Academy

Location Based Services

A circle on the map. Walk into it with the tour open and something happens.

What a Location Based Service isAdd a serviceDraw the circle on the mapAn offer or A messageThe headline, the details and the previewA linkDays, dates and hoursHow often one person sees itDirectionsWhere a service stands todayVisitors get this, and Remove itA row in the list, and the save bar

What a Location Based Service is

You draw a circle on the map around one of your places. When a visitor is walking with the tour open and their phone enters that circle, the thing you wrote pops up on their screen.

That is the whole idea. It is for the person walking past who was not going to come in: ten per cent off today, the special, a welcome, where the restrooms are, a safety notice about the works on the corner.

It only ever fires for somebody who already has your tour open. It is not a notification, it does not follow anybody around, and nothing happens when the tour is closed.

Add a service

Add a service starts a new one. The first thing it asks is which place it belongs to, because the circle is drawn around that place and the service is listed under it everywhere else.

A place can carry more than one: a lunch offer and an evening one, each with its own hours.

Draw the circle on the map

Drag the circle to move it and pull its edge to change the size. It runs from 25 feet, which is essentially the doorway, to 300 feet, which is most of a block.

Small circles are better than large ones. A 300 foot circle on a busy street fires for everybody walking on the far pavement, which trains people to dismiss whatever you send. A 60 foot circle fires for somebody who is actually outside your window.

If the place moves, the circle moves with it. Choose a different place picks it up and puts it down somewhere else, circle and all.

An offer or A message

An offer is something a visitor can redeem. It carries a promo code and it appears in the tour's Nearby offers list, where somebody can go looking for it.

A message is information. No promo code, and it stays out of that list. Use it for a welcome, an opening time, a notice about the road works, a safety warning at a trailhead.

Choosing the right one matters because visitors learn what the offers list is for. Filling it with notices makes it worthless.

The headline, the details and the preview

The headline is read first and often alone. Put the thing itself in it: 10% off today, not A message from us.

The details are the line underneath. Say what to do and where: show this at the counter, ask for Sam, through the side door.

The preview on the right is not an approximation. It is the card the phone puts on the screen, so if it looks cramped there it will look cramped in somebody's hand.

A link adds one more button under the details. Order ahead, book a table, see the menu, read the notice.

It has to start with https://. A link without it will not open on a phone, so the screen refuses it rather than letting you publish something that fails in somebody's hand.

Days, dates and hours

The days row is the quickest control on the screen: press a day to switch it off, and the orange ones are on. A weekday lunch offer takes two presses.

The dates are the first and last day it runs at all. Leave them empty and it runs until you switch it off. Fill them in and it starts and stops by itself, which is what you want for anything tied to a season or an event.

The hours are the part of each day it is awake. A breakfast offer that fires at nine in the evening is worse than no offer.

How often one person sees it

This is the setting that decides whether your tour is helpful or irritating. It controls how often the same phone can be shown the same thing.

Somebody who is shown the same discount four times in an hour stops reading anything you send.

Directions

The popup can carry a Directions button that walks the visitor to a point on the tour. Usually that is the place itself, which is the default.

Send it somewhere else when the thing you are advertising is not at the door: the entrance round the back, the stall at the far end of the market, the car park.

No Directions button takes it off entirely, which is right for a message that is purely information.

Where a service stands today

The list tells you where every service stands right now, using the same rule the tour itself uses rather than a second copy of it:

An expired service can be archived, which files it out of the list without deleting it. Put it back and it runs by its own dates again.

Visitors get this, and Remove it

Visitors get this is the on and off switch. Off keeps the whole thing saved and silent, which is what you want between seasons.

Remove it deletes it from the tour. If you might run it again, switch it off instead. There is no cost to keeping one.

A row in the list, and the save bar

A row opens that service, and so does Edit.

Save and Discard sit in the dark bar at the bottom, and that bar only appears while something has changed. No bar means nothing is waiting.

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