Leveraging the Check In
February 29, 2012
Categories: Marketing
Food for Thought
First off, Happy Leap Day!
As I sit here over a cup of coffee staring out of the 50 year old windows of one of West Palm Beach’s most delectable breakfast restaurants, I pause to reflect on the disservice of not offering a check in deal on Foursquare. You’re probably thinking, it’s a 50 year old diner, what do you expect? The truth of the matter is that this place is although, yes, very old it is the antithesis of a stereotypical blue hair southern diner. Psychedelic art lines the painted brick walls and indie music or rock reverberate the Bose speakers throughout. This old diner is a hot spot for late night dinning and should be astute enough to know that they need a checkin special.
To their credit, it appears they’ve taken at least a little bit of time to register for the “American Express Shop Small” campaign but that doesn’t help me considering I don’t use an AMEX card.
So, what am I really saying?
Small Businesses need to add Incentives for patrons Checking In
Apart from the playfully ego driven game of “Let’s show off all the cool places I’ve checked in” there really isn’t much value for users to actually checkin to a place of business. If you are a small business owner then take note because you currently have an immensely popular “word of mouth” vehicle that may loose its luster. Research tells us that “location-based service (LBS) app users are twice as likely as the average U.S. online adult to share information about products they are considering purchasing or have purchased. They also skew young: 75% are between the ages of 23 and 45.” Forrester Research
Checkin Apps to pay attention to
- Foursquare
- Gowalla - Now Owned by Facebook
- GetGlue
- ShopKick
- FoodSpotting
- Yelp