Location, Location, Location

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The mobile space, lately, is sounding a lot like the real estate business. Remember the worldwide web? Having conquered the world and made it a little smaller, digital technology is getting a lot closer to home. Having all the world’s information in your pocket is really cool, but sometimes it’s more useful to have reliable information about what’s up ahead, in the neighborhood, around the block or even down the hall.

The tech world has been abuzz about the development and application of these hyper-local technologies, and there are serious opportunities here for radio to be a part of it. In fact, radio is far better equipped to participate in the local equation than trying to play in a global arena. If you haven’t been following these developments, they go way beyond Four Square check-ins. From location-aware apps like Retail-Me-Not that offer coupons to shoppers on their mobile phones when they arrive at the mall to Google’s $1.1 billion acquisition of crowd-source traffic app Waze, the digital world is getting increasingly “granular.”

Geo-location is nothing new, but being stirred into this mix, now are “beacons.” These tiny wifi/Bluetooth devices can be arrayed around almost any venue – think arenas, theaters, shopping malls – to provide precise three dimensional geo-location, down to about a one meter radius, of users and their smartphones. Once an app knows where you are in the venue, it can feed you content, information and turn-by-turn directions. Imagine your listeners going to a concert, opening your app and getting information on finding their seat (no more wandering around trying to find an usher),where to buy merchandise, with what’s available and how much it costs.  Or how about giving your clients the opportunity to offer a coupon or special offer to your mobile users that would pop up when they come into one of your clients’ retail locations. The opportunities are almost endless.

And radio brings several key ingredients to this extremely local party:

• Local cume. Chances are your station has more listeners than most local websites, and you’re a (good) media habit.
• Apps. All this local activity is driven by apps, and your audience is increasingly turning to your app to listen.
• A remarkable ability to mobilize your audience.

Location-based services are becoming a bigger and bigger part of your listeners’ mobile mix. You can be the force connecting the dots between those listeners and your clients.  But to do so you’ll have to think differently about what you’re selling, and have the guts to disrupt business-as-usual for your team and your clients. So start the location conversation. We’re happy to talk about it with you.