The suggestions coincide with 4SQ Day today, a social event around the world for users of the Foursquare service. (Here's a previous post on geo-applications like Foursquare.)
Affect's president Sanfra Fathi said brands and companies can use the technology in different ways like incentives, rewards for frequent check-ins and promoting events in order to bridge the gap between online marketing and in-person engagement.Here are her five tips:
1. Create incentives for new customers - Even if you are not a restaurant or retail establishment, offering incentives using Foursquare can help to attract new customers to try your product or service. By offering a discount, free demo or complimentary tour to those who ‘check in’ to your company location, businesses can raise awareness, increase customer traffic and capture new business leads.
2. Give special treatment to the Mayor - Businesses can easily take advantage of the Foursquare users’ obsession to become the ‘Mayor’ of their favorite locations. Foursquare users can become the Mayor by being the person that has checked in to the same location the most. By offering special discounts or limited time free services to their location’s Mayor, businesses can encourage frequent visits to their establishment and encourage loyalty.
3. Offer promotions, contests and giveaways - One of the most effective ways to create a buzz around your brand on any platform is by offering free or discounted products or services through promotions, contests and giveaways. With Foursquare, implementing these marketing tactics becomes easy. Whether it’s offering a discount to anyone who checks in to your location on a particular day or awarding the first person to check in a free product or service, Foursquare allows companies to attract and reward new and existing customers.
4. Maximize the success of events - Having a Foursquare check-in at your company events can help to make them more successful and effective. Operating around the users’ locations, Foursquare is one of the few online networks that encourages offline engagement. Company sales and marketing teams can use this network to invite their online prospects to meet them face-to-face at a networking event or tradeshow. Additionally, a Foursquare check-in at an event allows attendees to connect in-person with other users that they follow online, providing an additional incentive to attend the event.
5. Marketing intelligence - Foursquare recently announced a free analytics tool and dashboard that gives businesses access to a plethora of information and statistics about the customers that visit their locations. This information, such as who has checked in and what time they arrived, can provide businesses with valuable insight into the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, allowing them to adjust their strategies accordingly.