How to Make Your Business Ready for Geo-Location

Geolocation is an emerging marketing trend that small businesses can and should take advantage of, especially because it allows you to get in touch with customers near you, making it highly relevant for local businesses.

Basically, you want to be the first choice for a potential customer looking for your services, and geolocation lets you do that by getting you at the top of their search results.

Here are some easy ways to start.

Make Sure Your Online Presence Is Accurate

Before you do anything, make sure that your business has a presence on online platforms that include maps. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google and Bing Maps, Foursquare, and your social media accounts should all have your physical address somewhere on them.

The big advantage to doing this (aside from being useful to your customers) is that you have an instant edge over your competitors who don’t do this. You’ll rank higher in search engine results, which is always a good thing.

Making sure you are listed in as many places as possible also ensures that your customers can find you no matter what website they prefer to use.

Get Wifi in Your Store

If you want your customers to check in online or share their experience on social media, be sure they can access the internet while they’re doing it! If you don’t have a guest wifi account, get one and post the password prominently near the entrance of the store.

Encourage your customers to post photos online using a hashtag and a location tag!

Make Content and Ads Location-Based

Location-based ads don’t have to be expensive, but they are really effective. Spending on location-based mobile ads is predicted to grow by nearly thirty percent to 29.5 billion dollars in 2020. So it’s nothing to sneeze at!

Location based advertising helps businesses capitalize on local specifics like the weather, pollen count, and local news. If you’re an outdoor gear retailer, for example, your ads could mention upcoming snowstorms or days with high visibility. The consumer gets some useful information and you get to remind them to stock up on gear.

Reward Users for Shopping In-Store

Use a loyalty marketing tool like Kangaroo Rewards to give back to those customers that are already in your store. With unique geo-targeting features, Kangaroo Rewards makes it easy to encourage shoppers to buy by sending out special offers to anyone nearby.

For those users who have already purchased something, you can encourage them to share an offer with their nearby friends or on social media.

Geolocation lets your customers share where they physically are, have fun, and develop a closer relationship with a brick and mortar location, a type of advertising that’s less and less common in the world of online shopping.

These tips are easy to use and accessible for all, and we hope we’ve shown that geolocation isn’t as daunting as it might sound. Take these few easy steps and get your online mobile presence squared away so that future customers are as ready for this emerging technology as your business is!

** This was a blog post original written for my client Kangaroo Rewards