The Case for Location-Based Marketing

Posted by: Today's Tip Contributor on August 25, 2011

Location-based mobile marketing delivers text messages to consumers on their phones when they are near your store and in a mindset to make a purchase. It’s the perfect nexus of place, time, and consumer intent—a holy grail for retailers. So how do you make sense of what services might be right for your business?

1. Claim your business in services such as Facebook Places and Google Places. This ensures that your business is correctly listed and can be found by consumers. Check out their location-based merchant services and gauge the fit for your business.
2. Reach out to the deal services such as Groupon and Living Social and ask specifically for ways to participate in their instant deals.

3. Acquire consumer information when they enter your store so you can reach them beyond the first purchase.

4. Try out a promotion or two and measure the increase in foot traffic, as well as the ROI.

5. Use the features that encourage repeat business—loyalty is what you are after, not one-time deal shoppers. This means rewarding customers for repeat visits and sending them new offers after a visit, rather than just offers to get them in the door the first time.

Since many of these mobile marketing services are new, they are priced at what may seem like a low cost, compared with other marketing platforms; this is because they want to give an incentive to businesses to try them. The highest ROI for businesses will come to those that combine a number of social media and location-based services to reach their audience in the coming months. In other words, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Experiment with different services and find out which work well for you.

Alistair Goodman
Chief Executive Officer
Placecast
San Francisco