Foursquare For Businesses Looks Exciting

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Foursquare, the location-based mobile game cum social networking platform might bring online/mobile marketing to the next level.

Its Pokemon-style gameplay might not work for long but if businesses could make Foursquare more rewarding, there would be more incentive for people to join Foursquare.

For example, Willis’ cafe could reward its Foursquare mayor to a free drink or sandwich whenever he visits. His name will be placed visible to encourage other Foursquare users to dethrone him (it also gives the current mayor an ego boost).

If the prizes are attractive, we should be expecting more visitors to Willis’ cafe (or at the least, nearby) to do their check-ins. Being able to bring these potential customers nearer to the point-of-sale could help Willis gain higher ROI (in revenue term) than if other social tools were used.

Foursquare increases consumers interaction

Checking-in doesn’t mean anything but going near or to your store is. Whether they actually buy anything is not important. What’s important is that they are constantly thinking about your brand. If they decided to visit, make them feel right at home.

They might not buy on the first, second or third visit, but with constant exposure to your staff and brand, I’m pretty sure they would pull out their wallet one day. In fact, I believe that sales conversion rate would be high because nothing beats face-to-face interaction.

Examples

Just do it

There are already a huge list of businesses offering the “mayor specials“. Since there isn’t much cost involved, you might as well just give it shot. Learn it and see how you can leverage Foursquare in your business.

Imagine how much you can gain if Foursquare were to be the next Twitter.