5 Ways to Attract More Mobile Foursquare Check-Ins

November 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

With the avalanche and proliferation of smartphones, applications for smartphones, and the adoption rates for the iPad on the rise, why are people under utilizing geosocial (“Check-in”) services like Foursquare? According to the latest Pew Research survey “5% of cell owners, equaling 4% of all adults use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla.”  Before attempting to answer the question why more people are not utilizing geosocial services, the following findings provide an interesting snapshot.

Pew Research Mobile Statistics

  • 28% of American adults use mobile and location-based services
  • 28% of cell owners use phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location
  • 9% of internet users set up social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn so that their location is automatically included in their posts on those services
  • 10% of smartphone users have used a geosocial service
  • Smartphone owners ages 18-49 are more likely than those over 50 to use either geosocial or location-based services on their phones

The Anatomy of a Foursquare Deal Done Right: Hotel Los Gatos

Our best experience with a Foursquare deal was during a recent local weekend trip. The Hotel Los Gatos, in beautiful Los Gatos, CA, created a smart check-in special for their guests. Guests that check-in on Foursquare to the the Hotel Los Gatos receive a $10 credit for their in-room mini bar. That’s it? Here is what the deal delivered to us and to the Hotel:

  • Mini Bar: the Hotel priced their alcohol and food items very reasonably. Due to there price structure, we were able to enjoy two premium beers (Heineken) and a food item- jar of almonds.
  • Goodwill: the moment we confirmed our “free” Foursquare deal at the front desk, we felt a sense of goodwill. We felt the establishment would take care of us, provide us great customer service, and that they cared about our perception of them
  • Economic Impact: Because the hotel invested in us, we invested in two more food items and a split of wine. Net result: we spent $18 on mini bar items we would have never touched
  • Onsite Sales: materials in the mini bar, branded with the Hotel Los Gatos’s in house restaurant Dio Deka, led us to investigate the restaurant. Although we did not stay for dinner, we will return to the restaurant for a future night out

How Can Businesses Attract More Foursquare “Check-Ins”?

  • Simplicity: create a simple, valuable offer that people will enjoy. Give your product, service, or expertise in a manner that is generous enough to make a visitor feel special yet economical enough to make sense for your business
  • Top Down: ensure that everyone in your business, and most importantly those people coming in contact with the public, understand the Foursquare offer
  • Give It Away: do not create an offer that requires consumers to spend triple digits before receiving something in return. Instead give away your product, service, or expertise first. Give first before asking for something in return
  • Ensure They Return: create an offer that provides an incentive for consumers to return to your establishment
  • Rewards Card: in step with keeping your consumers coming back, create a geolocation check-in rewards card. Allow consumers to accumulate points. Brand the points with your name and logo. Give them something to keep in their wallet or purse, something they will show friends, and something that is elegant enough to inspire them to continue to carry it with them


Filed Under: mobile marketing Tagged With: , ,

7+ Questions to Answer Before Launching Your QR Code Marketing Program

November 16, 2011 by 2 Comments

Courtesy Wikipedia QR Code

Do you plan to utilize QR codes in your marketing program? If you do the following are some solid steps to consider when implementing your QR code campaign into your marketing mix.

7+ Questions to Consider Before Launching QR Code Marketing Program

1. Security: more articles are being written about malware that has been designed to completely disable your smartphone. Before creating your QR code campaign, research QR code security so that you can assure your consumers that they will remain malware free

2. Plan Your Goal(s): what do you want your QR codes to do for your business? Do you want them to showcase your products or services , videos, photos, ecommerce store or are you providing a buying incentive through a coupon?

3. Call to Action: once you have your purpose aka goals in mind what is your call to action? How are you going to get your prospects, consumers, clients, affiliates, and friends to perform an action you wish them to take?

4. QR Code Design: it has been called “robot barf” but what do you want your prospect to see when viewing your QR code? Is a standard code enough or do you need to find a designer QR Code theme?

5. Mobile Landing Page: if you think that you will simply link your QR code(s) to your website’s pages you are in for trouble. There is nothing more annoying to a consumer who takes the time to load a QR code than to get to the point of reading the information and realizing that it is not optimized for smartphone consumption. Simply put, unless your prospect-consumer has X-ray vision he/she will never be able to read your message.

Creating a mobile landing page that is optimized, allowing a smartphone user to read the text, is the key to any QR Code campaign. Without this component, don’t bother trying to utilize QR codes.

6. QR Code Analytics: Mashable’s Hamiliton Chan nails it when he identifies the most important analytic for you to concentrate on measuring:

“The most important metric of a QR campaign should not be the number of daily scans. Rather, the length of engagement time that your code is generating should be a marketer’s primary indicator of campaign success.”

As Hamilton states “having a low number of scans should not discourage the advertiser. . . “

7.  Social Media Analytics: are you broadcasting your use of QR codes on your Facebook page, Google+ page, blog, website, YouTube account, and other social network sites? If you are making the effort to broadcast your QR code campaign are you tracking the analytics from these efforts?

Filed Under: social media and resources Tagged With: ,

Inner Architect Partners With Salesforce.com Certified Consultants Red Cote

November 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Over the past few years Inner Architect has continued to build processes and systems for analyzing an organizations’ marketing efforts within the social network channels. During this evolution, we utilized a generic CRM tool that provided value but on a limited basic platform. We realized the next step for our business was to adopt the Salesforce.com  platform for our growing need for greater scalability.

We discovered that Salesforce.com has recognized the needs of it’s clients who have adopted social networks by enabling CRM integration with Twitter and Facebook via the Salesforce for Twitter and Facebook app from Force.com. This powerful app led us to our current partnership launch.

Why the Salesforce Platform for our Business?

We highly recommend the Salesforce platform for managing social marketing. Salesforce’s ability to integrate with Twitter and Facebook enables businesses to:

  • Keep track of engagement with social connections
  • Schedule and manage social networking campaigns
  • Measure and analyze results
  • Hold historical conversational data at the record level
  • Use social data to leverage efforts in social networking
  • Use social data to leverage efforts in other marketing channels

Inner Architect Partners with Red Cote Consulting Inc.

Business partnerships are often the lifeblood of any successful organization. It is with that thought in mind that we are extremely excited to announce our partnership with Red Cote Consulting Inc.. As a certified Salesforce.com partner since 2003, Redcote Consulting Inc. has worked with a broad cross section of businesses from small startups to medium sized organizations successfully completing over 300 Salesforce.com implementations/integrations. Red Cote’s range of services include:

  • QuickStart: This service rapidly has a business up and ready to utilize Salesforce.com.  Red Cote helps customers configure the application with a brief Business Process Review followed by configuration of the application. This can be done online or on site. In conjunction with configuration, Red Cote offers JumpStart Training, online or on site training, to ensure users have the necessary skills to begin using the application effectively.
  • Customized Consulting: This service is for customers who have completed the basic installation of Salesforce.com but need additional ongoing support for more complex functionalities that are more iterative in nature.

Purpose of Inner Architect-Red Cote Consulting Inc. Partnership

There are many advantages to our partnership with Red Cote Consulting that all support the purpose of this collaboration: to provide a unique opportunity for businesses to harness social media networks as powerful new channels that produce quantifiable returns on investment.

Inner Architect’s purpose and role in this partnership is to provide Red Cote Consulting clients and partners with services designed to help them understand, implement, and track successful social network campaigns that create positive results. We accomplish these goals offering the following:

  • Businesses with Marketing Staff: we offer comprehensive consulting and training which enable the business to learn how to develop and manage effective social marketing programs from the Salesforce CRM
  • Businesses without In-House Marketing: we offer full prospecting, customer marketing, and content development services provided by seasoned professionals at the fraction of the cost of hiring your own staff.

 

Filed Under: roi measurement, social media and resources Tagged With: , ,