What Best Buy Could Do In Mobile and Location Marketing
I was going through my Twitter stream the other day and noticed a few tweets referencing Foursquare involving BestBuyCMO… Foursquare is undoubtedly getting a ton of press these days, and much of it for good reason… it’s new, interesting and fun, and has a lot of potential and implications for marketers… and did I mention it’s getting a lot of press these days.
As cool as FourSquare is, why stop there… Mr. Best Buy CMO, if you’re listening here is what I think would be a more comprehensive way to use mobile and location data in your business:
First and foremost be sure people can find your stores when they’re looking for them… call Universal Business Listing and Localezeto make sure your complete list of stores and as much information about those stores is correctly propogated out to all the players in the geoweb… oh year and be sure to claim all of your Local Business Listings on Google.
Want to pull more customers into your physical stores from the web and mobile web? Check out folks like milo.com, where customers can search for items carried in your store on the web and then find the closest nearby store where they can walk in and purchase it then and there… or hire some clever local SEO experts and associated content to create massive amounts of web content around all of your most popular products and tie them back to the location of each of your stores… that way digital searches for “Garmin Nuvi Detroit” lead folks to your brick and mortar stores.
Want to better understand the people that already come into your stores why not ask someone like Sense Networks if they can drill down around your stores to see how far folks that are coming to your store are traveling to get there, where they go before and after going to your store, or if there is a nearby roadway that could should be driving more traffic but is not… it may be time to buy a new billboard on that nearby superhighway.
Want to help your suppliers and store management better understand what is selling and why? Why not talk with the folks over at Awhere.com to take a deeper dive into the demographics, weather and a variety of other geographically specific factors occurring in the areas around each store that may be having an impact. Not selling many GPS dog trackers at store #2718? Maybe its because pet ownership in a 50 mile radius of that store only indexes as 28 versus the national average.
Once you’ve got customers in your store why not provide better in store service and create a little mobile store portal to help customers do things like find their way around (Blue Umbrella Indoor Navigation), look up consumer reviews on the items you carry and do price comparisons on items for sale, look at what you have in inventory, and leave feedback for a manager, etc.
In fact, why not just sell virtual digital goods right there in the store through the phone while you’re at it. Why not give Apple a call and remind them about that nifty digital meets physical affiliate marketing patent they filed, and see if you can put it to use by marketing music through listening stations in the store where consumers can download directly to their iPhones while providing Best Buy with a nice high margin affiliate fee for driving the download.
I am sure there is more, but that should be enough to get the ball rolling in 2010.
