As the end of 2010 nears, I want to talk about ways that we can improve your marketing for next year:

• Look at what marketing strategies worked – and what didn’t. Drop the “what didn’t”.
• Consider the areas of your business you want to improve: communication, customer service, etc and make that a priority.
• Go through all the messaging on your site and make sure that the content is correct, and up to date.
• Put together a to do list for the first month back in the office – making sure to include contacting your past clients for new referrals.
• If you’re using social media tools, determine how you can get more from the time you spend on them.
• Look at your most popular services and determine if there are ways you can get more of that kind of work. Also,are there services or products you offer that get minimal response? Maybe it’s time to get rid of them.
• Tell everyone in the office your goals and focus, the more that know, the easier it will be to stay on target.

Have you already started looking at next year?

After about 2 months on foursquare, I am finding that I am really starting to enjoy it and am learning a lot more about how the tool works for the consumer. What I am not seeing (yet) is more businesses really capitalize on the tool themselves. There are a couple that are really doing it well, but only the large companies, and even then, it is few and far between. I understand that it is still a new tool – and it still is growing – but the businesses that can capitalize on it quickly will definitely see the benefits. If I were a consumer facing, brick and mortar business like a restaurant or retail store, these are the 5 things I would to today on foursquare:

1. Make sure my account was set up properly. There are so many locations on there that do not even have their addresses entered into their listing. If people can’t check in the right way, they won’t check in at all.
2. Give every single person who checks in a message. Welcome them to the store/restaurant and give EVERY one a small gift. Tell them to show their server their foursquare message for a free well drink or show it at check out from your store for 5% off their purchase. These two things would cost the store/restaurant almost nothing, and would seriously make the visitor want to come back again and again.
3. Really rewards mayors. A couple bucks off is nothing…give your mayor a reason to want to really hold onto that mayorship. How about a free appetizer or dessert? Or 15% off one item in the store? Now THAT is a reason for the mayors to be fighting over your location.
4. Make sure everyone in your location understands foursquare. If you are going to make it work, your entire staff needs to understand it and support it. Make sure that your employees know what to do when someone comes in that is the mayor or how to handle a check in.
5. Set up a “special nearby” notification. If people check into stores nearby, you want them to know you have special offers, so make sure to set it up for all your locations and capture that traffic!

What other ways can you see businesses using foursquare (as it is now) more effectively?