Checking in to Foursquare

Jennifer Dennard, E-Media Marketing Specialist
June 5, 2010

The world of social media marketing continues to expand with new applications being developed that offer businesses high-tech ways to interact with prospects and customers, and capture valuable market data. Foursquare is one such application. It is a location-based, customer-loyalty application that allows users to broadcast their daily routines via a physical establishment - usually retail, and businesses to track those movements in an effort to gain a better understanding of their customer's habits.

The implication of a social networking service like this is clear - reams and reams of historical data that sales and marketers can use to keep attracting Foursquare users, and to attract new customers.

What is Foursquare?
Foursquare is a free social networking customer-loyalty service most commonly leveraged by smart phone users that allows participants to "check in" to different places as they go about their day. Users can choose to add a viral element to their check-ins by automatically notifying their friends via Facebook and Twitter.

The customer-loyalty aspect of Foursquare benefits both user and the business being checked into. Users who check in to a location the most become the "Mayor" of that place. Users can also unlock "badges" for visiting a location, which usually take the form of an incentive to return, such as coupons.

Mark Shaw, a leading Twitter expert based in the UK, offers a more in-depth explanation in " Foursquare for Business," and Foursquare.com offers a demo video on its homepage to help familiarize users with the service.

What's in it for Businesses?
The age of social media has helped businesses eliminate the customer loyalty punch card. Foursquare offers businesses a very cost-effective way of starting and then managing a customer loyalty program. A business creates the loyalty rewards, incentivizing users to return again and again. The viral element of the application further increases the chances that friends of users will see their check ins via Twitter and Facebook, and visit the establishment themselves.

Earlier this year, Foursquare introduced a tool that allows businesses to see who checks in to their establishments. Businesses can now view the number of most recent visitors, number of most frequent visitors, time of day people check in, total number of unique visitors, histogram of check-ins per day, gender breakdown of customers, and portion of Foursquare check-ins broadcast to Twitter and Facebook.

That is valuable information that marketers can use to make better Web advertising decisions, better understand their repeat customers, and what drives those customers to become advocates of their brand in the social media space.

Foursquare offers " Foursquare + Your Business," a guide for businesses interested in leveraging the application to reward their customers.

Can it be used as a B2B sales and marketing tool?
At first glance, Foursquare may seem to be of benefit only to B2C companies who have brick and mortar locations and physical products to sell, but it should not be completely discounted in B2B marketing efforts.

HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog offers four ways that Foursquare can enhance the marketing strategy of businesses that sell to other businesses:

* Foursquare offers a way for businesses to increase search engine optimization.
There's a good chance that customers and prospects use Google on a daily basis. As search engines like Google evolve, geographical information will become "an important new layer of information that will provide users with a more contextual experience.

Businesses that want to increase search engine relevancy and gain better organic search results will develop a content strategy that works with elements of location and social connections.

* Foursquare offers an additional way to identify prospects and facilitate lead generation.
B2B sales and marketing teams can use applications like Foursquare to gain a better understanding of their prospects and customers. What places do they frequent? Do they travel on a regular basis? Location-based applications offer another layer of information that if used correctly can enhance prospecting efforts and help businesses to gain a better understanding of their customers' habits.

* Foursquare offers a new layer to CRM.
As Kipp Bodnar writes in the HubSpot blog, "... one of the key uses [of location-based applications] will be to manage sales teams and add richer data to CRM platforms.

"Using the GPS functionality in most smart phones used by sales teams, smart sales teams will automate locations of sales visits into the CRM system for a more accurate log of sales and nurturing activity," he writes. "Additionally, it will make it easier for executives to change a sales person's schedule to talk with a lead because they will be able to do it based on physical proximity in near real-time."

* Foursquare can enhance trade show marketing strategies.
Has anyone become the "Mayor" of the HFMA ANI conference? Are companies exhibiting there offering any incentives via Foursquare to visit their booths? Using location-based social networks like Foursquare can help a B2B business facilitate offline interaction at industry events like trade shows.

With 1 million-plus users and counting, Foursquare is a social marketing tool that can offer sales and marketing teams a new way to engage with prospects and customers, if "unlocked" in the right way.

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