16 trends I’ve noticed from marketers attending recent geo / location-based events

Flickr Photo By ashley.adcox

Over the last few weeks team @TriOut (@LawPower, @GreggVM and myself) have been on what seems like a location-based check-in speaking tour. All three of us delivered talks at the NCTech4Good conference on non-profits and location-based applications and yesterday we spoke at the inaugural Marketing Mondays at the RTP headquarters. Two weeks ago TriOut Founder, Lawrence Ingraham spoke at a NC New Tech meetup to a group of VCs. My list of recent speaking opportunities have been focused on location/geo/TriOut as well.  From giving an overview of  what is location-based marketing at the Triangle AMA Social Media Boot Camp, moderating the Triangle Interactive Marketing Associations panel called “Doing business the hyper-local Social Media Way” and participating in a  Social Fresh Panel called The Evolution of Foursquare Marketing. Next for team TriOut we’re speaking at the Triangle AMA’s August Luncheon (8/19), the topic is Location-based marketing, it’s more than simply checking in. You can rsvp here. In October I’m traveling to Miami to speak at Blogalicious a women’s social media diversity conference to cover location-based applications and privacy. We have a few more upcoming speaking events that have yet to be announced as well.

While speaking at the various events on location-based applications/services I’ve noticed a few trends such as majority of the attendees are marketers and some are not using Foursquare or any location-based app themselves. Other trends I’ve noticed from attendees have been that everyone doesn’t have a smart phone and many are looking for use cases/case studies to see why everyone is talking/blogging about location-based applications. Basically they want to know why all of the hype! Majority of the attendees have been women and surprisingly the privacy conversation has come up less than I have expected. I’ve been thinking about some of the questions from the events and created a list of 15 trends I’ve noticed from marketers attending recent geo / location-based events.

1. For many marketers their first location-based application is Foursquare which is 1 1/2 year old
2. Quite a few marketers have never heard of Loopt and/or aware of the fact that it was launched in 2005 and has 4 millions users
3. Most marketers are familiar with the following location-based applications: Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, MyTown and Whrrl.
4. Agencies/Marketers are learning about TriOut via social media channels and/or speaking opportunities the TriOut team have been participating in.
5. Marketers really don’t want another application to have to manage outside of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and WordPress/blogs
6. Marketers are not familiar how location-based tech jargon is used such as geo-fence, check-ins, badges.
7. Marketers are unaware of the fact there are over 67 different location-based applications.
8. Few marketers are thinking about what is the value for the customers and are trying to sell products vs provide a valuable  social experience using location-based applications.
9. Marketers are not taking advantage of location-based applications that provide check-in analytics via dashboards or they’re having a difficult time gaining access to it.
10. Everyone wants an easy way to check-in to multiple location-based applications or have customers to automatically check-in but are not thinking about the user adoption.
11. Agencies/Marketers are trying to understand where does location-based applications fit in with their clients social media strategy.
12. Everyone is excited about the opportunity to use QR codes
13. Most marketers are unaware of Google’s location-based applications and how they work with businesses (Google Places, latitude, tags)
14. Some marketers don’t see the value of location-based apps using game mechanics to gain users
15. Marketers are not thinking long-term relationships with location-based applications and want instant periciatpion from consumers.
16. Everyone is looking for case studies and are trying to duplicate the success stories they read via blogs.

While speaking on location-based apps I try to drive home the message to think about the customer and what can a business/brand provide to a customer to make them want to check-in. Also when it comes to location-based marketing its sometimes about what you can do offline more than online to increase your results of a location-based promotion.

Have you attended a recent meetup/conference/panel on location-based applications? If so what were some of your takeaways?