Wednesday 22 August 2012

Improve your small business with location services

In today's world of online selling, consumer location plays a huge role in marketing your products and bringing customers to your front door. However, only ecommerce stores that also have a bricks and mortar business can actually reap the rewards of it. More so than any other location service, social media has taken up a primary chunk of your marketing strategy as it's varying location services can help pull a ton of traffic into your store. What's more is that any campaign you look to establish for your business through social media pretty much costs nothing.

How location marketing works is that when a social media user visits one of your establishments, such as a restaurant or clothing store, they may use their mobile devices to post a status stating what they are up to. The location services on these social commerce platforms gives users the ability to tag a certain location in their post. This means that when someone linked to their profile looks at their status post, they will see that they are at your establishment. This will result in you gaining some free marketing as everyone on their friends list then instantly becomes aware of your business.

You may find that some person are generally reluctant to tag certain locations to their statuses as they do not want people to know where they are. While this is a perfectly fine reason for this, you can look to encourage users to tag your store in their location by giving them some form of incentive. This could be a competition for example, where someone who has tagged your store's location on a social media status will be entered into a draw from the chance to win something for your store such as store credit or a particular item. 

While this encourages people to promote your bricks and mortar business, it's primary focus is to generate traffic to your online store. When someone reads a status update about a place of business, it is unlikely that they are going to grab their coat and run out the door to visit your buiness. However what it does is make people aware of your business, creating a brand identity. These people will then either click on your business's tag and view your social media page or type your store name into a search engine. Like creating a social media fan or business page, this provides a great source to generate continuous traffic streams to your online store and this is has all been done without you spending a single penny.

One thing you always need to remember is that it isn't just your customers who can tag your business through location marketing. If you have your own personal social media account or have employees who always also use social media, get them to tag their location in a status when they are work, meaning that everyone on your friends list becomes instantly aware of your business even if you don't have a bricks and mortar business.


eSellution: www.eSellution.co.uk

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