In this post, we shall discuss how small businesses can gain further from location-based functions of networking platforms. You can employ them as able digital replacement for loyalty cards or coupons. Foursquare is intent on enhancing its user base, so it lets businesses offer deals via the ‘manage specials’ segment on venue page at no added cost.

In one of my previous posts, I’ve underlined the importance of checking whether your business is listed on a location-based service platform. Also, be absolutely clear and specific about your goal. In other words, you need to be aware of the objectives to be achieved. There should be a complete clarity on whether you wish to gather more detailed data about your clientele or draw new customers with it. Now, I shall deal with more ideas to make optimum usage of these services.

An avenue to engage customers on the move

Even a smalltime business owner can make use of foursquare to engage key customers increasingly on the move with foursquare ‘Specials’. According to the popular geolocation platform, over 15,000 venues on the site currently offer specials. They consist of loyalty rewards and buy-one-get-one-free offers. These are the prizes and discounts that you can offer most loyal customers once they happen to check in on your foursquare venue.

Show preference to your venue’s Mayor

Do not forget to display preference to your venue’s Mayor (the user having the most check-ins). If you provide your customers with foursquare Specials, you can follow how your venue is doing over time owing to a robust venue analytics structure— for free – for now, at least.

Here is a practical example of how a business can leverage the reach and power of Foursquare.

Mark West made use of Foursquare for enticing existing customers and drawing new ones with a ‘sweet’ offer when he started a chocolate shop located in Palo Alto, Calif. earlier this year. Like most other small local businesses, it serves a rather narrow demographic – in this case, chocolate lovers within only a few miles. In such a scenario, accessing your target audience is not easy. At first, the owner tried out print advertising, but was not happy with the return on his investment (RoI).

He bought a pricey ad for Valentine’s Day in the one of the local publications that too failed to attract many customers. Dejected, he decided to give Foursquare a go, as a last resort, with a promotional offer: buy one truffle, get one free. This promotional message cost literally nothing (baring the expense he had to incur on the free truffles) and drew close to 75 new customers, in no time.

About one-third of the early users soon became regular customers. According to the persevering businessman, the key is to get people here to try out something. Based on his experience he states: “I feel that if you love chocolate, you sure will be back. And from a retail perspective, your hope here is just to get the person to show up, which is among the biggest challenges…