Location based mobile apps

Loyalty programs or lead generation? you make the call. But I know I wasn’t headed in that direction until I checked in to Foursquare, Gowalla, shopkick, Loopt or one of the other geo-location services.
Critics have been quick to point out defects in the location-based strategy. Yes, the incentive to check in is pretty thin when your only reward is a badge or some other sort of honorific.
And, yes, the number of people who have downloaded the apps to their phones is relatively small. Foursquare, the category leader, has about 5 million downloads worldwide. That’s a sliver of the 60 million smartphone users in the U.S. alone—and doesn’t even take in the much larger U.S. audience (170 million or so) who are still using regular feature phones and can’t access the app.
The question is, are those objections true for your business? If you had customers who would respond to a location-based game and you could find a way to give them something valuable as a reward, would they check in?
They have for Murphy USA, a gas retailer based in El Dorado, Ark., that operates more than 1,000 kiosk-style gas outlets, most located next to or near Wal-Mart’s big boxes. Buying gas is not exactly the kind of activity you’d expect to tweet to your pals, or even enjoy. And frugal Wal-Mart shoppers might not seem a target audience
for a campaign that requires a smartphone and some mobile savvy.
Nevertheless, the company ran a promotion last July on the Whrrl location-based social network. Users who downloaded the app could check in at the pump and win instant prizes, from free beverages and discounts to a daily $50 gas giveaway.
Murphy, already active increating loyalty among brand fans, publicized the campaign on Facebook and Twitter. It also put up a point-of-sale message at the pumps, with instructions on how new users could get engaged with the Murphy community on Whrrl—or “society,” as the groups are known on the platform—and what they stood to win.
Customers who checked into the Murphy Whrrl society visited four times a month on average, and almost half of those checking in bellied up to the pump an average of six times a month. What’s more, the average fill-up ticket per visit by Whrrl users was $30—twice the industry average.
But the most amazing result was that the check-in drove new customer acquisition at an astounding rate. During the pilot period, 44 percent of those checking in to the brand’s society on Whrrl had never been to a Murphy station before.
Going with a location-based strategy was perhaps counter-intuitive. Murphy USA tracks Wal-Mart demographically and geographically, so the average customer is going to be female with a family. According to a Pew Internet survey in November, only 3 percent of women have used check-in services on mobile, compared with 6 percent of men.
On the other hand, an earlier survey by game maker PopCap found that 55 percent of the player base for social games—like FarmVille and Mafia Wars—are women, and their average age is 43. So maybe the best approach is to ignore the polls and the wisdom about edgy tactics and simply go out, see what your target prospects respond to and build a mobile promotion around that.