Customer Stealing: Use Location Based Marketing To Your Advantage

May 24, 2010 By Justin McHood Leave a Comment

If you are a business owner with a brick-and-mortar location, location-based marketing is a quick and easy way to pick up customers.

From your competition.

Call it customer stealing, if you will.

And it isn’t difficult to pull off.

Let’s pretend for a moment that I worked for a local car dealer and I was in charge of getting more customers in the door. Still pretending, let’s say that I have 10 stores all across Utah and each store is in a different location with different businesses around it.

At least a few of my stores are located in “auto malls” where many of my competitors have stores in the immediate vicinity. Because of the cluster of auto dealers, the area is full of consumers who are looking to buy a car — right now. It’s easy to see that this is a target-rich-environment for marketers.

And with location-based marketing, you can now offer those customers in the area a compelling reason to come to your store — right now.

Enter Foursquare.

When a consumer who is in the area “checks in” on Foursquare at one of your competitors stores, you simply offer them $2,500 in cash (or whatever you want your offer to be) to be used toward the purchase of a new or used vehicle if they come and check in at your store — within the next 10 minutes.

And then you watch people walk into your competition, check-in and immediately leave and come to your store. It really isn’t all that hard to tell what will happen over time, assuming that the offer is compelling enough to attract interest: The store that offers the best specials to buyers in the immediate area will be the busiest.

So if you happen to be an auto dealer in Utah and you notice that customers are walking out of your store and into the one across the street …

It might be time to start thinking about using Foursquare specials.

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Do Small Businesses Need To Pay Attention To Foursquare?

May 20, 2010 By Justin McHood Leave a Comment

So the headline-grabbing, first-mover, element of surprise is gone.

Starbucks has went ahead and made a PR splash with their recent announcement offering Mayors a discount at locations nationwide.

Is it time for small businesses across America to pay attention to location-based marketing applications?

Maybe. Probably. What do you have to lose?

But it is still very early in the product adoption curve for location based marketing applications like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt.  TechCrunch recently reported that Foursquare hit 1 million users — which means 99% of the population have yet to adopt “checking in” when they go somewhere.

But wait.

Did you catch the last part of the TechCrunch article? The part where it mentions:

It took Foursquare just over a year to get to a million users. By comparison, it took Twitter about 2 years to get one million users. Of course now, two years after that, Twitter has over 100 million users. Foursquare, undoubtedly, would love to see that type of growth — assuming they don’t sell first.

That means that even though there is somewhere less than 1% of the general population currently using location based check-in services, it is possible that many more people will be using it soon.

And using these services means that a conversation is being had – right in your very business – by customers using these services.

And since product adoption velocity seems to be increasing – if you are a small business, you may not have as long as you think to “wait and see how it goes”.

Are you a small business thinking about offering a Foursquare special at your business?

It’s Free.

And if you do it right, you might be surprised to hear not only what your customers are “shouting” in your business, but also what kinds of Foursquare specials they prefer.

Currently, potential Foursquare specials include:

  • Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. Who’s the Mayor? It’s your single most loyal customer! (the user who has checked in the most in the last 60 days)
    (“Foursquare has deemed you the Mayor? Enjoy a free order of french fries!”)
  • Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.
    (“Foursquare says you’ve been here 10 times? That’s a free drink for you!”)
  • Frequency-based Specials: are unlocked every X check-ins.
    (“Foursquare users get 20% off any entree every 5th check-in!”)
  • Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special.
    (“Show us your foursquare Swarm badge and get a free drink!”)

Is it time for small businesses to pay more attention to location-based marketing applications?

Only if they like building loyalty and listening to the conversations about their industry and business.



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WTC Recap: Mitch Joel, Chris Brogan, and Julien Smith on SEO and its Future

May 17, 2010 By Scott Cowley Leave a Comment

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith at Women Tech Council

SEO is alive and flourishing, according to some best-selling authors and professional bloggers. In a Utah event sponsored by the Women Tech Council in Utah last week, Chris Brogan, Mitch Joel, and Julien Smith drove home the importance of visibility as one of the keys to building online communities and earning consumer trust today.

While they spoke about topics that extend beyond the SEO world, they made some valid points and gave stats that are worth passing on to the SEO community.

From Mitch Joel:

  • The number of clicks on banner ads has declined by 50 percent since 2007. (The overall number makes up a very small fraction of the total number of web users).
  • The average online review score (on a 1-5 scale) is 4.3. This is rather high, considering that many companies are fearful of potentially negative reviews. They shouldn’t be if they’re doing things right. In fact, negative reviews often convert better than positive ones, in instances where the complaint is because of a feature or attribute unimportant to the prospect.
  • Around 20 percent of searches each day are completely unique (never before searched). This demonstrates the importance of long-tail content creation and optimization.
  • Around 80 percent of first brand interactions occur in search results. (No better testament to SEO importance than that)
  • About social media: “Don’t write checks with social media that your website can’t cash.” (from Avinash Kaushik) Investment in driving site traffic only pays off when the site is prepared to receive the traffic.

From Julien Smith:

  • Break patterns to create emotional connections, meaning “do things differently so that people remember you.” There must be something unique about your website, your content, etc. so that an emotional connection is formed.
  • People don’t gather around the profound. They gather around the simple and silly content. Don’t overdo your site content to appeal to a “highest” common denominator, especially if you’re trying to sell. That being said, do use “insider language” and terminology to build reputation and credibility. You can form a community around yourself if your content rewards people who are “in on it.”

From Chris Brogan:

  • We buy from people we know and like, regardless of the value proposition. (You don’t have to worry about being the lowest price if you’re giving people a way to know you and buy from you, and you’re connecting with them)
  • New Media Labs (Brogan’s company) targeted their market with changes in website wording. They put, “Works with Fortune 100 and 500 companies” on the site before they had ever had a client from that group and it brought in business that qualified itself because of that statement.
  • Upcoming trends on the horizon include (1) mobile computing being an increasingly more important ground for ecommerce and interaction, (2) increasing presence of private networks/communities online, (3) development of more sophisticated “social CRMs” that shorten the gap between company and customer.

From the top-secret post-conference Q&A:

  • The future of SEO will be about the integration of content creation with the way humans think. SEO companies should focus on offering content creation as a service to more closely tie keywords to content.
  • Learning social media monitoring and listening is worth more than learning how to use social media messaging tools. Listening transforms your company’s branding and messaging to match what people are talking about rather than the “message” your marketing department made up.
  • There is no such thing as a social media expert. Brogan and Smith both reiterated that they’re both businessmen who know how to use the tools, but who will be around long after the social networks turn over, using new tools and techniques.

Image credit: Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt

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SEO.com Sponsors WTC Social Media Summit with Chris Brogan, Julien Smith and Mitch Joel

May 10, 2010 By Dan Bischoff Leave a Comment

When we heard about the Women Tech Council’s event, which hosts three New York Times Bestselling authors and renowned marketers, we jumped at the chance to be part of it. Chris Brogan, Julien Smith and Mitch Joel — some of the most respected leaders in social media marketing — will focus on building trust and relationships online.

And in the end, building strong relationships is what social media is all about. It’s what effective marketing is all about. If you are in business at all, you won’t want to miss it. Plus, you’ll be able to see us there, which is always cool.

Here are the details:

What: Social Media Summit; Building Trust in a Connected World

When: Tuesday, May 11. 7:30 a.m. to Noon.

Where: Noah’s. Located at 322 West 11000 South in South Jordan, UT 84095 

Cost: $65 for members, $75 for non-members. Sponsorship opportunities and group discounts are available. Price of admission includes breakfast and 2 books: Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, and Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel.

Register Now

More on the Speakers:

Chris Brogan

Julien Smith

Mitch Joel

For a sneak peak, here’s Chris Brogan and Julien Smith from “Rise of the Trust Agents”:

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2,685 Reasons Why Search Marketing is Vital for Public Relations

May 5, 2010 By Dan Bischoff Leave a Comment

95% of journalists use Google and other search engines during the course of research for a story

93% of journalists look at a company website during the course of research for a story

-PRWeek/PRNewswire

On the surface, the public relations industry seems to be in the middle of an upheaval. But in reality, PR firms and agencies have never had a better opportunity to do what they’re supposed to do – communicate with the public.

Media relations, which was once synonymous with public relations, is only one element in connecting with the masses. Now PR pros have to understand how to leverage a broader spectrum of mediums. They have to ask themselves, “where are the people?”

And that question is easy to answer: search engines and social media. Think about these numbers: 400 billion people conduct online searches every month. And there are more people on Twitter and Facebook than there are in most countries.

Compare that to The New York Times and USA Today, two of the largest national dailies in the United States. Together they combine to have a circulation of about 3 million people. Ask yourself, where is the public? What’s the best way to communicate with that public? Is it through traditional media, or through search engines and social media?

The answer is D, all the above.

And the good news is, you can knock out both birds with one stone. If you use good SEO services, you can reach out to your customers and the media at the same time. PRWeek and PRNewswire recently released a joint study about journalists’ use of search engines and social media for researching stories. They measured the responses of 2,685 journalists and PR professionals:

  • 95% of journalists use Google and other search engines during the course of research for a story
  • 93% of journalists look at a company website during the course of research for a story
  • 34% use a company blog during the course of research for a story
  • 46% say they sometimes or always use blogs for research purposes
  • 45% of journalists say they’ve quoted a blog in an article
  • When researching a company, 90% say they acquire information through a company’s website.
  • 33% of journalists report using social networks in their research as opposed to 24% in 2009
  • 32% of journalists have quoted a Twitter post in a story

To sum it up, these stats paint the obvious picture: Journalists rely heavily on search engines, blogs and social media for stories. Almost every journalist that responded said they use search engines and a company website for a story. What does that mean for a PR pro? They need to make sure their clients can be found online by journalists, that they have a navigable website with an informative blog, and are active on social media.

Make it Easy for Journalists

In PRWeek/PRNewswire’s report, 72% of journalists reported a higher workload than last year. Reporters are doing more than ever, so it’s important to make their life easier. A good website combined with top placement in the search engines won’t just get you more traffic and conversions, it won’t just help you connect with the public better, it will also help you connect with journalists better, which may help you get significantly more press.

Reputation Management

This could deserve its own blog post. SEO reputation management helps drive positive traffic to the top of the search results, and pushes negative traffic to deeper pages. For organizations that need an image overhaul, SEO reputation management is a potent tool PR agencies should be able to use effectively.

Power of Blogs for Press

Now, on the negative side. 51% of journalists in this report said they don’t find company blogs useful – because they don’t trust how businesses are presenting information.

“You don’t want to just take what a company is saying as a reflection of the whole truth,” a reporter said, who was quoted in PRWeek/PRNewswire’s study.

However, that’s a problem with press releases and everything else you might do to sell a story. Reporters, in general, are skeptical. To overcome this, make sure your blog is up-to-date, provides valuable, honest, objective content. A good blog that is easily researched can give journalists a trouble-free way to research your industry and quote you. Make sure you provide background information, advice, multimedia, etc., to make it easy for reporters.

To reach more reporters, you have to be in direct correlation with what journalists are doing. And today, journalists are doing what everyone else is doing – searching online and delving into social media.

**Photo of Russell Crowe from the film “State of Play.” Image from NYDailyNews.com.

Filed Under: public relations, social media Tagged With: , , ,