Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

Is CheckPoints Showing the Way Forward for Location Based Services?

Despite there being 6.5 million users on Foursquare and almost a million users on Gowalla, location based services still haven’t enjoyed the uptake of other social network sites.

Most reasons cite the lack of innovation from marketing companies and businesses using these services, saying there aren’t any real incentives to check into locations just to receive bland rewards.

Although Facebook has entered the fray with Facebook Places, there’s still a lot of confusion about the benefits of location based services for both users and businesses trying to attract these users.

This has led to the apathy that’s starting to hang around the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla and more.

It’s this apathy and feeling of blandness that CheckPoints is trying to shake up with their approach.

Shopping Rewards and Points Systems

Built by a family-owned enterprise in Venice, California, CheckPoints tries to counter the boring Mayor rewards that many businesses use on Foursquare, and offer more relevant rewards based on the user’s preferences.

The way CheckPoints works is simple:

Download the CheckPoints app.
Go shopping at your favourite mall.
Use CheckPoints to see if there are any promotions in the area.
Use your phone to scan the barcode of a product.
Scanning gives you points, which you can redeem for gift certificates, electronics, air miles and more.

Companies taking part in the CheckPoints rewards program include Amazon, GameStop, iTunes, Nieman Marcus, Bose, Louis Vuitton and more.

You can also redeem your points for good, with KIVA, AID Haiti, Research Breast Cancer and other non-profit organizations benefiting from your shopping and scanning habits.

Building the Loyalty Mindset

It’s this approach that puts CheckPoints a little bit ahead of the game when comparing it to the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla and other similar services.

By offering you the choice on where you redeem the points you’ve accrued, and on what, CheckPoints is taking the same approach as loyalty card programs. This is one of the biggest (yet underused) markets for many businesses – after all, who doesn’t want loyal customers?

Additionally, tying in the non-profit angle is genius. People want to give and help; it’s in our nature. The problem is, we don’t always do so because we’re not sure how to. CheckPoints makes it easy to support charity while doing what we normally do, so it’s a win-win all round.

So CheckPoints seems the natural progression for location based services, right? Yes and no.

What Benefit to the Retailers?

I had a look around the CheckPoints site, and I couldn’t see anything that said you need to make a purchase to get points added to your account.

So where’s the benefit for the retailer? Yes, they’re getting extra foot traffic through their doors. But if I don’t need to buy anything, and just scan a product for my points to be added, then what does the retailer get out of it? There’s no sale, so no profit.

Additionally, the service is only available in the U.S. at the minute, so users in Canada, Germany and the U.K miss out (these are countries where those types of services have the most uptake). And then there’s Japan, where location based services are huge – so a big market being missed (for now).

Also, I’d like CheckPoints to recognize my scanning habits, and react accordingly – just show me relevant offers as opposed to all offers (something we’re working on at Bonsai with a couple of apps that are in beta at the minute). Making it relevant makes it useful – otherwise it’s just another mobile app.

CheckPoints definitely has a lot going for it, and I really like the way you choose your rewards, as opposed to being told you get a free coffee for being Mayor of Beanville.

If they can address the profit benefit to retailers, as well as really amp up the relevance – and grab that global audience – then it might just be the next logical step for location based services.

And for many mobile location users, that can’t come soon enough…

This post contains a video. If you can’t see it displayed properly in your feed, you can view it directly here.

Are You Telling or Asking?

When was the last time someone asked you what you want? What you?d prefer to have, over what their perception thinks you?d like to have?

Are you looked after by the services you use on a regular basis? If not, why not ? isn?t it about time you were?

I?m a business owner, but I?m also a consumer and a customer. So why am I told what I need instead of being asked what I need, as a customer?

When I go to a store to buy goods or services, I?m offered AirMiles as an incentive. But if I don?t fly often, what good is that to me?

When I receive an email to fill out a business survey I?m offered Barnes & Noble gift vouchers, but I?ve never shopped there in my life. Are they really incentives?

There are countless communication methods to speak with your customers and ask what they want. You have mailing lists to stay in touch with your most loyal ? use them. Customer service questionnaires, website forms, Twitter, telephone calls ? make it your task to ask.

Speak to your customers and instead of offering non-essential incentives, and offer something they would use. How many of your customers drive? Wouldn?t a gas loyalty card offer with a certain level of purchase be a better incentive to spend money with you?

Frequent flyers part of your customer base? Instead of offering a discount at just a specific store within the airport, how about a discount in any shop within the airport? Leave the choice to your customer as opposed to making the choice for them.

Good business sense is all about listening. Where are your listening posts?

image: Dan Morelle

Common Courtesy? Yes Please, Thank You!

This is a guest post from Ingrid Abboud.

You’re at a dinner and someone compliments the outfit that took you 20 minutes to pick out. What do you say?

You’ve written an article which took you 15 minutes to research and another 30 minutes to write. Your friend likes it and shares it with some of his friends. What do you say?

Besides the Ghost Busters tune that’s now ringing in your head, err…at least in mine, do you get where I’m going with this?

Great, I had no doubt that you would.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching on how you should live your life and this is NOT another post on Twitter Etiquettes.

Let’s face it, we’ve all read enough of those to conclude for ourselves that:

Although there are preferred tweeting methods and friendly guidelines – there is no specific, agreed upon, set of rules.
Your technique may rock for you and your twitterverse – but it may suck for others.
No matter what and how you tweet – you can’t please everyone.
Common sense and courtesy may not always be applied. But then again, you should already know that by simply being alive.

Common Courtesy

Speaking of common courtesy, how many of you say “thank you” for retweets when you think it’s appropriate?

“Joey put your hand down for Pete’s sake, this isn’t grade school! I know you do.”

“Troy, don’t think I haven’t noticed you cheers’ing me in the @mentions a few times .”

“And Danny, we all know that behind the badass facade, is the most genuine of nice guys who never takes his friends and readers for granted.”

Now, if you know me well enough, you know that I say “thank you” somehow.

I may miss a few here and there, and that’s okay. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try my best. Hell, I even say “thank you” for #FF’s, especially if someone’s gone the extra step and added a little something to it.

It’s common courtesy folks and it goes a long way.

If someone’s taken the time to read and RT an article of mine, I’m gonna take 5 seconds to thank them – either through a @reply or a DM. Although, I don’t know whether they actually read it or not, I do know that for whatever reason, they thought it worthy of sharing.

So what do I do?

@DannyBrown: Hey Bonsai Boy. Thanks a lot for the RT on my Bring IT! post. Have a great week. Cheers.

That took all of 5 seconds to type.

Was it painful? No! Was it polite? Yes! Does it express my gratitude? Yes! Will Danny appreciate it? Probably.

Now if you plan on arguing that some people get RT’d 700 times and that it’s hard to keep up then, sure…I hear you and I agree. But let me ask you this – how many of you reading this piece get their blog posts retweeted 700 times? 300 times?

Hmm…that’s what I thought; not many.

Unless you’re someone like Godin, Brogan, Clark or Rowse, I sincerely doubt that the twitterverse goes into “RT-mania mode” every time you publish a post. But in case it does, then spill your guts and tell me your potion, cause I’m jealous but I’m all ears!

Clutter, Schmutter

Do “thank you’s” clutter a stream?

Well, if you’re looking at it that way, then everything is clutter. The noise is everywhere you turn. Twitter is one big chatter box and if you don’t like it then I suggest you consider a different “non-social” information network.

Seeing “thank you’s” in someone’s stream, only enhances it. It shows they’re human; it means they interact and care. Because if they didn’t give a whoop about their posts being retweeted, they wouldn’t have a tweet button on their blog now, would they?

In his panel discussion with Joe Hackman, Danny Brown said, “You’re only as influential as your audience allows you to be.”

How long do you think your audience will stick around if you don’t show them you’re listening or that you appreciate them? Granted, there are many other ways to do so.

That being said, I don’t hold it against you if you don’t thank me on Twitter. You’re probably doing something else that I like. After all, we all have our different ways or techniques that work for us.

Suh..weet Alternatives

So, if you’re not the “thank you” type of Twitterer for whatever reason – why not consider doing something else to show your appreciation?

Here are a few great alternatives which I sometimes use that work just as well.

Visit their blog and RT one of their posts
Leave a comment on a post I enjoyed
Subscribe to their blog
Link to a noteworthy article that they wrote
Give them an #FF shout out
Follow them back if I don’t already (if their Twitter profile interests me)
Vote for their blog post on SERPd
Stumble one of their blog posts
If I like their writing style, I can invite them to guest post for me (once I open my blog for GP’s)

Now it’s your turn to share…

Do you thank people when they RT your blog post?
Does it depend on who RT’d it?
What else do you do to reciprocate the gesture?

About the author: Ingrid Abboud aka ‘Griddy’ is a whole lot of things with a ridiculous amount of interests. For one, I’m a Social Media enthusiast with a tremendous passion for writing and blogging. I’m also a pretty cool Copywriter but a more serious MarCom Consultant. But most of all, I’m the proud owner and driving force behind?nittyGriddy.com – A Kinda Social Media Journal with entertaining SM ramblings, Net News & more. You can follow Ingrid on Twitter @nittyGriddyBlog.

image: NguyenDai