Geolocation Services: Find a Smartphone, Find a Customer

You should read this article.  Especially if you’re clueless.  It’s a great primer.

I’ll excerpt the two paragraphs that jumped out at me:

"Mark West used Foursquare to entice customers with a sweet offer. Mr. West opened Monique’s Chocolates, a chocolate shop in Palo Alto, Calif., in January. Like many small businesses, the shop serves a narrow demographic – chocolate lovers who live within a few miles – and reaching its target audience is tricky.

At first, Mr. West tried print advertising, but was disappointed by the return on his investment. For Valentine’s Day, he bought a $360 ad in the local newspaper that attracted only about five customers; another ad in a local magazine cost $300 and drew only one customer.

Shortly afterward, Mr. West went on Foursquare and offered a promotion: buy one truffle and get one free. The promotion cost nothing (other than the expense of the free truffles) and attracted about 60 new customers, about one-third of whom have become regulars.

‘My key is to get you here to try something,’ said Mr. West. ‘I feel that if you like chocolate you’ll be back. From a retail perspective, your big hope is just to get the guy to show up. That’s the biggest challenge.’"

In other words, old wave advertising doesn’t work.  You go through the motions, you buy the space, but you get no results.  Maybe you change your creative, change your team, but the problem is your entire philosophy.

You reach people today via the Internet.  Both on their computers and handhelds.

"Recently, the bar’s managers noticed that check-ins declined after 2 a.m. on Saturdays. In response, the Destination Bar started holding a late-night happy hour – spreading the word through social media. A rise in check-ins and sales followed. ‘I look at the Foursquare check-ins as a representation, like the Nielsen ratings,’ Mr. Maccarone said. ‘You can tell a lot about your audience based on the breakdown of the people who are checking in because they are a good sample set of your regular customer base.’"

Needless to say, geolocation services are great for anybody in traditional bricks and mortar retail.  If you’ve still got a record shop, utilize them.

But this is especially great for live venues.  Get people to come in, give them rewards.

They said the Internet was antisocial, that no would leave his house, that people would no longer speak to each other.  This is the kind of hogwash the old wave media prognosticators put forth, they’re clueless!  Of course, the underlying product is key.  But record companies have execs making deals and then too few twentysomethings who know how to work the social media game to artists’ advantage.

I’d say to change the compensation system.  Incentivize the young ‘uns.  Come work for us and we’ll pay you on results, how much revenue we reap.  And grant you stock too.

All the best and the brightest are in tech, not music.  Primarily because the baby boomers froze them out of music.  Which is why the baby boomer enterprises are in trouble.  Because no one wants to work for them, everybody wants to do it their own way.

Yes, music is not like Facebook.  In so many apps, from Facebook to Twitter, it’s the public that enters the information, that provides the creativity.  In music, it’s dependent upon the artist.  But music is not utilitarian, it’s an extra, that people have to be led to.  And that’s where the new social media marketing techniques are key.

And the goal is not to dun those not interested into playing, that game no longer works in an unlimited universe.  Now you’ve got to get people to stick to you, and slowly grow your key tribe.  It’s not only music and tickets, but so much more.  You’re creating a club.

So, do it for yourself.  Create check-in points from your history, allow people to see your roots.  Don’t depend on the fat cats, they don’t seem to get it.

P.S. Don’t worry so much about getting paid!  Like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, focus on building a sticky platform/attraction first.  The money will come after!  It may not even come in ways you can foresee!  Stop talking about getting paid and start building your tribe!  Fans of acts will give them ALL their money.  Then again, listening to a track once, enduring it on the radio, is different from becoming a fan.  If you’re not in the fan business, you don’t have a career.  And if you don’t have a career, you’re not gonna make any money, not for long anyway.