How to Effectively Engage Customers using the Physical Web and Eddystone Beacons

Physical Web, the proximity ecosystem that is supported by Google’s Eddystone beacons is transforming physical world experiences like never before. The Physical Web was developed with the idea of bringing the power of the internet/web to objects in the physical space. This means, people can interact with objects in the physical world straight through their smartphones.

Given the unique nature to power proximity interactions, the Physical Web is creating quite a stir in the proximity industry. It opens up unlimited opportunities for brands and businesses to interact and engage with their target audience with little effort. What was previously only possible by developing an iBeacon app, is now possible by simply using the Physical Web. The Physical Web is quite versatile and can be leveraged for a wide variety of scenarios, from conveying bus schedules to passengers at a bus stop to sending location-specific retail promotions to shoppers.

In this blog, we discuss the key steps to effectively engage customers through the Physical Web.

How do Physical Web notifications work?

First, let us understand the basics of how notifications on the Physical Web work. The various stages of interaction on the Physical Web are as follows:

– User requests a list of what’s nearby

– A ranked list of URLs is shown

– The customer chooses one URL

– The URL is opened on a full screen browser window

[Tweet “How do Physical Web notifications work?”]

A standard Physical Web notification essentially has a URL with some metadata attached to the URL. This makes it very similar to how URLs appear on Google search results. Here is a sample of a standard Physical Web notification:

Source: mobiforge.com

How to boost mobile engagement with Physical Web notifications?

While Physical Web notifications are a big step in the area of proximity interactions, they often do not provide much flexibility in altering the metadata that is attached to URLs or transmitting rich engaging visual content to users. This in turn affects a brand’s messaging or intent that is to be conveyed through the Physical Web notification.

This is where enhanced Eddystone solutions, like, the Beaconstac Eddy is a great option. The Eddy platform enhances Physical Web interactions in the following ways:

Customize metadata

The Eddy platform allows brands to replace a basic text-based notification with rich, engaging and seamless Physical Web notifications. The Beaconstac Eddy platform allows brands to change the metadata attached to URLs in order to precisely engage the target audience keeping in mind the nature of the proximity campaign.

[Tweet “How to effectively manage URLs and metadata on the Physical Web”]

Add visual content

Visuals or images are a great way to attract customers. With Eddy platform’s pre-built, rich content cards, brands can effectively convey appealing visual content through the Physical Web, thereby enhancing customer experiences and click through rates. Here is a sample content card:

In addition to rich content cards, the platform is also geared with additional capabilities of collecting valuable insights straight from the customers through the pre-built customer survey and lead generation forms. The data collected from these forms are all collated in Beaconstac’s user- friendly dashboard for brands to  conduct further analyses. Here is a sample of the data collected from a customer satisfaction form on Beaconstac’s dashboard:

[Tweet “Physical Web: How to Integrate Rich Content to Ensure Higher Engagement”]

Benefits of using Beaconstac’s content cards

Brands, both big and small stand to gain significantly through content cards for the Physical Web. Some of the key advantages of leveraging content cards are as follows:

1. Eliminates the need for developer help

Pre-built content cards allow marketers to  easily control the images and campaigns needed for Physical Web notifications without the need for any developer help. With Beaconstac’s user friendly dashboard, marketers can easily create multiple unique and captivating content cards within a matter of minutes.

Here is a sample of the dashboard where content cards can be easily created:[Tweet “How to create engaging content on the Physical Web without developer help”]

2. Allows marketers to have better control

Not only is it easy to create rich content cards, the dashboard also allows marketers to easily manage different campaigns based on the changing requirements of the brand or business. This way, marketers can test different messaging, CTAs, timings, target groups etc in order to assess the best possible mix for future campaigns.

3. User-friendly analytics dashboard

One the best features of the dashboard is its ability to capture  valuable analytics and insights. Campaign insights such as impressions, open rates, content distribution metrics and growth metrics can be easily gathered and analysed. 

Thus, it is incredibly easy for anybody to kickstart a Physical Web project with Beaconstac’s Eddy platform.

If you are planning an Eddystone beacon pilot, take a look at Beaconstac, that includes everything you need to kickstart your campaign in under 15 minutes. Using Beaconstac you can set up your own campaign, without a developer’s help!

• Author Details

Author Details

Pavithra Babu

Check out other posts by Pavithra on Beaconstac! You can also explore the related posts below to help you maximize your ROI.

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