Shoe Carnival Implements SIM Partners’ Velocity Platform

Local Search Marketing Efforts to Drive In-Store Traffic and Sales
across over 400 Retail Locations

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SIM Partners (www.simpartners.com)
announced today that Shoe Carnival has implemented its local marketing
automation platform, Velocity, to scale local search marketing in an
effort to drive incremental in-store traffic and sales, as well as
improve the overall customer experience.

Shoe Carnival, one of the nation’s leading retailers for women’s, men’s
and children’s shoes, has more than 400 retail stores across the U.S.
Utilizing SIM Partners’ local marketing automation technology, Velocity,
Shoe Carnival is now able to easily cleanse and distribute its store
location data to ensure visibility and accuracy across listings in local
and mobile search results, online directories, maps, and more. Through
Velocity’s location publishing capabilities, Shoe Carnival’s search and
mobile optimized store location pages feature unique content for each
store, as well as a responsive store locator.

To turn “near me” searches into store purchases, Velocity
Wallet offers are being tested in key locations by leveraging a
consumer’s mobile wallet. Once downloaded to a consumer’s mobile device,
mobile wallet offers can be redeemed in-store as well as used for
location-based GPS and beacon notifications. Efforts across the program
will be measured at the individual store, regional, and national levels
with Velocity’s robust reporting and insights capabilities.

“Ensuring the very best experience across the entire buyer journey is a
top priority for Shoe Carnival, and that journey often begins with a
local “near me” search – whether it be via a search engine, a map
search, or another discovery outlet,” said Todd Beurman, SVP of
Marketing, Shoe Carnival. “With Velocity, we will be able to scale our
local marketing efforts to ensure visibility and relevance across the
entire local marketing ecosystem, so that our customers – no matter
where they are – have the best possible shopping experience.”

According to recently released Google data, “words like ‘near me,’
‘closest,’ and ‘nearby’ are increasingly common across the billions of
queries” on the search platform each month. In fact, Google search
interest in “near me” queries has increased 34 times since 2011, and
nearly doubled in the last year.

“With nearly 80 percent of local shopping searches converting via
mobile, now is the time for retailers to take advantage of local and
location-based marketing opportunities,” said Jon Schepke, CEO, SIM
Partners. “With Velocity, Shoe Carnival is making their local store data
actionable and their local store content scalable to drive contextually
relevant customer experiences, based on location at the time of the
search, which in turn will drive in-store traffic and online sales.”

About SIM Partners

SIM Partners’ local marketing automation technology, Velocity, maximizes
digital marketing results for enterprise brands at a local level. By
making location data actionable and local content scalable, Velocity
drives customer acquisition for national brands across thousands of
physical locations. With Velocity, national brands can create
location-based offers to turn “near me” mobile searches into offline
conversions. Velocity includes a powerful local data management tool to
drive listing visibility, a content management system that automates the
creation of location-based content and experiences, and a robust
insights platform to inform local content strategies. SIM Partners has
offices in Chicago and San Francisco. To learn more, or request a demo,
visit www.simpartners.com.

About Shoe Carnival

Shoe Carnival, Inc. is one of the nation’s largest family footwear
retailers, offering a broad assortment of moderately priced dress,
casual and athletic footwear for men, women and children with emphasis
on national and regional name brands. As of December 1, 2014, the
Company operates 404 stores in 33 states and Puerto Rico, and offers
online shopping at www.shoecarnival.com.
Headquartered in Evansville, IN, Shoe Carnival trades on the NASDAQ
Stock Market LLC under the symbol SCVL. Shoe Carnival’s press releases
and annual report are available on the company’s website at www.shoecarnival.com.

Contacts

For SIM Partners
Zachary Allen, 801-461-9751
Zachary@methodcommunications.com