Two new services that have recently been launched – one that’s already here in the UK and one no doubt to follow very soon – are bringing the power of location-based marketing alive.
Here in the UK, O2 has recently announced the launch of a six-month pilot scheme of location-based mobile marketing, in partnership with US firm Placecast. Customers can opt in to the service, by registering on o2more.co.uk, that will then see them receive relevant marketing messages, depending on their age, gender, interests and location.
The service uses Placecast’s geo-fencing technology meaning that when users enter a geo-fenced area ‘owned’ by participating advertisers, they will receive promotions and discounts via SMS and MMS.
Then at a recent gathering at their Palo Alto offices, Facebook announced an extension to their Places feature. Now businesses will have the ability to offer deals to users who ‘check in’ using the site’s Places feature.
One of the first partnerships Facebook announced was with the Gap. It plans to run a campaign offering a free pair of jeans to the first 10,000 users who check in to their local Gap store using Facebook’s mobile application.