With the slow economic recovery and recent popularity of extreme couponing shows it’s safe to say consumers are willing to go extra lengths to save money. This includes utilizing location based apps such as Foursquare to gain better deals on products and services.

I’ve been using Foursquare for about a year now and while it held my attention for the first few months as I obsessively checked into every doorway I walked through, I soon encountered “check in fatigue”. Check in fatigue is a term used to describe the monotony of constantly using location based apps with static results. Ultimately, the game aspect of these apps lose their luster and users either stop using the app or look to other services. Enter the reward. To keep their strong user bases active, sites such as Foursquare allow businesses to offer incentives or deals. This is nothing new, but I thought I would spend a week revisiting my dusty Foursquare app in an effort to see what brands are utilizing this but also to see how much money I could save in that time period. Here are my findings:

For this experiment, I used the ‘specials’ option with in the Foursquare app which displays any venue with a special in close proximity to my physical location.  As with any type of coupon these must be redeemed at the point of sale.

At the end of the week I was able to take advantage of specials from seven venues without going too far out of my way. Most of these specials were geared towards the first time check in which often carried a “free” incentive. All in all I spent $41.00 where I would have spent $101.88 without using Foursquare for a total savings of $60.88.

While it would be easy to continue examining my formidable ability to find a good deal, the primary point of this exercise was to get a sense of brands using Foursquare as an effective marketing medium. It’s encouraging to see both small and large multi-location brands taking advantage of this free resource, but I was surprised that after a year removed from Foursquare there aren’t more brands participating.

According to Foursquare, here are the most successful types of offers:

• A discount with purchase (something like, ‘get 20% any orders over $10′). It’s a great way to increase sales.
• Something for free (for example, ‘enjoy a free dessert if you buy an appetizer and main course’). These are often low cost and high impact.
• Special treatment: (one of our favorites is at a zoo: ‘check in on foursquare for private access to the penguin feeding’). These have no cost and create a great connection.
• Reward your best customers (the classic Special is, ‘free coffee on your fifth visit’). It’s like a digital punchcard.

Using Foursquare discounts is an easy, affordable and effective way to bring new and lapsed customers into a location. Any franchise or multi-unit business can benefit from employing this strategy across all locations. Have you gotten any great deals from a local business on Foursquare? Let us know below!