Location-Based Marketing for Dummies

by Aaron Strout, Mike Schneider

Learn to create a two-way dialog with customers with location-based services and smartphones Location-based services (LBS) have started to gain popularity in the marketplace with more and more businesses starting to incorporate LBS into their marketing mix. This book is a necessary resource for anyone eager to create a two-way dialog with their customers in order to establish customer loyalty programs, drive promotions, or encourage new visitors. You'll learn how to successfully build, launch, and measure a location-based marketing program and figure out which location-based services are right for your business. Packed with resources that share additional information, this helpful guide walks you through the tools and techniques needed to measure all the data that results from a successful location-based marketing program. No matter your location, location-based services can benefit your business and this For Dummies book shows you how!

262 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2011

Reviews

[David Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Location Based Marketing For Dummies by Aaron Strout et al which is a very good book which I bought from Amazon. This book is all about using Location Based Marketing websites to promote your business. The biggest website among these sites is Four Square but Facebook Places if it continues to be integrated with Facebook looks likely to become the biggest. There are lots of sites within this sphere each one a bit different to the rest so it may make sense to market your business on one of these. A lot of these sites integrate with the really big sites like Twitter & Facebook so in a lot of cases people can access relevant information without visiting the LBM site. One way companies can market on these sites is offering virtual gifts to customers. These can be something like a pin with a picture and there is talk about making it possible to trade these gifts. Your business can vary these virtual gifts from week to week and in some cases these have become collector's items. Another way is offering relevant bargains. Often someone will put an update on a site saying they are looking for something and if you offer them the item at a reduction and you are nearby you almost certainly have a sale. To get you started here is a list of LBM sites.

http://foursquare.com

http://yelp.com

http://gowalla.com

http://glympse.com

http://neer.com

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading up on marketing management which is going through a fundamental change. This one around taking advantage of knowing customer's whereabouts thanks for proliferation of smart phone, GPS and social media (e.g. Foursquare). This book is geared toward small businesses - lots of tactical advices and straight forward go-to-market plans. I gave 3 stars because I was looking for more large corporate perspective (e.g. how to integrate location based with all the other channels). All in all, my take away is that location based marketing is a new thing with obviously great potential that are just being figured out.

[Bjorn Hardarson · Rating 4 out of 5]

as always dummies are good