FoursquareCampus Check-In Campaign

Anthony Dostal

Foursquare• Foursquare, is a location-based social networking website

that allows users to "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application.

• The company started in 2009 and is based out of New York and now receives about 50% of its usage from outside of the United States.

• Although Foursquare’s services can only be offered when using their mobile application, Foursquare.com serves as a place that allows people unfamiliar with the company to find information about what Foursquare actually is, allows new users a chance to set up their account and also allows current users a different venue other than their phone to navigate the Foursquare experience.

FoursquareGoals and Challenges

• Foursquare is not like most traditional companies that would like to generate as much traffic to their website as possible in order to make sales. Instead, Foursquare would rather increase downloads of their mobile application. – A goal of this campaign is to

increase downloads of the Foursquare application

• One challenge for Foursquare is that their industry is very new and many people do not know much about what their service actually does– A goal of this campaign is to

increase impressions to the Foursquare website and increase awareness about the company

Campus Check-In CampaignTarget Audience

• College students will be the target of this campaign– Foursqare is a very new company

and many people are unaware they exist or unsure of exactly what they do• College students are early adopters and

innovators to new products and services which makes them the perfect target audience for a new service such as Foursquare

– College students are very active on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter

– College students are the most likely audience to start using Foursquare so that is the audience that we should target for this campaign

Campus Check-In CampaignPartnerships

• Rivalry week– During the week of specific rivalry football games in the fall, Foursquare will partner with the NCAA

to sponsor “support your team” check-ins at tailgates and stadiums.– Students can check-in and announce what team they’re supporting – During the television broadcast, their will be a quick segment sponsored by Foursquare which will

show the television audience how many supporters from each side were checked into the game

• Foursquare will partner with businesses who have locations on campuses around the United States– The businesses will offer incentives for “checking-in” to their place of business on Foursquare– In return, Foursquare will offer advertising for the businesses through their mobile application by

telling users about “local deals”

Campus Check-In Campaign Search Engine Marketing - AdWords

• Foursquare is a very new company and many people may have questions about Foursquare – This poses a different challenge as opposed to other companies such as a new

clothing retailer. The general public understands how a clothing retailer works and what products and services they are likely to offer, but a new company like Foursquare will leave many people with questions about what the site actually is.

– Someone shopping for shoes online may search “buy shoes” and this will bring up many retailers• Unfortunately for Foursquare, it is very unlikely that someone would search “social networking

website”

• People that have heard of Foursquare will remember the name and are more likely to search for the brand name rather than what the brand actually does

Campus Check-In Campaign Search Engine Marketing - AdWords

• Specifically, for this campaign, we will invest in keywords directly related to the company.

• I would highly suggest in buying keywords that people will be searching after they have heard about your company and want more information.

• I suggest “Foursquare,” “4square,” and “4-square,” because many people will not know how to spell the company name and may think it is spelled with the numeral. – According to The Google AdWords: Traffic Estimator, “Foursquare” would be the only

keyword that would cost more than $.01 per click and it would have a CPC between $1.14 and $1.39 and is likely to receive over 1.5 million monthly global searches.

• I would also suggest that you purchase keywords that include actions that may be related to actions performed while using the service like “checking in” and “check in.”

Campus Check-In Campaign Metrics of Success

• There are two main goals for this campaign:– Increase Foursquare overall awareness across the

United States• Awareness will be measured by looking at the traffic on the

Foursquare.com website• We would like to see a year-over-year page view increase of 50%

– Increase check-ins at and around college universities• This will be measured by analyzing the amount of individual check-

ins at businesses around campuses as well as building on campus• Our goal is to see check-ins double during the 2012-2013 school

year compared to the 2011-2012 school year

Campus Check-In Campaign Timeline

• This campaign will begin in the fall of 2012 as students are moving back to school. – Actual launch of campaign will be August 1, 2012

• This campaign will run through the end of Spring 2013 and into the summer– Actual end date of campaign will be June 1,2013

Campus Check-In Campaign Budget

• Overall, the campaign budget will be $1,000,000 over the course of ten months.– Half of the budget will be spent on the partnership with

the NCAA– The other $500,000 will be used on search engine

marketing and Google Adwords as well as funding • A large portion of the budget will be spent at the

beginning of the campaign in August, September and October of 2012– Advertising will be done at this time to gain awareness

about the “Rivalry week” check-ins during the NCAA football season