Mobile App GoSpotCheck Helps Brands Track Effectiveness of In-Store Marketing

In-store marketing is a big business for retailers, but traditionally brands have had no way of knowing the effectiveness of the strategy until the display is packed away and the campaign is finished. But that’s starting to change, thanks to mobile.

Enter GoSpotCheck, a Denver-based startup that has developed a mobile app to help retailers collect and share inventory and sales information in real time, and tell whether a given promotion is actually moving the needle. The app allows field reps to take photos and answer questions about a store promotion, and share those bits with management. There’s no waiting period; the success, or lack thereof, of a showcase in a store is measured during the period of display, not after.

If a company wants to know whether or not purchasing display time in a store is worth the hefty fee, they can tailor GoSpotCheck to capture information relevant to that circumstance. Is the display at the correct location within the store, or tucked away out of sight? Are employees engaging with customers who have questions about the product? Does the store need to re-stock? On a broader scale, GoSpotCheck can give companies a detailed look at sales and profitability during a specific period, becoming a sort of interactive financial statement.

When CEO Matt Talbot and his co-founders entered Techstars in 2011, the team was pursuing a much different opportunity: a mobile maternity clothing rental service. But they quickly scrapped the idea and started exploring some of the opportunities around a brick-and-mortar retail segment that was increasingly turning to data to make decisions.

“Creating software to make operations quicker and easier is always a driving trend,” Talbot said. “We saw that people were moving to tablets and smartphones. The power of mobile was increasing; people travel, but still need to do their jobs in a streamlined way.”

Mobile was just one piece of the puzzle, and GoSpotCheck soon realized that the way their clients connected with the information they were being delivered — how they used it to alter or solidify their business processes — was how their service could be most beneficial. Monitoring a business, aggregating data and then presenting it for analysis wasn’t enough. There needed to be another level of engagement.

“We wanted to help them understand all of the data from the outset,” Talbot said. “There’s a lot that happens post data collecting. That’s where the next trend within data is — closing the loop.”

GoSpotCheck offers its users a simple interface displaying a variety of data visualization, with a selection of filters that can be engaged to further specify the status of a company’s sales and inventory at any given time.

The company is working on rolling out a series of offline capability features. But according to Talbot, if further changes and updates will be made to the app, it will be to simply improve upon the technology and customer service that has already been established. The crux of GoSpotCheck’s service is enduring; the desire for information and the need for training businesses how to use it aren’t going anywhere.

Annie Melton is a reporter at Street Fight.

GoSpotCheck will be among the TechStars startups featured at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit, on February 25th in Denver. Join them, and learn from and network with some of the top local data experts in the country. Reserve your ticket today!