Making Sense of Location-based Marketing for Your Business Needs

Foursquare, check! Gowalla, check! Facebook Places, Yelp and Scvngr, check (check and check)! It’s exhausting just thinking about all the different platforms that now exist for checking in at various locations, sharing tips and chasing deals – and now imagine this abundance of choices from the perspective of a consumer who is trying to interact with your brand or service.

Jason Dempsey from Moxie Interactive offered some important reminders about successful location-based marketing in his recent “The Introductory Guide to Location-Based Marketing” article for ClickZ.

In addition to agreeing with his “keep it simple” approach, I’d add that it is critical to limit the number of barriers to entry for any sort of deal/contest that requires interaction on one of these platforms. For example, if you have to check in at a store and upload a video of yourself and “like” the store on Facebook in order to be entered to win something, the prize better be worth all that effort. Otherwise, you are probably better off rewarding your tech savvy customers immediately upon check in (mobile = instant gratification) and then also sharing helpful content with them as a secondary perk to keep them coming back for more. For example, I’d love if Anthropologie rewarded me with a discount on a new spring dress after checking in on Foursquare and then gave me a link to a short YouTube video with tips on the different ways to wear the dress all summer long (yes, I am a shopaholic).

Have you tried incorporating location-based platforms into your marketing plan? What worked, what didn’t, and will you try it again? We’d love to hear about your own experiences and/or share links to other articles and blogs about location-based marketing that you find interesting.

~Alexis