At the recent ‘Mobile Outlook 2015: Up, Down or Flat?’ webinar, industry experts strongly agreed that marketing strategies will beat out tactics for marketers in 2015. Experts also gave confident nods to the fact that the key to successful mobile executions lies in knowing your audience and gaining deep insights into their behavior. This is where proximity marketing comes into the picture.

As brands move their marketing campaigns into the mobile realm it’s critical for them to understand the complexities, rules and opportunities to make the most of a successful proximity marketing campaign. The best way ahead is for brands to mesh their expectations and strategy plan with the needs and preferences of their consumers. For this it is highly critical that marketers understand the intricacies of how proximity marketing works to zero down on what will work best for their business.

We have already discussed common pitfalls faced by brands during their proximity marketing campaigns and how to avoid them. In this post, we will talk about 4 tips on getting your proximity marketing campaign started in the right direction.

1. Seek your user’s permission before accessing information

When it comes to implementing a proximity marketing campaign, brands must take care  to not be too invasive. Seek the permission of your users before extending any information and offers to them. Also, it always works best to provide your users with up-front detailed information on why you are collecting that data and how your users will benefit from it.

2. Account for more than your user’s location in the messaging

According to a recent study by inMarket, a company that helps brands implement beacons, too many irrelevant push notifications can nudge consumers to stop using a particular app or even uninstall it. So much so that, with every other push notification that is delivered per store visit, marketers risk a whopping 313% drop in app usage.The study also reported that, overwhelmed by in-store marketing, most consumers ended up checking their beacon apps three times less frequently. Accounting for your consumers current location alone to customize notifications could lead to a similar scenario.

The best way ahead is to make your notifications more contextually relevant. For this  brands first need to gain deep insights into their consumer behavior. This can be done by integrating beacons with your customer loyalty programs. With 61% of brands reported to have agreed that repeat customers drive more than half of their revenue, rather than the new ones, intertwining your beacon strategy with the needs and preferences of your consumer can be highly rewarding.

3. Say NO to beacon networks to give your users an experience they will love

We already know that for a beacon to work, having an app is a must. These proximity-detection devices can only work in tandem with an app. Therefore one of the most important decisions to be made by brands at this point is whether they want to implement a beacon strategy via their own app or through a third-party app.

In most such cases, being unaware of how to integrate beacons with their existing mobile strategy, a number of brands turn to beacon ad networks as it provides them with an easier and convenient option of trying out beacons. However, one of the main challenges posed by beacon ad networks is that of ownership. With the sole ownership of experience and content handed over to the network, brands lose the ability to personalize, learn from their consumers and enhance their own brand value.

Therefore going ahead, it is best for brands to opt for a beacon strategy centered around their own beacon-enabled app as it will give them you full ownership of how they  market, sell to and manage their consumers.

4. Make the most of notifications by breaking down the content into smaller units

Right from opting in to customer engagement to redemption of offers, everything that makes a proximity marketing campaign successful depends on great content. Morever, with more and more screens (especially wearables) being introduced every day, it is highly crucial for content to be broken down into smaller units (including content and action) so that it can work agnostic of the screen size or technology platform.

Such units of content make it easier for users to consume and interact with content on different screens. Therefore it a must that your designers spend more time creating amazing interactive notifications that will allow users to consume content and interact with them with ease.

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If you are planning a beacon pilot, take a look at Beaconstac, that includes everything you need to get started. Using Beaconstac you can set up your own campaign, without a developer’s help!