to a Facebook friend

Mobile geolocation applications such as Foursquare have a lot of potential to increase consumer engagement at local businesses, and many small businesses may be overlooking the possibilities there for building loyalty and growing their customer base. With a little thought, mobile marketing campaigns used in conjunction with Seth’s thought about margins might just provide the leverage needed for a small local business to go from surviving to thriving.

Foursquare is a geolocation-aware application that runs on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smart phones, with a game and competition aspect to it. Users ‘Check-in’ at locations they frequent, earning badges for various accomplishments, and can ‘shout’ their location to their friends or share via Twitter. Users can make it on to the ‘Leaderboard’ with frequent or multiple visits around town, and can compete for the most number of visits to a single location, earning the title of ‘Mayor’ of that business. At first glance, it seems little more than a game, but businesses can take advantage of several features to help promote their products or services.

The most obvious feature is simply listing (or verifying the listing) the business with the service. For Foursquare, it’s as simple as searching for it and then adding it if it’s not found. A listing for your business means that it will show up when users are nearby, and saves them time from having to add it when visiting. Both Google Local Search and Bing search are highlighting venues listed at Foursquare when local searches are performed, so making sure your business is correctly categorized and spelled will help with more visibility for your business.

Another feature for businesses is offering specials to loyal customers, either to those who rank as the Mayor, those who visit a certain number of times (“Get a free meal on your 10th visit.”), or for those who unlock a certain badge. These specials can be considered in the light of Seth’s thoughts about margins: “(Gross margin) is vital to understand, because it tells you how flexible you can be with a promotional strategy.” Giving a deep discount (product at cost, perhaps) and gaining a new customer at virtually no cost could be a powerful tool in your guerilla marketing arsenal. Head over to the Business page and click the button at the bottom to Add a Foursquare special to your venue.

“We call attention to venues who offer special treatment to foursquare’s users. If a foursquare user is at your bar/restaurant, we’ll tell them what they have to do to unlock a free snack or discounted drink. If they happen to be across the street or two blocks away from your venue, we’ll let them know that your business gives special treatment to foursquare users and that they should swing by for a visit.”

For a more detailed analysis of the power of Foursquare for local search, read Chuck Reynolds’ and Jay Baer’s posts about geolocation apps and business, and check out Chuck’s Slideshare presentation here: Local Search Marketing using Foursquare

Derek Markham[Derek Markham is a writer, a father, a WordPress addict, and social media butterfly who loves to share what's new and interesting in his world in under 140 characters. Hit him up with an @ reply anytime for help, conversation, or just to say hey!]