Geofencing helps marketers, advertisers and enterprises gain insights and interact with consumers in today’s competitive retail market. There are lots of use cases for geofencing, but one of the most impactful is how it helps retailers boost online and offline user engagement and loyalty through marketing campaigns.
This blog will discuss how geofencing enhances marketing and advertising campaigns and your overall mobile strategy.
How is Geofencing Used For Mobile Advertising?
In marketing and advertising, geofencing can be used to send people messages based on their proximity to a specific location or store. Once someone goes within a predefined boundary, a business is able to send push notifications, text messages and targeted advertising for the purpose of winning over potential customers or engaging existing ones.
Geofencing enhances mobile advertising by using location data to send advertisements that are not only related to a person’s location in space, but their behavior as well. By giving mobile advertisers the ability to connect the dots between people’s movements, it provides novel insights that help teams improve customer engagement and loyalty.
Below, we’ve included some of the top applications for using geofencing to attract and keep customers.
Engage With Customers When They are Near Your Store
Geofencing gives you the power to know when potential customers are near your store. Having this information allows you to send relevant push notifications or offers when they are within the geofence in an attempt to encourage them to visit your store.
For example, you can send a personal coupon, or a push notification about a new product or service you’re now offering as an incentive for them to come to you.
Target Customers Who You Can Attract From Competitors
To help attract new customers, you can geofence your competitors’ stores. This tactic is known as geo-conquesting. This technology allows you to see when your customers are near or in a competitor’s location, giving you the opportunity to send them an enticing offer encouraging them to visit your business instead. Geo-conquesting increases brand awareness and is a good way to engage with people at the most opportune times to get them to visit your store.
An example of this would be if CVS enabled a geofence around a Walgreens location in Boston where they were looking to grow market share over the next quarter. For every customer who enters into a Boston Walgreens store, CVS sends an in-store offer to try to encourage them to visit their store instead. CVS could also add more specific target demographics to enhance their targeting, like different demographics or patterns of behavior.
Improve Customer Loyalty with Relevant Offers
If you notice a customer visits your store on a regular basis, you can reward them with offers such as exclusive coupons or discounts. This can increase the repeat customer loyalty by showing your appreciation for their business and provides a level of personalization that your competitors may not offer. They’re also more likely to keep coming back once this relationship is established.
Show Your Customers You Care About What They Have to Say
Reach customers as soon as they leave your store with a quick survey about their visit. If you target them while their visit is fresh in their mind then they will be more likely to respond. You can then use this information to better enhance both your user and app experiences.
For instance, you could send a user a link to a survey as soon as they leave your store. You could also offer an incentive for filling out the survey which increases the chances they will return to your store while also getting you the feedback you desire.
The Bottom Line
With so many retailers competing for a piece of the revenue pie, it’s important to have a mobile marketing strategy that makes new customers feel welcomed and re-engages existing ones. Geofencing and implementing push notifications are both proven strategies to differentiate your mobile presence from the competition and encouraging more consumers to visit your stores.
To learn more about Skyhook's geofencing solution, visit our Context SDK page or download the whitepaper below:
