Mobile Phone Apps - Augmented reality and Location based marketing Apps
You may of heard about augmented reality apps for the IPhone and if you have not you soon will. Find out how to get your business registered on IPhone Apps and how location based marketing can help your business.
Social networking has finally become something valuable for brick-and-mortar businesses. Smartphones and location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media can mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners.
So-called “lo-so” networks like Foursquare (Foursquare), Loopt, and Gowalla (Gowalla) enable any business with a physical location to not only communicate with customers online, but actually get more of them to walk in the door — and that’s exciting.
Augmented reality Apps / Location based marketing Apps
1. Yelp - A great looking, easy to use free app that allows you to search for your desired location via categories. (Even Billy Bunters Sandwich shop is registered on here!)
2. Foursquare - Foursquare is a fun to use app, that allows you to check-in to locations. If you are the first person to check in to a location you are rewarded by becoming the 'mayor' of your location. Foursquare will also record the number of times you have checked in and display the activities of other users that have logged into the same location.
3. Gowalla - A great looking app that works very similar to YELP. Gowalla allows you to add pictures to you specific location, check in and find the nearest 'spots' (store, place of interest) from your current location.
4. Brightkite - Allows you to discover what is happening around you. Check in to a location, leave a message or leave an image to increase your networking power.
How can location based marketing apps help you?
- Checking in - Why not offer a special discount to returning customers? If your customer has checked in a number of times reward them. A busy shop looks great and your customers are valuable, make them feel valued.
- Post Discount code - Post discount codes from your location giving a reward for customers that take a look at your shop via Yelp.
Common promotions across various networks include the following:
- Raffles (e.g. “Every person who checks in gets a chance to win an iPod or Google Adwords voucher”)
- Specials for the user who checks in most often. This is a staple of Foursquare promos for a lot of venues (e.g. “Top user/mayor gets the first drink free every time he/she comes in.”)
- First check in specials (e.g. “Get 30% off your order when you check in for the first time.”)
- Digital punch cards (e.g. “Check in 5 times, get a free coffee, discount on a game, Snooker Cue”)
Registering your business
- Registering your business is a process that is included in our Internet Marketing package. Knowing the most popular apps is important for example did you know FourSquare users increased by 100,000 users this week! (24/03/2010)
For more information contact Brick Technology on 01254 277190
A bit of fun.........
Augmented reality and location based marketing will play a big part in marketing over the next couple of years. During the promotion of Transformers 2 a site was launched using augmented reality technology. If you have a web cam at home why not take a look at www.weareautobots.com