In Las Vegas during Pubcon 2015, I had the opportunity to chat with Casey Markee of MediaWYSE and Pierre Zarokian of Submit Express about the rise of hyperlocal marketing. Specifically, we discussed the roles of beacon technology and online reviews in local marketing.
Casey shared his experience with beacons and how they are providing businesses with an edge, while Pierre shared his expertise on local reviews.
Learn how both tactics can help you succeed in local marketing in the videos below.
Here are some key takeaways from the videos:
Casey Markee on Beacon Technology:
- Casey contends that if Bluetooth-enabled beacon technology isn’t on your business’s radar, it really should be.
- Beacon technology allows businesses to send highly targeted offers directly to the smartphones of people within range of the beacon.
- Messages are relayed from beacons to smartphones via Bluetooth, meaning only people with their Bluetooth turned on will receive the messages.
- With beacon technology, the aim is not to overwhelm people with notifications but to fulfill a need when a customer may be most responsive. Achieving success with beacon technology involves sending out timely and relevant notifications.
Pierre Zarokian on Reputation Management:
- Negative reviews are always a concern, but if someone outright lies in a review and you can prove it, it’s possible to get those malicious reviews removed.
- Respond to reviews, both positive and negative. In addition to the relationship-building aspects of responding to positive reviews, adding a response allows you the opportunity to insert more keywords on your review page.
- An effective way to encourage customer reviews is to send out surveys asking how satisfied customers are with your service. You can leave it completely objective, or with certain software, you can set it so only happy customers are asked to write reviews afterward.
- Besides the giants like Yelp and TripAdvisor, another local review site businesses should monitor is Angie’s List, which is often overlooked.
For more video interviews, visit SEJ’s YouTube page.
