We’re fully in favor of small marketers using location-based marketing tools like Foursquare and Latitude, if they’re in the kind of category where it makes sense — retail, especially, but service-based businesses should also take a long look at leveraging these kinds of platforms. Even B2B marketers can use them to enhance events and experiential programs in ways that are just beginning to be explored.
But it also turns out that the audience that uses location-based services is of a very high income level, if we’re to judge by this report by Forrester Research on Foursquare and by these numbers, courtesy of the Fast Company article:
It also somehow doesn’t surprise us that users of location-based services are typically “key influencers.”
Taken as a whole, you’re looking at a demographic slice that marketers and advertisers would kill for — and it’s why more and more of them are jumping into the location-based pool. It’s also a good reason for smaller marketers to figure out ways to employ location-based tools in support of their own efforts, because the kind of customers they’ll reach are exactly the kind of buzzbuilders and evangelists that any small business craves.