Location, Location, Location: foursquare is Everywhere!

Is the dream of one-to-one marketing finally “reality”? With more and more smart phones in the hands of consumers, geo-location-based marketing seems to be the industry’s flavor du jour. The most talked about platform is foursquare.

Foursquare is part friend-finder, local city guide, and interactive mobile game. Using the GPS locator on your phone, foursquare allows you to “check-in” at various venues in order to earn badges or the coveted “mayorship” at a given location after you’ve checked in the most.

The question then is how can foursquare (and its ilk) draw from the vast audience who; albeit, see no use for ”badges” in their lives?

ANSWER: 10% off, just for loitering in front of our store. Now that’s something even the laziest social networker can buy into! We are entering into a new shopping age equipped with geo-selective couponing, instant promotional offers and real-time statistics for all!

foursquare’s stars have aligned but they’re not prepared to move at light’s speed anytime soon. Having boomed so big, so quickly foursquare has hired staff for the specific task of responding to their 3 month backlog of email. For awhile, it seems, they’ll be working retroactively on business’ email requests to become featured or offer specials when users check in at proximate locations. We can agree that this is a very good problem for a fledgling company to have.

Recently, our clients have been asking how to tap into the realm of geo-based marketing accessing a customer base by their proximity to retail. Take sweepstakes to the street and add a level of physical participation in your promotional marketing activities. Talk about driving user engagement!

Guest post by Jenna Hanlon. Jenna is a Promotion Coordinator in Marden-Kane's NY Office. Jenna can be reached at jhanlon@mardenkane.com.