Foursquare - The Next Twitter??????

Who is the Mayor of your store?

There is a new tool gaining momentum with mobile shoppers; it's called Foursquare. Do you want to dramatically increase store visits and customer loyalty? Looking for ways to inexpensively but effectively build your brand? If you're still playing catch-up on the usage of Facebook and Twitter to drive sales, Foursquare may be exponentially more productive. Get on the trend early and maximize the impact of Foursquare on your business...before your competition beats you to the punch and your potential customers.

Foursquare is a location-based social networking service, used mostly on smartphones. The idea is that people "check-in" to venues they're at (restaurants, bars, stores, etc.) which lets their friends keep track of where they're hanging out. Essentially, Foursquare aims to encourage people to explore their neighborhoods and then reward people for doing so. If you check-in the most to a particular venue, you become the "Mayor" - although someone else can become mayor if you neglect your venue; wouldn't that be a great concept in real world public service? There's also a game involved, where users earn points for their activity and unlock "badges."

Foursquare is in a position to be a boon for businesses. In the same way that savvy business owners have utilized the Yelp community to promote and encourage reviews, they can tap into Foursquare check-ins to get people talking about their establishment and rewarding them for their patronage.

As a business owner, you can also use Foursquare to engage your increasingly mobile customers with Foursquare "Specials". When they check in on Foursquare at your venue reward your loyal customers. Give the current Mayor of your venue extra attention to encourage others to want to be Mayor.

What if you owned a bar. You could put up signs indicating that the Foursquare Mayor drinks for free. Imagine how the competitive elements of the game could manufacture a social contest like no other. You would get intense mayoral races, which means more frequent check-ins, and a bunch of free online exposure. The occasional free drink would be a pretty inexpensive marketing investment for all that exposure.

Foursquare has developed an easy to use toolkit that allows you to set up specials:

• 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!")

Seriously....remember the early days of Twitter when everyone mocked it. The early adopters really got Twitter, tweeted their enthusiasm, took to their blogs to evangelize the benefits of Twitter, and started to break down why it would be a game changer. The majority laughed and/or misunderstood - “why would I want to share or read mundane information about myself on the web. What pointless drivel.”

But Twitter didn't go away. It gained momentum. One by one more and more people started to tweet, started to figure out for themselves why it was important, and then repeat the same cycle as the early adopters before them. The media was initially quick to judge. Full of fantastic puns, and naysayers, until they started to use it and figure it out too. Long story short, Twitter, as simple as it is, was (and to some extent still is) misunderstood - but enormously popular.

Foursquare today is very much in the same boat as Twitter was a couple of years ago. The early adopters have started to utilize it, but for the most part it remains a service completely misunderstood, and even mocked from time to time. But here’s the thing, it is starting to catch on and people are starting to sit up take notice, and actually use it. Maybe it's time you did too! It might be great for your business. Maybe I could be Mayor!!!

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Saving Pennies can help save the day......

The retail outlook continues to remain challenging as we look toward the balance of 2010. While the economic recovery that started this year hasn't quite materialized the way most pundits expected, that does not mean that it has to be all doom and gloom for your retail business.

By continually assesing your business goals and objectives, and aligning your customer needs as priority one, you can and will survive this economic downturn.

Just as importantly, you must continue to assess your business expenses and look to trim wherever and whenever possible. As we continue with our mid-year business review process, review the following areas to determine if there are any additional savings to be had.

Cost of Goods Sold. Can you negotiate with suppliers for discounts based on year to date purchases or other shipping programs? Do you ask for allowances from vendors for past date cancellation orders, or orders shipped outside of the start/stop order dates?

Marketing. Analyze where your optimal return on investment occurs, proactively seek out deals from channel partners and request support from your product suppliers - they all have a vested interest in your success. Have you shifted your allocation of resources to more cost effective means in 2010? Can you expect to produce the same savings in the second half of the year?

Payroll. Assess training and development requirements and delay/eliminate where possible, increase the utilization of more productive sales staff and contingency plan for deferred bonuses

Technology. Re-assess near term capital expenditures to ensure adequate payback hurdles and make due with current non-sales critical assets

Rent. Assess the real estate market, gather data and speak to your landlord about reductions in rent

Banking and Credit Card Fees. Consider incentives to generate cash sales and negotiate with your banker and credit card processing companies for reductions in all fees

By throughly reviewing the expenses that you do have, and looking at the areas where you can negotiate more effectively with suppliers, I'm confident you can save quite a few more pennies before the end of 2010!

My Tank Gets 30 MPG - Is That Good?

If I told you my vehicle delivered 30 miles per gallon would you say that was fantastic, average or awful? In order to answer that question you would need to know several key facts. Am I talking about a Vespa or a Hummer? What do cars like mine get for average MPG? What type of gas mileage did I plan to get with my car? Without considering these factors, answering the question would be premature and would have no frame of reference.

As with the car mpg, many retailers deliver marketing programs yet they have no idea about what results they can or should expect to deliver. In essences, there is no goal setting, thus no frame of reference for the results that are achieved. Are the results good? Did I use my resources (time and money) effectively on this marketing program?

Best practice retailers know that performance assessment on all marketing activity must be done to determine their ultimate effectiveness. If you haven't quite got in that habit yet for your business, June is just the time to review how your marketing plans are performing so far this year. Take a piece of paper and ask yourself the following questions related to your marketing events thus far in 2010:

1. How much money and resources did we invest in each marketing activity?



2. Did we implement this activity optimally?
   



3. How much incremental sales were driven by the marketing activity?



4. How many new customers were generated by the marketing activity?



5. Did my in-store staff capitalize on all the opportunities created by this activity?



6. How much new customer information was generated for the customer relationship management system?
   
   
   


7. Did the activity deliver new insights into customer needs that can be used to increase profits or market share in the future?



8. Did this activity contribute to long term customer loyalty and subsequent repeat sales?



9. How effective was each marketing activity relative to each other?



10. What are the industry leading benchmarks for these activities?

Answers to the above questions can help answer questions about yor marketing planning, effectiveness and about how your business is at implementing programs. If you don't like some of the answers you gave, or frankly, don't know enough because you didn't set objectives for the marketing activity you did deliver, now is the perfect time to re-tool and plan better for the balance of 2010. If necessary, get key stakeholders in the organization involved to help you maximize your success.

Keep in mind that successful marketing for your business is linked to overall goals and objectives that can and should be tied to industry benchmarks for success. After all, a tank isn't designed to perform like a scooter either. Don't let your marketing programs perform like a tank this year.