Location Based Marketing Trends for Small Businesses

Isn’t technology amazing? Up until recently the “old school’ modes of advertising were heavily used to bring awareness to the market about your business. Your customers had to either be watching a show, listening to the radio, or reading a newspaper or magazine.

Now you can advertise or even offer a discount coupon to a customer’s mobile phone when they walk by your office.

Location based marketing is instantaneous, giving that client or customer a direct call to action. Our first yellow page phone books used the same idea of location based marketing by including only those businesses who were in a certain geographic location.

Today more and more sophisticated location-based tactics are popping up and use triangulation technology and GPS technology.

Forrester Research states that 42 percent of total retail sales in 2009 were influenced by online research and they expect it to grow to 53 percent by 2014. You need to do what you can to get those researchers into your local business.

Here are 4 marketing ideas you can try that are based on location:

1. Give the shopper info when they are in front of the product.
People with smart phones can scan barcodes and get info or discounts. People that use text can send a code or word to trigger a website link.

2. Give the shopper info when they are on your site.
You’ve probably seen a box that says “Enter your zip code to find the store closest to you.” They are on all kinds of sites from grocery stores and restaurants to dealers of automotive mobility solutions.

3. Give the shopper the same info when they come back to your site.
Once they have given you their location you can make sure your website shows location-relevant info every time they return to it.

4. Give the shopper info when they are on the go.
A free wi-fi connection in a coffee shop or cafe is a good way to pinpoint location. There’s also the possibility of using GPS for customers who have opted-in so they could receive a coupon just by walking past your store.

You’ll need to discover what works well with your target market. Do you have more impulsive buyers or more researchers? You also need to have an opt-in program with most of those things. As easy as it is to deliver messages; it’s even easier to really upset people if they can’t stop the messages. Your business can quickly get a bad name. So have an opt-in with an incentive then send good stuff to keep them on your list.

And just because the technology is advancing quickly doesn’t mean you have to eliminate all your printed marketing tools. Here’s a template for some marketing postcards that you can use in your business.

Read the whole story here.