8 Mar 2010
Mobile ads
I went to Patxi Chicago Pizza with a friend not too long ago, and we split a one of their signature deep dish pizzas. In between shoving down slices of pure heaven, we checked in via FourSquare and received notice that we’d get a free fountain drink for checking in. Too bad our mouths were too full for us to say anything to the waitress.
Some of the other deals available on FourSquare revolve around offers to the mayor, but it seems to me that the emphasis should be on getting customers who are not frequenters to frequent more. I don’t mean to be a heartless businessman, and I am all for rewarding customer loyalty, but it’s likely that you don’t need to spend much money to entice your mayor into coming in more. In fact, in the case of bars, if someone is the mayor of a joint, they’re probably getting enough free drinks already just out of knowing the bartenders there.
Something that I envision is a check-in system, not tied to a specific establishment, but to some geographical area like a neighborhood. I’d also like to make it seamless for businesses to run promotions on a minute-by-minute basis. Then, if the restaurant A16 has determined that it’s slow and would like to offer 2-1 drink special for the next two hours, they can do so for anyone who checks in in the Marina neighborhood.
The mayor concept is fun and maybe makes FourSquare more used, but I’m not sure it should be the primary target for advertising specials.
