Nucleus - Marketing and Design Newsletter

With the rapid growth of location-based services (LBS) like Groupon, LivingSocial, FourSquare and GoWalla, it’s not surprising that marketers are exploring how LBS can be successfully implemented within their own marketing plans. Though still in its infancy, location-based marketing is a trend with which marketers should familiarize themselves.

For B2C marketers, the way is fairly clear. Through an opt-in service, marketers can now access location data from cell phone users and send them on-the-spot offers or campaign messages when they come in range of a business.  Alistair Goodman, CEO of Placecast, a location-based mobile marketing company pioneering such advertising initiatives says , “It is becoming clear to retailers that location-based services is an important key to driving foot traffic among consumers who are in the mindset to make a purchase.”4

For B2B marketers, the benefits may not be as obvious, but being prepared to leverage a trend that will only gain momentum is critical.  In the B2B arena, you might use your understanding of your customers’ personalities, habits and motivations to identify places those customers might frequent and use LBS to connect with them – on their own turf, so to speak. Or you could use LBS at a trade show or event to drive traffic to your booth in order to “activate” a discount or some other incentive.

One thing for sure … it’s not too early to consider how you can use location-based services to reach prospects and customers with targeted, timely messaging about your business.

1 http://bit.ly/mobithinkingstats
2 http://on.mash.to/mobistudy 
3 http://tcrn.ch/foursquareusers 
4 http://bit.ly/mobilemarkterlbs