ATMs have evolved significantly from their invention (nearly 50 years ago) and early developments. Originally brought in to reduce congestion in branches and to prevent banks from having to extend their opening hours in order to serve a large number of customers, the number of locations at which ATMs have been installed, in the last decade, has expanded significantly. This opened doors to a host of marketing opportunities for brands. Businesses tried on-screen promotions, receipt ads, ATM wraps, floor stickers and more. The challenge, however, with physical banners is the click-through rate – the average clickthrough rate of display ads across all formats and placements is 0.05%.

But now that technologies are becoming much more affordable, businesses are willing to integrate them into their marketing strategies. Proximity marketing around ATMs is emerging as a powerful use case for both retail and financial institutions.   

Nick Seddon, media services manager at Moneybox Corporation, the UK’s largest independent deployer of privately owned cash machines says “We put brands in the forefront of consumers minds when they have cash in their hands. Not only that, most of our 1,200 cash machines are located in convenience stores and we know that a proportion of the cash taken out is used over the counter – store owners have reported a 15 percent increase in sales when they host our machines”

Not just that, Diebold, one of the pioneers in bringing beacon technology to financial and retail space, estimates that response rates of up to 20% can be generated on self-service terminals, which is 10 times higher than the average response rate of direct mail campaigns.

In this blog post, we will discuss how beacons in ATMs can be used to strengthen brands and promote products. We will also talk about how retailers can go beyond traditional channels and offer consumers a seamless shopping experience.

What makes ATMs an attractive location to deploy beacons?

1. The number of people who use them and the amount of cash they dispense. In the United Kingdom, some 21 million people use an ATM every week and over 75% of the country’s cash reaches consumers through them. Also, according to a report by Deloitte, over the last 12 years, the deployment of ATMs rose by 65% to 58,000 machines in Canada and by 23% to 400,000 machines in the US. Here’s a chart that depicts the number of ATMs in various parts of the world.
   

   (Image source – https://goo.gl/Bt53Uk)

    

    

2. Many of the off-site ATMs are located in areas where consumers could make a purchase decision, such as retail outlets. A rapidly-growing proportion of units can now be found in locations such as convenience stores, railway stations, shopping centres and gas stations. All of these are high-volume ATM usage locations, making them very attractive for beacon proximity marketing.

Proximity marketing at in-store ATMs

Installing an ATM in-store not only increases the store profitability from ATM surcharge but also gives marketers the opportunity to reach out to customers when they are withdrawing cash for shopping. Studies have also shown that customers who come into a store and use an ATM will spend 25% more on store purchases than other customers. Here’s a host of ways how businesses are benefiting from proximity marketing at in-store ATMs-

• Increase in-store purchases
• Improve customer loyalty
• Gain a competitive advantage
• Increase store traffic
• Improve customer convenience

Beacon use cases at in-store ATMs

In Retail

1. Send offers that nudge customers to withdraw more cash for shopping

Increase your in-store purchases by curating creative offers and deals that push customers to withdraw more cash for shopping.

2. Attract additional customers to your store by pushing exclusive offers

A report from the US Federal Reserve shows that almost 75% of United States consumers still rely on ATMs as an everyday resource.  This means the addition of proximity marketing notifications at an in-store ATM could greatly increase the number of footfalls. If you are the owner of a watch store, you’ll have the opportunity to bring visitors to the ATM into your store who may not have come inside otherwise.

3. Partner with banks to give special discounts to cardholders

Push offers where cardholders of the particular bank ATM could avail special discounts. This keeps the customer coming back to the store.

For Banks

The financial industry is in the midst of a transformation and digital integration is critical to success. Broadcasting information at ATMs leads to more wallet share and use of new banking products. Here are few proximity campaign ideas for the banks –

1. Push notifications about various bank offerings and products
   Create offers based upon customer transaction histories and type of accounts. Banks could even reward customers based on how often they visit. It is also an opportunity to get customers signed up for mobile banking.
2. Educate customers about the best practices for card security, bank announcements and more
   When customers are waiting for a teller, shoot them notifications with brief videos, PDFs, Images and even authorization/application forms that have already been partially filled.
3. Give directions to the nearest ATM with shorter queues
   Banks could enhance the customer experience by showing the customer which line to jump into based on the number of users already in line. They could also suggest which is the nearest ATM with lesser footfalls.
4. Boost the engagement by pushing offers from partner retailers, such as Mcdonalds.
   
   
   
5. Collect survey for improvement of the ATMs
   When customers leave or visit a branch, beacon-enabled bank apps could prompt them to share feedback about services, integrating information with NPS and other scores. With the Eddystone beacons, users do not even need an app to receive surveys. 

Successful deployments of beacons in ATMs

• Citibank deployed beacons at select branches in Manhattan in order to allow customers to access ATM lobbies during off hours without the need for a card. Customers use their Apple watches or iPhones as virtual keys to unlock ATM lobby doors. Beacons at these banking branches send a push notification to his/her device asking if they want to unlock the ATM lobby door. The customer taps the device in order to obtain ATM access.  

• Cuscal owns and manages ATM networks of 3,000 ATMs in Australia. They helped the Turkish bank Akbank to create a new way to withdraw and deposit cash at ATMs without the use of a card.
  They used the Akbank Direkt Mobile to execute the process.
  1. Login to the app
  2. Enter the security code given in the app
  3. Show phone and get cash
  
  The app supports iBeacon and as a result, Akbank easily allows customers to withdraw money from ATMs in close proximity without having to use a physical card, also creating a more engaging user experience. 

Cardless Transactions – Proximity marketing using QR codes

Image Source

Several banks have taken to implement cardless transactions with QR codes that can actually help prevent fraud perpetrated by card skimmers. With QR codes, one only needs to scan the code on the bank’s app through their smartphone to authenticate their identity and proceed as usual. This also saves customers from keeping multiple cards and completely eradicates the whole scenario of misplacing or losing one’s card.

Wrapping up,

In conclusion, for the 50th anniversary of the first ATM, which was in 2017, YouGov has conducted a global poll of 8000 consumers on behalf of ACI Worldwide to survey the use of automated teller machines. As the world slowly starts to transform into a cashless society, it is interesting to see how ATMs continue to serve as a source of cash during shopping. It can be best leveraged by retail and financial institutions to send relevant and personalized notifications.

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