Adding Game Mechanics and Location To Loyalty Cards

Following on from my last blog Adding Location to Loyalty Cards, an area that I feel is really important is game mechanics. One of the problems with loyalty cards is that they are inherently boring and there are lots of them. We live in a world of constant distraction and we want instant gratification. However that gratification doesn’t have to be a free air ticket or turbo food processor with Ginzu knives. It can be as simple as points or recognition and applications today need to evolve as the public become more tech savvy on their mobiles.

What is game mechanics and how is it relevant? Playing games is part of who we human animals are. Games are a natural part of entertainment and education, whether it is a child doing its first jigsaw puzzle, or the All Blacks heading into a rugby match at that international world competition for a cup. Yes, ultimately no matter how passionate we are about success, Graham Henry and the NZRFU themselves said “It’s just a game.”

Games are immensely popular and computer and mobile  offers massive revenue potential. Gartner predicts that the global video game industry on its own will generate revenues of over US$112 billion by 2015. That doesn’t even take into consideration mobile. Application developers have been all over Facebook, now on Google+ and on devices such as iPhone, iPad and Android and now developers of smart location based games and marketing applications are heading the same way.

Developers are looking to use our interest and passion for playing games to influence the behaviour of consumers and it is working. One obvious area is in the retail, travel, tourism, attraction, hospitality and entertainment industries. Of course as I have outlined in many recent blogs, loyalty is a key aspect that all of these industries are looking for, or in other words, profitable repeat business.

So what aspects should a loyalty application include. A major one is achievements. I’ve talked about reward and that rewards don’t have to be tangible items. A reward can be points such as the points used by Foursquare when you check into a location. They also have badges and mayorships which are either the reward itself or their may be special deals or offers made to those people who come in regularly. The new Tap City game allows you to earn virtual dollars for checking in. One of the great things about group loyalty operations is the ability to cross market, for example using a passport concept where the more locations you check in to, the more rewards you get.

The appointment dynamic is extremely powerful. This is where you want people to do something at either a predetermined time or an ad hoc time. For example a restaurant that is always quiet between 3PM and 5PM on a particular day of the week might offer incentives within the application to get more business at that time of day. The concept I like the most, is pushing deals when you have inventory you want to use in a hurry. An example might be the special of the day in a restaurant where you haven’t sold as much as you catered for. The classic story I often use of a jet boat that is going out in 20 minutes with 5 empty seats. This is a perfect opportunity to push a deal to people who are close by and have opted in to be offered deals. The cost differential between having 4 or 9 passengers is negligible but the fun and entertainment factor of 9 people screaming as the boat does a 360 degree spin is significantly greater for all, including the 4 who paid full price. There is also a potential dynamic of more people seeing them having fun and therefore wanting to have a go themselves. The same could apply to any attraction, like the luges in Auckland and Queenstown.

Queenstown Luge

I can come up with a hundred concepts for different types of locations for cafe’s, restaurants, attractions, theatres, travel, accommodation, entertainment, retail, sport, tourism and so can you.

I will continue this blog next week with more thoughts on game mechanics or gamification that you might like to consider in your location based application. Remember, GeoSmart has all the data and tools you ned to make these ideas possible and whilst we don’t develop these sorts of applications ourselves, we have many partners who are keen to assist you if you want to take advantage of the opportunities now possible because of the large number of people using location aware mobiles. The question is how much extra business would you like?

Maybe you would like to join the discussion and leave a comment of your own to add to the mix?

Retailers are not flocking to take advantage of free check in marketing services

I did some research looking for New Zealand business success stories with check in marketing. I really struggled to find any. I went and visited a number of businesses in retail and hospitality and most of them didn’t know what foursquare was. One gentleman in a cafe told me he knew about it, but was too busy to learn how to do it. I pointed out that it was really easy, but he said he really didn’t have time and then sat down to have a coffee with one of his customers. I understand on further research that this is how he keeps a loyal clientele which is great, but he could always find a student or someone else to do it for him.

I spoke to a number of people in retail that gave me a similar story. It seems, as is often the case that most managers are too busy working on their business to work in it. This is a trap in my humble opinion. It’s common knowledge that businesses like cafe’s and restaurants to name a couple, change hands about every 18 months, a classic bell curve that starts with ambitions and energy, hard work, great service and develops cash flow. Then they get into a pattern or flow of how they do business, stop innovating, perhaps stop having fun and start telling themselves how hard business is. When they started fresh, people enjoyed the new business, new products and faces and the passion flowing from the owner and staff.

The thing is, we have an amazing opportunity to capitalise on location here. Remember the old rule of successful retail “Location, Location, Location”? Well it isn’t enough to stay fresh these days. As consumers we are spoiled for choices and sometimes we need a push to either stay loyal, or to try something new. Location Based Marketing is as simple as going to foursquare and claiming your business. To be honest, claiming your business can be a little difficult in New Zealand from a validation perspective if you are in a non residential street (where NZ Post do not deliver mail) and I have tried to contact them about this, but you should persist.

The great thing with foursquare for now is that they provide you with lots of very easy ways to set up promotion. You really don’t even have to be marketing savvy, it’s all laid out for you. Go and have a look and check  out the Manager Tools. It is so easy. If you need more help, follow this blog and we will explain how to do it.

People are checking into your store and stores near you all the time, why not give them a reason to come into yours, unless you have more customers than you can deal with. The numbers of people using check in services is growing greatly.

Have a look at the bell curve above and imagine this is your business. How long have you been in business? Have a look at your financials, now see if you can plot them on the curve. Is business growing? Are you on the rise? Have you peaked, would you like to keep the rise going? If you are reading this, maybe you have made some time to work on your business, which is great. Know someone in business who could use a little help? Tell them about this blog. There is more information coming on how to do these things.

If you are already using check in services for your business, we would love you to leave a comment. If you are part of a chain or collaborative group and are not currently doing anything in this area, or and agency wanting ideas for your client, GeoSmart would love to help point you in the right direction. We don’t create loyalty applications, but we have business partners and clients who do. We also welcome questions.

I’ll leave you with a link to an article on BusinessDay News which suggests that Location Based Marketing could be worth US$6.2 Billion within a few years. Maybe there is something to it? Would you like a slice?

Crossing the Chasm with Mobile Marketing

Location is everywhere. A large number of people now use mobile phones which are location aware through a number of technologies, most well known are GPS and GPS Assist. Some location based technologies such as car navigation are now well accepted, so the market has a general understanding of the concepts.
There is a chasm between people who use this technology regularly because they are in key industries where the applications have been adopted as a matter of course such as people in ICT and Marketing. Many bricks and mortar businesses such as retail, hospitality and tourism are only barely aware that these technologies exist.
Effective use of location or proximity based marketing solutions can have a significant impact on the profitability of many bricks and mortar companies who not only have to compete with each other, but also with Internet based retailers and wholesalers.
There are many existing applications such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla and more which can be used by these businesses, however most business managers are unaware of the technologies, intimidated by them and to busy working in their businesses instead of on them. This presents significant opportunities for developers and the businesses themselves to take an early adopter advantage. It also displays a need for market education as to the technology and how to use it in each unique business. GeoSmart of course has web services and API’s that developers can use to create their own apps, particularly in New Zealand and Australia.

I will be exploring these issues over the coming weeks on this blog. Please bookmark or use the RSS feed if this is of interest to you.

We are presenting on Location and Collaboration at Auckland ICT 25 November, come join us

Luigi Cappel  from GeoSmart will be presenting a paper on ‘A case study on building business through cooperation – even among fierce rivals’ at 5PM on Friday 25 November at Massey University. This is an Auckland ICT Cluster event which is open to all comers. You can find details here.

The ICT world is changing rapidly. From or perspective of course Location Based Services is the key. Everything these days is about location. Our mobiles know where we are as do many other devices. Location impacts every aspect of our business and personal lives. It impacts on our activities, our associations, social networking, marketing, business intelligence and this opens so many opportunities for New Zealand businesses.

Collaboration is the key focus of our presentation and the goal of the presentation is to facilitate activity amongst the attendees through breakout groups with a view to making some new business opportunities happen. So many of us have pieces of the puzzle and when we combine them we can create new products, solutions and business opportunities.

The presentation will discuss new business models of collaboration and coopetition and include case studies where GeoSmart has successfully partnered with companies in NZ and overseas to mutual benefit.

Attendees are encouraged to think about their capabilities and interests before the evening and add to a seek and offer sheet so they can have an idea before the event who will be attending and where potential collaboration opportunities are, so they can make the most of the ‘collaboration speed dating’ component and generate some positive outcomes after the meeting.

This is an interesting and exciting opportunity to network and participate and perhaps turn some great ideas into reality. I hope to see you there.

Listen to Echoes from Woices – Ideas for the Location Innovation Awards

Have you registered for the Location Innovation Awards? It’s not too late.  The Location Innovati0n Awards don’t close until February 16.

Recently I came across a site that shows potential, but they are not yet using GPS or mobile. Nevertheless, their concept is very good. In simple terms Woices allows you to record comments on the net about places that you have been to, called ‘Echoes’. Using reverse geocoding you can tag the location to  a map so that people can go to a map and see the locations that have ‘Echoes’ and then listen to them.

From a Location Innovation Awards perspective, this would be a great concept to make mobile. Whether it’s through GPS or triangulation, it would be a simple thing to create an application that takes advantage of the mobile knowing it’s position, recording a voice message and a photo and then uplocaing it to a website.

The concept of a social community sharing information is becoming commonplace, but most of these applications are web based. This is fine when you are planning a trip, but could be much better if it was made more mobile.

When I travel overseas and am looking for accomodation or activities, I check them out on Travelocity. The reason I do this is because the public can upload comments. Last year I had a short holiday in jamaica and found this system very helpful. For example the first resort I looked up in Montego Bay looked great on the hotel’s website, but the comments said things like, “If you are single and want to party 24 hours a day, this place was made for you. Don’t bring your kids. ” Using people’s comments I found the perfect resort and it was exactly what the comments said it would be and I was very happy with my selection.

Mobility means you can do much more. For example let’s say you are in Rotorua and looking for somewhere to have a brunch. Using your mobile you could search for cafe’s or restaurants within a kilometer of where you are and listen to the ‘Echoes’ other people had left. For example “great food but it took an hour to get it to the table’.

From a tourism perspective, sharing information that you can access from your phone could be great. I was talking to someone recently who went on a motorhome tour of New Zealand and they told me that some of the best places they stopped for the night weren’t marked on any maps, they found out about them from other motorhomers who told them where to find spots where they could park by the water and enjoy wonderful sunsets. A GPS mobile application could allow you to locate all sorts of interesting places based on the recommendations of others.

Voice messages like this can be in multiple languages and would allow you to enjoy high tech results without requiring you to have computing skills  or sophisticated technology. In addition to info from fellow travellers, this is also a great opportunity for locals to share information with travellers about local history, amenities and attractions and people have already started doing this on Woices.

A concept like this in a mobile environment would fit into several categories of the Location Innovation Awards, including the best Tourism Application and the AA Maps Widgets which could earn you a luxury adventure in a Maui Camper.

Location Innovation Awards

The Location Innovation Awards are off to a great start. So far we have had 18 entries in only 3 weeks which is wonderful.

Over the last 2 weeks we have presented to ITC students at Massey Unversity, Raffles College and the Axcel Institute and in each case students were told that they can use their entry as part of their university assignments, which is fantastic. It gives students several opportunities.

• The can create the future technology they would like to use
• Use the skills and technology they have studied
• Gain experience with new tools and concepts
• Win great prizes including a trip to the 2009 Where 2.0 conference in San Jose where they can mix and mingle with industry leaders such as Google and Yahoo
• Gain recognition and future career opportunities
• Potentially create an business for themselves commercialising their ideas

As well as the main prize and four category prizes, we are also offering 3 prizes for the best student entries. There are no age requirements so entries will also be accepted from secondary or other school students.

Is your business listed in car navigation?

A few weeks ago we advised that you can have a free map of your business location on your website, complete with driving directions from anywhere in New Zealand. A lot of companies have taken us up on our offer and we would love more people to take advantage of it.

Another feature of the AA Maps Bizlocator is that your company location information will also be provided to the major car navigation brands in New Zealand. Even if you don’t have a website, or don’t want a map of your business location on your site, you can still register your business location on the form, which you can find by clicking on the button that says ‘Add Your Business For Free’ on the AA Maps web page.

By completing your information and after validation, your companies details will be included in the Points of Interest data we supply to all the major car navigation brads including Navman, TomTom, Nav N Go, Horizon, BMW, Siemens VDO and more. This means that if people are in their car looking for your type of business, they will be able to find it and be conveniently guided to your door.

It doesn’t matter what your business is, it could be a cafe, a stationery shop, a dentist or pretty much anything. Car navigation systems allow people to search for businesses by category, close to where the car is at the time or close to the destination the driver is going to.

For example, let’s say someone is going to Rotorua for a sporting event and they need to buy some new runners or a spare bike tyre, they can then find your business without any local knowledge or needing the Internet or a phone book.

The service to you is totally free, the only catch is that you have to log on to your free account at AA Maps at least once a year to confirm that your information is still current.