Posted by Ed Loessi on May 18, 2011
Aaron Strout, head of location based marketing for WCG put together a great checklist on how to run a good location based marketing program, appropriately titled:
10 Keys to a Good Location Based Marketing Campaign
This list is a primer for the soon to be released book “Location Based Marketing for Dummies“, one we are definitely waiting to get a copy of and recommend that you get as well.
OfferedLocal’s Take: For nearly every small business; local restaurant, retailer or service provider, location based marketing is going to be both new and not so new. New, in the sense that there is now a whole new set of technologies to work with and Not So New, because location based marketing is what they have always done. Local businesses survive based on foot traffic both old customers and new customers have got to come into your place of business in order for you to make your numbers month in and month out.
From Aaron’s list of 10 keys to a good campaign there are two that really standout to us as being vitally important:
“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.”
and
“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.”
As business owners and marketers know getting the right deal or offer in place is of critical importance and just like in the old days of print marketing it will come down to experimenting; how many words, when is an offer delivered and who is it targeted towards. It’s really no different, it’s just the technology that has changed and the biggest change in the technology are all the ways that you can let people know about your offers, which is to Aaron’s second point from above.
From our perspective we also think that there is almost no separation between social and location meaning that your social channels, just like your newsletters or email marketing, are all points of distribution for offers and they are all location based marketing components, simply because as a small business it is about your location(s).
So as an example, take your common offers: buy-one-get-one or loyalty offers and work them into the new technologies like Foursquare (they have sales and loyalty offers as types) and use them as well in your Facebook and Twitter status and even further in your Facebook Places and Google Places. Take every opportunity you can to distribute an offer as each medium will reach different people in different way.
So, take some time to think about the 10 keys, paying special attention to creating offers and distributing them widely and make sure to order “Location Based Marketing for Dummies” and let us and Aaron know what you think, we are pretty sure that you will be happy with the investment.
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