Startups Spotlight: Social media intel, survey creation and more

Technologies on the Rise: Social media intel, survey creation and more

 

From hyperlocal social media intelligence to mobile survey creation, this month’s crop of startups is filling niche spaces that can have a big impact on a retailer’s business. Learn about an augmented reality platform that’s elevating the online experience, a social referral startup that makes it easy to spread rewarding word-of-mouth recommendations and an analytics company that helps retailers and CPG companies get the most out of their online and transaction-level customer data.

SurveyMe
You want to know what your customers and employees think about your business but you don’t want the hassle of building complicated surveys from scratch. SurveyMe strives to take the tedium out of soliciting feedback from your target audiences by streamlining the survey creation process and rewarding those who take the time to respond. Rising numbers of consumers are now filling out surveys on their mobile devices and SurveyMe’s simple, intuitive interface capitalizes on this trend, with surveys that are easy to create and use across an array of devices.

What’s more, enabling survey taking on devices such as smartphones often means being able to capture fresh feedback right at the point of experience. Instead of having to jog their memories about what they like or disliked, consumers can seize the moment to report on the good, the bad, and the ugly of their experience, giving retailers valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not.

Geofeedia
Geofeedia provides location-based marketing and advertising services, relying on social media intelligence to discover what people in the areas that matter to you are talking about. Going beyond keywords and hashtags, Geofeedia helps its clients understand the conversation happening in stores and at events, discover who their brand champions and advocates are, identify user-generated content and ferret out any problems with service as they’re happening.

The Mall of America, Bloomington, Minn., signed up with Geofeedia in 2013, using the startup’s services to place a virtual perimeter around the entire 5-million-square-foot complex or even specific parts of the facility to see what mall visitor are talking about on social media and take action if necessary. The mega-mall uses this aggregated data to provide highly tailored recommendations to shoppers, monitor security issues and develop “surprise and delight campaigns” that help to extend shoppers’ visits.

Every retailer wants to get close to the customer and Geoofeedia’s solutions provide a way to sniff out the conversations that are happening in the places you care about, such as your store or your event, and not just global hashtagged chatter. With granular social media intelligence, retailers can nip problems in the bud before they blow up into bigger headaches.

Everfave
We all know that the most trusted referrals come from our social circles and indeed, 85 percent of Millennials value the opinion of their peers when seeking recommendations. Everfave taps into this sentiment with its socially-driven referral and rewards mobile platform. Loved that new candle shop around the corner? With Everfave you cannot just spread the word about your discovery but entice your friends with an attractive offer.
The platform enables users to refer your business via text, email, Twitter or more than 26 other social networks and incentivize them with a discount off their first visit (say, $5 off, plus $5 for you). The give-something-to-get-something approach is powerful; because the financial incentive works both ways, the happy customer is invested in telling their network about your shop.

Everfave improves loyalty and drives both traffic and repeat traffic. According to Everfave numbers, 80 percent of mobile and social referrals end up converting into buyers — that’s a figure that’s hard to ignore.

With retailers looking to get the most out of every marketing dollar, Everface provides a compelling reason to invest in socially driven referrals that promise a high return on investment, especially as Millennials and Generation Z flex their spending power in influence in the coming years.

SwiftIQ
This startup, a Gartner “Cool Vendor” for 2016, plays in the analytics and personalization space, enabling brands and retailers to better understand the inner workings of their businesses and get answers to key questions such as: Which of my stores are best suited for a new product launch? Which categories and products are the best bet for driving incremental sales? Was my promotion campaign effective? Did it lift store sales? Am I missing out on sales because my products aren’t priced right?

SwiftIQ taps into the wealth of data being generated every second to give companies concrete information on their business performance, enabling them to take informed, data driven next steps.

Bringsy
Last-mile logistics companies: it seems like there’s a new one sprouting up every day. Like other players in this increasingly crowded space, Bringsy connects a network of professional courier companies with restaurants, retailers and any other company in need of last-mile delivery services. This startup enables small businesses to deliver to customers and B2B partners without hiring their own team of delivery drivers or cyclists. Bringsy’s developer-friendly API integrates into e-commerce ordering platforms so that businesses can be up and running and taking orders quickly.

Bringsy also helps restaurants and retailers attract new customers and orders, as the idea of ordering online may entice a prospective customer who previously was on the fence. Businesses using the service get access to analytics and other intelligence to see exactly what’s going on with sales, revenue, and other KPIs.

Last-mile startups like Bringsy tap into the popularity of the on-demand economy that’s shows no sign of slowing down. By removing the complexity of building their own delivery services or partnering with the bigger and more expensive logistics firms, Bringsy frees up restaurants and retailers to focus on their core competencies while offering customers the speed and convenience they crave.