Take a look at how Google may help us experience everything around us – including our personal connections, in the (near) future. This takes location based services to a whole new level of interaction and really shows how we can connect and discover what’s around us. Wild.
Category Archives: Location Based Marketing
Sawbuck – Changing How People Browse Real Estate
H/T to Robert Scoble for sharing this wild app from Sawbuck. Simply take a picture of a home and you’ll get instant access to everything you need to know about the house. Watch Guy Wolcott, CEO of Sawbuck, demonstrate the app in this video. This is one of the more interesting and effective location based marketing tools I’ve seen for the real estate market. Agents and consumers can both benefit from this application. The app is available on Sawbuck
My curiosity peaked once I thought about the potential for the Sawbuck platform and algorithm(s) within the automotive industry. Imagine tapping into CARFAX & AutoCheck for vehicle history reports. A shopper could shoot a picture of a car for sale and access the history report. Now that’s disruptive.
Who’s Using Location Based Services?
Location based services continues it’s momentum as it finds a home within digital marketing strategies. Marketers continue to see the value of consumer usage by identifying specific intent. As consumer usage increases, so does the opportunity to market to them effectively. Click image to enlarge.
Location Based Marketing Is Helping Drive Repeat Customers
Image by Markles55 via Flickr
Location Based Marketing Is Helping Drive Repeat Customers
Repeat customers. Everyone wants them yet few want to take the steps necessary to get them. The location based marketing continues to pick up momentum, and it’s primarily due to the 10 million+ users within Foursquare who are driving the influence. (Young, active males who influence their peers)
It starts with earning a few badges, then you get hooked on the points, add a few more badges – then it hits you: You realize that people are leaving helpful tips, to-do’s and recommendations. Then, you become Mayor of a location where you can actually get a discount or a reward. Even worse, you lose your Mayorship. Now you MUST get it back.
You just became a repeat customer. And that business loves you.
Check out how other businesses are using location based marketing to drive repeat customers in this NY Times article.
How are you using it? (Stay tuned for more details about how this entire movement will shift from active to passive and even incorporate mobile pay wallets!)
What’s On Your Foursquare Radar?
Location’s transition to passive activities is starting much sooner than many expected.
The newest updates now allow you to enable Foursuare’s Radar functionality. Items that you’ve deemed interesting, places you visited or even places that are heating up with activity can now alert you. Keep in mind, these are items that are of interest to you – you determine the notification received.
Foursquaropoly Finds More Fun
Foursquaropoly
The addictive game element of Foursquare could become even more addictive. Check out Foursquaropoly. You guessed it: Foursquare + Monopoly. This is the kind of gamification and branding that may provide location based marketing a major lift in awareness.
Your check-in activity allows you to “buy” properties and collect rent form others who check-in once you’re the owner. Everyone gets $100,000 to start…looks fun. Here’s hoping for a quick launch as the app is still in development.
Yelp Daily Deals Gets Dumped
Image via CrunchBase
Yelp is the second major platform this week (after Facebook) to announce a change of direction with regards to their stance on daily deals. Only one year old and Yelp plans on scaling back their deals staff by 50%. The trend seems so be in place with daily deals revenue dropping 7% since June and 38 daily deals sites have shut down in July. While another 36 opened during the same period. Ouch.
Smaller unknowns will unfortunately follow in their path. I can’t even count the number of daily deals and offers here in Rochester. None of them are memorable enough and they offer nothing of value beyond the only two deals sites I can think of: Groupon & LivingSocial.
The general public is just as confused when it comes to the choices available. Businesses are just as frustrated with the amount of sales call they get every day, each deals company selling the same exact thing.
Where’s the opportunity for business owners? Simply stick to the platform that continues to reel in new users: Foursquare. Their recent partnership with Groupon makes the most sense. I’m beginning to see more Groupon offers via Foursquare and I’d prefer to see them there rather than my inbox.
Foursquare users who clicked on a to-do’s at a specific venue will receive a push notification alerting them of the Groupon special, based on their current location. Hype-free delivery of a special tied to an activity you’ve already indicated you’re interested in doing. Location based marketing at it’s finest. For now.
Thoughts on daily deals? Love’em or leave’em?
Facebook Places Can’t Find It’s Place
The location based marketing services landscape just shifted. Heavily.
Facebook Places, their answer to the check-in game, is shutting down. Not a major shocker. Sure, there was activity, relegated mostly to larger metropolitan areas. I used it two times – once at a restaurant to show my friends how it worked and once at a concert with my wife. No rewards, no tips, no to-do’s. Not even a goofy badge to show off.
Businesses failed to promote the check-in activity, presumably from a lack of support or a defined benefit. I tried to find the opportunity to leverage Facebook Places for Auction Direct, but it didn’t make sense. A lack of purpose, rewards and trust made it difficult for anyone to make checking-in within Facebook a consistent activity. Most users probably won’t even notice the service isn’t even available once shut down.
Killing off Facebook’s Places leaves me thinking about three items:
- Great opportunity for Foursquare to pick up additional activity from Places users
- New opportunities for niche check-in platforms such as GetGlue
- Niche location and photo-sharing applications will have had a longer life than Places, such a CarZar. And possibly even more users, such as Foodspotting.
Will you miss Facebook Places?
Update: Ok, so location as a feature hasn’t been shut off 100%. It just won’t function as it did before – completely pointless. The mobile app hasn’t been updated yet, but the web version has. Still pointless to me, yet shows Facebook is looking to change how location based services fit into their platform. Not quite sure what that change will look like seeing that Facebook Deals has been axed as well. Stay tuned.
Can The POTUS Be The Mayor? (Or should he?)
President Obama joined the ranks of location based marketing users by signing up for Foursquare. There goes my shot at becoming Mayor of the Oval Office. Some will ask why would the President join? I’m sure he isn’t looking to jump to the top of the leader board, unlock a ton of badges or earn a free oil change at a car dealership for his newbie check-in.
My guess is that it’s simply another way for him to connect – think Presidential branding. The check-ins won’t be much of a surprise, they’ll just come from places he’s at publicly. I’d love to see a bunch of check-ins within the White House just for the sake of being the Mayor. The tips and to-do’s should also prove to be interesting content.
We probably also won’t see the same activity as most of our friends on Foursquare. Highly unlikely President Obama will unlock the Overshare, Crunked, Hangover or Douchebag badges.
Good idea or not?
Checking In! FourSquare and Foot-Traffic
Attract new customers, create loyalty and track foot traffic
Foursquare and other Location-Based Services are increasingly helping dealerships attract new customers, create loyalty, and track ever-elusive showroom foot traffic. Fun and free, these tools are growing rapidly in popularity among individuals and businesses: Overall awareness of location-based services has reached 56% of US-based cell phone users, and 39% of them currently use at least one location-based application (eMarketer study Feb. 2011).
What’s Foursquare All About?
Individuals use apps such as Foursquare to find friends, check out tips from other users and receive rewards from the different places they visit. Rewards range from vendor deals and discounts to unlocking badges, becoming the “Mayor” of a venue and earning points:
- Badges: Users unlock badges for checking into specific locations or doing specific
activities. Is this virtual “reward” corny? Yes. Is it effective? Very. Foursquare users cherish their accomplishments and flaunt them proudly. - Mayorships: The person who checks-in to a location the most over a 60-day period becomes its “mayor”.
- Points: Every check-in earns you more points–another game element which helps foster the competitive nature of the application.
How to Get Your Dealership On Foursquare
Foursquare currently has ten million registered users checking-in to venues at a rate of one per second, activity that presents several unique opportunities for dealerships to connect with, engage and retain customers. Four simple steps make this possible:
- Register. If not signed up already, do so here: http://Join.4sq.com/emiltsch
- Claim your venue: Once logged in to Foursquare, search for your dealership by name and select “claim your venue.” Add your dealer’s name, keywords, address, URL, categories and tags. Be sure to add a complete description. TIP: Individuals have profiles; businesses have venues. Don’t make an individual profile for your dealership.
- Create your specials: Make a special for your venue. These can be Mayor specials, for a visitor’s 1st check-in or after multiple check-ins–a free oil change on your 1st check-in, for example.
- Monitor your venue: Foursquare provides a nice set of free analytics tools to track your visitor’s check-ins: day and time, demographics, frequency, etc.
You can even measure Social Reach by the percentage of users sharing check-in activity on Facebook and Twitter. TIP: Hang window clings & print fliers of your specials to share with employees and your visitors to help spread the word. Foursquare provides these resources on their website.
Capturing the Benefits
When Foursquare users check-in to venues, notifications of nearby specials are displayed within the app. Individuals can also add tips and to-do’s left by other users to their profiles, which means activity involving your dealership can extend to an online audience far beyond your core users. These benefits will only continue to expand as smartphone adoption continues to grow and more consumers will experiment with geo-location applications.
So, where are your customers checking-in?
Original post appeared on the Dealer.com Newsletter
