Originally posted on my work blog at WCGWorld.com on April 7, 2011
If you aren’t familiar with location based services, some of the top providers are foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places, Whrrl and SCVNGR. These services help companies engage with their customers and create loyalty 2.0 programs by exchanging value (offers, coupons, badges, mayorships) for tips, check-ins and spreading the word. In this particular post, I’m going to share 10 basic tips that any company can use to help build a successful location based marketing program:
- Be sure to claim your location across each of the top 5-6 location based providers, even if you don’t plan on regularly monitoring/engaging in all of them.
- Pick 1-2 services to use (hint: if you’re in the travel and entertainment industry, Gowalla is a great choice). One way to decide which service(s) are right for you is to see how active your customers are across each service.
- Find out who your influencers are (the mayor, ambassador or the person at the top of your leader board is usually a good place to start) and get to know them. Heck, invite them in for coffee, lunch, a wine tasting.
- Set some goals. Are looking to drive foot traffic? Loyalty? Sales? Engagement? Think about how to measure this.
- Pick a great offer. Note that “great” doesn’t equal “expensive.” Sometimes, a sign in your store/venue honoring the “mayor” might be enough. My co-author, Mike Schneider, and I have what we call the “Ben & Jerry’s Rule” named after one of the first successful campaigns ever to roll out on foursquare. They offered 3 scoops of ice cream for $3 for everyone that checked in (cost for 3 scoops is normally $5.50). And even better, the mayor got a free extra scoop.
- Measure, refine and optimize.
- Don’t be afraid to leverage the “game dynamics” of some of these platforms as appropriate. For instance, on SCVNGR, you might give extra points for a picture with the store manager. Or if you sell coffee, a bonus for the best drink recommendation.
- Remember to let people know about your program by putting up signs, telling them in your newsletter, including a mention on your “on hold” music, etc.
- Operationalize, operationalize, operationalize. This means that if you are going to run a location based marketing campaign, train your employees. Train yourself. And make sure you have whatever it is that you’re promising. Not operationalizing is where many companies fall down.
- If you are tech savvy (or have some tech savvy developers), try experimenting with some of the APIs these location based platform providers make available for free. You can jazz up your website or your mobile app.
Has your company launched a location based marketing campaign? If so, tell us about it in the comments below.
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