Your Customers Are Already Using Foursquare

August 25th, 2011 3 Comments

Location based marketing is such a new concept that it is very difficult for small business owners to figure out whether or not there is any value in using location based marketing with services like Foursquare. Why bother putting all this time into something that won’t get users into your store? How do you know users will adopt the platform?

What if I told you that you probably already have customers using Foursquare right now. These are paying customers who are already visiting your store and using this platform. All you have to do now is find out how to reach these paying customers.

Luckily Foursquare has a built-in feature that lets you search your store and see how many visitors you already have. My clients are always amazed when I just ask them to type their name into this search page and take a look. You have customers who are already waiting for you to start using location based marketing.

https://foursquare.com/search?q=

Pretty crazy right? How many visitors did you already have on there? You will notice two stats, visitors and check-ins, the check-ins represent repeat visits while visitors shows you each unique customer checking in.

Now what if you signed up your business on Foursquare (it’s free to use) and set up a simple check-in message. Check-in 10 times and get a $5 appetizer. Let’s say you have 100 visitors who have already checked in to your store. Using some conservative numbers, let’s say 5 of those customers decide to take advantage of your special. If each of those 5 customers starts visiting your store more frequently to get that bonus appetizer, that’s 50 (yes 50!) new visits from just 5 of your customers who are already using Foursquare and for the cost of 5 appetizers. Would you spend $25 bucks to generate 50 new visitors into your restaurant right now?

Remember, selling to customers who are already using the platform is the path of least resistance. That is the beauty of location based marketing. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you unlock the potential of the platform you can really start to see a measureable impact on your sales.

The ROI on these marketing campaigns absolutely crush traditional marketing strategies. Do you think buying newspaper ads or radio spots will generate 50 new visits to your store, for just $25, targeted at users who are already using Foursquare and already visiting your store? I doubt it. This is the norm for location based marketing. Location based marketing can start increasing your sales in a real way – today.

This simple example doesn’t even scratch the surface of the potential network effects your specials can have. What if some of those customers tell their friends about the check-in special at your store? How many new visits will that create? What if you use other promotional strategies to get more users onto Foursquare and they start taking advantage of the specials as well.

There are many strategies for getting more customers and more users engaged in your location based marketing strategy. What about the specials and deals you offer to your clients? There are dozens of different specials, promotions, coupons, discounts, and more that you can offer customers with your location based marketing campaign. Different strategies and promotions can help build your sales in new and exciting ways.

You can start using all of these marketing tactics right now and for no cost. Create a Foursquare account (free video guide here)and get out there marketing to the customers you have visiting you. If you get nothing else from this blog, I hope that my simple illustration above helps your increase your sales.

Free Location Based Marketing Course

July 18th, 2011 No Comments

What You Will Learn In This Course

3 Ways Location Based Marketing Helps You Get More Customers
What Every Social Media Marketer Needs To Learn About LBM
How To Get 300+ New Customers Per Year
How To Reward Loyal Customers With LBM
Zero Free Location Based Promotion Strategies
How One Restaurant Increased Foot Traffic 33% With Less Than $1000
How To Find Customers Who Are Already Using LBM

I am now offering a free location based marketing email course for my readers. I want to add real value and share all of my knowledge with my valuable readers – that is why I am giving this email course away completely for free.

How One Frozen Yogurt Stand Gets 300+ New Customers Ever Year For Free

May 9th, 2011 3 Comments

Everybody loves frozen yogurt. Unfortunately for those in the frozen yogurt business, that means a hell of a lot of competition. There’s a ton of businesses trying to fill that demand. The New York frozen yogurt business alone is saturated with dozens of brands all vying for a share of the market. Pinkberry, Red Mango, and The Lite Choice just to name a few.

Customer acquisition is increasingly tough for those in the NYC Fro-Yo Mix. So how did one particular brand rise from the rubble and get over 300 new customers a year for free? You’ll have to ask Steve Cohen.

Enter Tasti D-Lite. Veteran frozen yogurt fans in NYC will no doubt be familiar with Tasti D-Lite as they have been on the scene for many years now.

So what did Tasti D-Lite do to get over 300 new customers every year at zero cost? Simple. They set up a Foursquare special.

Tasti D went online and set up a Foursquare account (click here to see my How To Video on setting up a free Foursquare account) and got involved in the Location Based Marketing game.

This was no complicated endeavor. They simply set up a Foursquare Check-in Special offering $1 off for any new customers who Check-In at Tasti D using Foursquare. That’s it. This elementary Foursquare Special gets new customers walking the door every day.

Let me give you the exact quote from a recent Business Insider article interviewing Steve Cohen.

“We get 1 or 2 new customers every day who visit our store because of that little orange “special” box on the foursquare platform. People are walking around, checking-in at different places around us, and notice that we offer a dollar off to anyone who checks-in at our store.”

Location based marketing is so effective because it’s simple and intuitive. It offers customers a simple up front value proposition and it offers a tremendously attractive value proposition for businesses as well.

This is just another success story of the simple, cost effective results that location based marketing delivers.

Want to learn about some of the other ways that location based marketing can help you get customers? Check out this blog post.

How One Restaurant Increased Foot Traffic By 33% In Single Day For Less Than $1000

May 4th, 2011 3 Comments

The number one reason small restaurant chains fail – they do not have enough visitors. It’s just that simple. You can’t make money in the restaurant business without customers coming into your store. Getting paying customers in the door is the single biggest challenge for most restaurants and small businesses.

Lots of money and time has been wasted on failed marketing efforts that left restaurants devoid of customers. Traditional marketing just doesn’t work as well as it used to. The days of TV and Radio ads for your local restaurant, or a billboard over on I-95, are long gone.

These traditional marketing efforts have two major pitfalls that leave you wasting time and most importantly wasting your money.

First, these advertising methods are very expensive. Traditional advertising campaigns in TV, Radio, or Newspaper cost in the low thousands of dollars at a minimum. On top of that, they make you pay 100% up front for these services. You have to bear the entire cost of your local TV advertising campaign (including the production of the Ad itself) before you even find out if the Ad has a remote chance of bringing customers in the door.

Second, these advertising methods don’t give you any data. You cannot know how effective your Ad in the local newspaper was. Maybe it worked. Maybe it brought in dozens of new customers. Or maybe it was a total flop and you wasted $2800 on a dud. You can’t have a profitable marketing strategy (let alone a profitable business) if you have no clue what your return on investment is.

Okay okay, you’ve read this far in the post and you’re probably thinking – prove this claim that I can increase my foot traffic 33% in one day for less than $1000.

Here’s the thing – McDonald’s has already done it. McDonald’s ran a marketing campaign that lead to a 33% one day increase in their foot traffic all for under $1000.

So what is their secret? How did they do it?

They used Location Based Marketing. I know you read me on this blog all the time pounding the table about what a huge opportunity location based marketing is – but I can’t make this stuff up. There is a link to the news story at the bottom of my post.

The reality is, location based marketing connects social media to a person physically walking in to your restaurant. And not only does it give you all the data at your fingertips, but it also lets you get people into your store for pennies on the dollar. Remember, Foursquare and other location based services are totally free to use as a small business.

The only cost to you are the possible discounts or free promotional items you give away as a result of your location based promotion. But here’s another added benefit – unlike your TV ad where you put all the money in up front and pray that it works, with location based marketing you only give away your promotional items to paying customers who are already in the store. This means you don’t needlessly waste your marketing dollars. Instead your are only spending highly targeted funds on interested customers who are already physically inside your restaurant.

National brands like McDonalds and Starbucks have already started using location based marketing and they are reaping the results. Isn’t it funny that some people still question whether or not you can use Foursquare for business?

The fact is, people already are using Foursquare and other location based platforms to stir up interest and get people into their stores. (Learn how to set up your Foursquare for business account right here)

Location based services not only work – as real tangible marketing strategies – but they also solve both major issues with traditional advertising methods. Not only can you get your campaign off the ground for free, but you can use social media and other low cost methods to promote it.

On top of that, Foursquare and other services provide you with a suite of analytics to optimize, track, and measure your campaign. Instead of sitting at your desk wondering how effective that last TV ad was, you can stare at a hard figure -exactly how many guests have checked in, when they checked in, and how many times they have checked-in before. This is a data goldmine.

Start getting paying customers into your store right away. Here’s my video tutorial on how to set up your Foursquare campaign from scratch. Go get started right now and take advantage of this awesome opportunity.

If you want to read the whole story about McDonald’s highly successful Location Based Marketing campaign, it’s right here.

Don’t let interested customers slip through the cracks because you didn’t take advantage of this golden marketing opportunity.

Stop Wasting Time Marketing – Start Getting Paying Customers

April 28th, 2011 10 Comments

You only need one thing to make your business succeed. And it’s not a Twitter page. It’s not a Facebook page. It’s not a website. It’s not a company phone number. It’s not an awesome logo. It’s not a business plan. It’s definitely not venture capital.

It’s a paying customer, that is the only thing you need to make your business succeed.

For traditional brick and mortar businesses this means you have to physically get customers into your store, and once they are there, you need to make sure you close the sale.

This is what separates location based marketing from the other social media platforms.

Location based marketing doesn’t waste time with building followers or hits to your website or fans – location based marketing first and foremost drives customers physically into your store – then it closes the sale by giving them a concrete reward for “checking-in” once they walk in the door.

In fact, there are three specific ways that location based marketing helps you get paying customers off the bat.

First, Location Based Marketing Drives New Customers To Your Business. Through in-app mentions and deal notifications with Foursquare and other location based platforms, LBM lets you show your deals to prospective customers that already are using location based services. Online deal listings, such as Gowalla’s “City Pages” also let’s new customers take a look at the specials you are offering.

Second, Location Based Marketing Drive Repeat Sales with Existing Customers. By using specially crafted promotions, LBM provides incentives for existing customers to return more frequently and repeat their business. Loyalty programs, much like the famed Smoothie King punch card, are a huge hit with customers do wonders for repeat business. Shifting these loyalty programs onto location based services makes them even more powerful.

Third, Location Based Marketing Build’s Customer Loyalty. Not only do loyalty programs help build loyalty with your customer base, but by offering special rewards or perks for the “Mayor” of your venue, you can not only reward your top customers but also create competition to be the most loyal!

These are the three core ways that location based marketing gets paying customers in your door and keeps them coming back.

Are you tired of ineffective and useless social media campaigns? It’s because Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms aren’t tied directly to customer visits.

Once you link customer visits directly into the social media platform itself – with location based marketing – you’re finally on the right path to creating a successful social media strategy for your business – and a strategy that gets real paying customers into your store today.

Shameless plug! Get a copy of my book to learn how to use foursquare for business.

Video Tutorial – How To Use Gowalla For Business

April 26th, 2011 No Comments

As a follow up to my How To Use Foursquare For Business Video Tutorial – I have created this How To Use Gowalla For Business Video Tutorial. This will show you from A-Z how to set up a Gowalla account and get your feet on the ground. Gowalla can be a powerful tool for location based marketing and learning to use Gowalla for marketing is the first step. This 5 minute video will help you out.

The Holy Grail of Social Media

April 21st, 2011 3 Comments

Why should entrepreneurs and social media marketers care about location based services? Are platforms like Foursquare and Gowalla simply a fad that will fade out in a year or two or are they something substantive that can deliver meaningful results to both businesses and the people who use the apps as consumers.

It’s tough to say if these services can really be something of value for both parties. Given how early stage and cutting edge they are. Many in the social media space question if people will want to use these services and even if they do, what is in it for businesses?

To answer this question, lets take a look at the following quote about location based services. Charlie O’Donnell, early stage venture capitalist and founder of ThisIsGoingToBeBig.com said:

“Being able to connect web advertising, recommendations, and social media buzz to an actual person walking into your store has long been the holy grail of the advertising world.”

Charlie makes an excellent point. The real value in location based services is that they stand at the intersection of so many different aspects of marketing. This intersection creates a unique value proposition for both consumers and businesses.

How do consumers get value from location based marketing?

All they have to do is click a button on their mobile device and they earn free rewards points, giveaways, promotions and more.

How do small businesses get value from location based marketing?

With a few simple steps, and completely for free, small businesses can establish tailored mobile marketing campaigns and loyalty programs for their customers. This leverages the success of traditional coupon and promotion programs and delivers them on a mobile device, complete with all the extra benefits listed above by Charlie (local, social, shareable recommendations, not to mention game mechanics).

What’s the bottom line?

This all sounds well and good with plenty of fancy social media bells and whistles, but in reality, the strength of location based marketing lies not in its cutting edge and flashy high tech social media tie ins, but rather the proven and time tested strength of these traditional advertising and customer loyalty programs.

The beauty of location based services, such as Foursquare, for businesses – they connect the old world coupon, promotional advertising etc, with the viral nature of contemporary social media. And that is the real reason location based marketing is the holy grail of social media.

Video Tutorial – How To Use Foursquare For Businesses

April 18th, 2011 3 Comments

Here is a 5 minute video tutorial I created to give you a full walk through of how to set up your Foursquare campaign from scratch. This will give you a great head start in setting up your campaign and learning what you need to do to get it running properly.

How To Sell Out Your Entire Food Truck in 45 Minutes

April 13th, 2011 2 Comments

Food Trucks are a great asset to any restaurant brand. Not only can they be tremendously profitable, but they also do a great job of getting out on the streets and making your brand known. They give exposure to your restaurant and your brand in new places – creating more customers and boosting your sales.

But how do you get more people to come to your food truck? Obviously location is critical. Finding the right corner or cross street will make a huge difference in the success of your food truck. There is another strategy that can play a huge part in the success of any food truck.

Location based services offer a great tool for marketing and promoting food trucks. Think about – what better way to generate buzz and get people to your truck than to offer them an incentive for stopping by and checking in. Location based marketing created a 33% increase in foot traffic in a single day. Ice cream truck? Give them a free extra scoop. Get people excited and involved. Here are couple strategies for generating enough buzz to sell out your food truck in under an hour!

Have a free giveaway at your food truck. Try giving away free sides, a free T-Shirt or something seasonal and fun.
Tell people to check-in at a specific time. Generate a big crowd and a bunch of buzz, have people check in at the same time.
Use Foursquare “Swarm” Badge as an incentive to get everyone to check in at once.
Host your location based event on during a special day- during a holiday or weekend when more people are out and about.
Have your check-in special be a “group discount” – like Groupon – where you check-in with a group of 4 and get a free giveaway – this encourages more people to come visit your food truck and people will bring their friends.
Most importantly – have fun – location based software is a great way to generate buzz and promote your food truck, but its also a fun and interesting way to generate new sales. Enjoy it and learn how else you can use location based service to help build your sales.

Food trucks are a great opportunity for any restaurant – and location based marketing provides a new and exciting way to generate traffic and buzz for your food truck. Sign up for my email course to learn more about location based marketing.