hampering marketers’ efforts with local search. To me, the answer is to develop a strategy that links local to context, especially since Forrester Consulting agrees that brands with local strategies are realizing strong benefits. Local search may very well become a battleground, all right — with strategy separating the winners from the losers.

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