This is a continuation of yesterday’s article found here

Adding Specials

Once you’re verified as the owner of a location, you can use Foursquare’s Merchant Platform to create specials to reward your loyal customers. The method for creating specials is pretty self-explanatory, and the wizard walks you through each step as you create your specials. You can have two specials running simultaneously at a given location. Foursquare 3.0 introduced a new group of specials recently:

• Swarm Special. A special is unlocked when a certain number of people are checked in. For example, an ice cream store can give away a free scoop of ice cream when 10 people are checked in at once. You can set a limit for how frequently this special can be unlocked so that you don’t give away too much product.
• Friends Special. A reward for when friends check in together. You can specify how many friends need to be checked in and what they receive for being checked in.
• Flash Special. A special for the first X people who come at X time. It’s great way to incentivize customers to stop by during your slow hours.
• Newbie Special. A reward for people who check in to your clubs for the first time. Offering a reward for a user’s first checkin — even if it’s a small one, like 10% off or a free side dish — is a great way to start a relationship with a new customer.
• Check-In Special. A reward for every single checkin. Restaurants can offer a free soda or a discount, while retailers might offer a few dollars off a purchase.
• Loyalty Special. A reward for a user’s third, fifth, seventh checkin — you determine the interval — to incentivize customers to return a few times to cash in on their special. Loyalty specials can be recurring (“every three checkins”) or not (“on your third checkin”).
• Mayor Special. The mayor is the person who has checked into a venue more than anyone else. In theory, he is your best and most loyal customer. As such, he deserves a prize, whether it’s a discount, a free t-shirt, a beer or a meal on the house. Mayors tend to be proud and protective of their mayorship, and you might even see some turf wars when the mayorship changes hands. You can offer something whenever a new mayor earns the crown, or you can offer a daily reward for the mayor.

Now that you’ve seen the offerings, click the special you’d like to do and fill in the requirements needed for unlocking the special. Once you finish entering the stipulations and select what venues will feature the special, it will be live (though it won’t show in the “Nearby Specials” filter until a human verifies that the special is legitimate). There are two one-sheets you can print off to explain Foursquare — one for employees, so they know how to recognize a special, and one for customers, so they know how to get in on the Foursquare action, pretty cool.

Dashboard Analytics

Once you’ve claimed a venue, you can access a dashboard of analytics that show how many checkins you’re getting each day, the time of each checkin, as well as a breakdown of the genders and ages of your Foursquare customers. Plus, there are two lists: one of your top visitors in the past 60 days (your most loyal customers), and one of your most recent customers, along with their Twitter handles (so long as they provided that info when they logged into Foursquare). In my experience, only about 25% of people push their Foursquare checkins to Facebook and Twitter, so having access to the Twitter handles of loyal and new customers provides clubs with an opportunity to reach out, follow up and see how a customer’s experience was. That personal touch is likely to bring customers back, and it may also turn that person into an evangelist for your clubs.

Also, remember that Foursquare is flexible, and you can make changes in real-time. You can run two specials simultaneously at each venue, so experiment and figure out what works for you and your clubs. With the right campaign, you could actually be saving money — Friedman says several clubs have stopped advertising altogether, since Foursquare allows them to reach customers for free.

Brand Badges

Once a brand has a Page, it can also offer badges for Foursquare users. Of course, Foursquare has its own badges that users love unlocking, including:

• Crunked. Four stops in one night.
• Photogenic. Checking in to three places with a photo booth.
• Swarm. Checking in to a place with 50 other people.

But the brand badges are more self-promotional, and they’re unlocked for checking in to places and doing fun things that are relevant to your brand. (Foursquare doesn’t disclose individual badge prices, which can vary, but “$25,000 a month with a multi-month commitment” is typical.) Users must “follow” a brand on Foursquare to unlock badges, some of which include:

• MOMA — Art Addict. Three checkins at MOMA or PS1 in one month.

• The Wall Street Journal — WSJ Lunch Box. Two checkins during lunch at a restaurant that’s been reviewed in WSJ’s “Lunch Box” column.

• Gogo Inflight — Mile High. One checkin while in flight.

New York Magazine recently did a Foursquare integration with its “Where to Eat 2011″ feature. Below each highlighted restaurant, users could add a restaurant tip to their to-do lists. Checking in to 5 of the restaurants in the list earns a user the Where to Eat 2011 badge, which could also unlock discounts and prizes at these restaurants.

Advice From Nightlife Marketing Blog

We have some tips for clubs & restaurants about how to optimize Foursquare:

• The best kind of Foursquare specials are those that make users feel, well, special. You don’t need to give a discount and lose your margins. Offering exclusive access to a sample sale or a special dessert that is only available for Foursquare users is a great way to get people coming back and checking in. Plus, not offering discounts means you can attract and maintain customers without affecting your bottom line.
• Remember to utilize the fine print when you’re filling out your special.
• Use Foursquare to grow your clubs — run a special during your slow times to keep a steady flow of customers all day.
• Make sure you train your staff on how to recognize and reward Foursquare users.
• Remember to set an end date for a campaign if it’s a limited-time offer or a one-day special.