Trends, Opportunities And Challenges Of Location-Based Marketing

If one area of digital marketing seemed to dominate the landscape of 2011 it was probably location-based marketing. Foursquare inched toward mainstream adoption, Gowalla made enough noise and had enough talent to be acquired by Facebook, Whrrl had the same success with Groupon snapping up their team. Facebook played with Places, but then began to incorporate location more seamlessly rather than making it a stand-alone product.

What happened last year was we learned location matters.

But is location-based marketing too niche? Is it only a retail, brick-and-mortar play? Will Foursquare move beyond a fringe, restaurant feature and into more mainstream consumer’s consciences? While LBS took great strides in 2011, there are still lots of uncertainties and questions to be answered.

I caught up with Aaron Strout, co-author of Location-Based Marketing for Dummies, head of location-based marketing at WCG and one of the all-star roster of speakers at the upcoming Explore Dallas-Fort Worth event on Feb. 17. I asked him lots of those questions so we can look forward in 2012 with location-based marketing appropriately placed in our mindset as strategic digital marketers.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Aaron has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. He’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The first 100 registrants get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! The full price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexp.wpengine.com/product/events.