Partner Article

How SMB?s should use location-based marketing

The rise of cloud-computing has simplified and driven down the cost of many communication solutions. Location- based marketing technologies only available to large corporations with the necessary IT resources to manage complex systems have now become accessible to smaller organisations that might not even have an IT department. Consider Foursquare, for example, a tool that allows small and large businesses alike to target consumers based on their location.

However, as shown by a 2012 report by Fleishman-Hillard and Harris Interactive cited by Streetfight only 9% of the SME?s leverage the potential of place-based communications and make them part of their marketing strategy. By ignoring them, they miss a huge opportunity to reach their prospects who are now more connected than ever before. According to the report mentioned above, half of the smartphone owners they surveyed use their devices to discover offers and discounts in their proximity. They are willing to receive your message and able to follow it through.

This being said, Streetfight recommends five tactics to employ to take your location-based strategy off the ground. Here?s how to bring your business in front of those that are just a few miles away:

1. Know your audience. This marketing principle stays true for whatever promotional tool you would ever want to adopt. If your prospects don?t use smartphones or aren?t tech-savvy then using Foursquare might not be the best idea for you. However, you might want to look at alternative location-based efforts, like SMS campaigns that don?t require a certain type of mobile phones, or at digital information displays that can be installed in your locations (reception areas, check-out points, hallways etc.).

2. Diversify your tools. Don?t bet all your money on one platform. Invest the allocated budget in different ones and see which ones work best for you. Use them in conjunction for maximum impact. Show your Foursquare check-ins and mayors on your local Facebook page and/or your Instagram photos on the screens in your store or office.

3. Let people take charge. Your prospects should be given the chance to opt-in and out of receiving location-based communications, as well as choosing how often they will be getting them. Avoid ??pushing?? a message to a user’s mobile phone with no option to sign out (that would be perceived as highly intrusive) and avoid shouting ??too loud?? on Facebook or on any media you decide to use. You want to be relevant not annoying.

4. Give your audience a reason to care. One of the main reasons people choose not to connect with companies online is because they don?t see the point in doing so. Arguably, people shun advertising yet they want to know about offers and promotions relevant to them. The solution? Ensure that your communications are useful in a certain context, considering a viewer?s location and the moment in time he/she receives the message. Fail to do so and you will see your contacts unsubscribe?

5. Test and adjust. You won?t know what works and what doesn?t until you actually try different tools. So once you?ve put your location-based solution in place, monitor it to assess its results. After a while, you will be able to understand which channel performs well and which one doesn?t. Make changes accordingly because at the end of the day the whole point of the exercise is making money.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, location-based marketing isn?t expensive and isn?t difficult to implement either. It very often implies opening a web browser, logging into an account and managing your campaigns straight from there (such is the power of cloud-computing). The difficulty doesn?t reside in the manipulation of the technology but in understanding how to use it best. And this understanding only comes with practice and a little bit of expert advice.

Ana Udrea is Inbound Marketing Executive at Dynamax Technologies, one of the longest standing digital signage companies in the world. She blogs about technology trends affecting SMB?s and more specifically about digital & video communications in this environment.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Howard Smith .