Geofencing: How location helps gain a competitive edge

Geofencing helps improve user experience

With the advancement of technology, there is an exponential increase in competition across industries. In such hyper-competitive markets, it is crucial for marketers and CMOs to continuously look for marketing tools and techniques that differentiate their offerings by improving user experiences.

Geofencing is one such technique. With ever-increasing mobile user base and increasing internet connectivity targeting potential customers has become an art. With the help of Geofencing, marketers can devise location-specific campaigns that target consumers with location-specific content. If mobile app users enter this virtual boundary, they receive customized notifications preset for that location.

Statistics show that users are more likely to buy from mobile apps and websites that customize information based on their location. As much as 61% of Smartphone users are more likely to buy from such mobile sites.

Consumers are looking for location-specific information on their mobile phones all the time. The rise of near me searches is a clear indicator of this fact. There has been a 250% increase in ‘near me’ searches for local stores in the last two years.

In such a scenario optimizing your mobile app to send location-specific notifications gives you a competitive edge. Making an impression of your product/service with users even before they search for it is the key.

Since the user has already downloaded your mobile app, they have the intent to interact with it. The key to making a sale now is giving the right information at the right time. Geofencing helps you do that. It shares relevant information about products and services when the consumer is near a physical store.

What is Geofencing?

Geofencing is creating a virtual fence around a specific location. The radius of this fence can vary from a few meters to miles. After setting up a geofence, organizations can devise marketing campaigns that target consumers with location-specific offers.

When a mobile user enters this geofence, the GPS of their mobile phone triggers the geofence, which generally emits text messages. If the consumer is already using your mobile application, you can program your app to catch geofencing signals and display multimedia notifications on their phone.

Why use Geofencing?

Digital advertisements are everywhere. Mobile users are accustomed to ignoring online advertisements causing a significant spike in marketing campaigns that do not yield expected results. Banner blindness is an increasing phenomenon amongst mobile users all over the world. Only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks. Organizations are struggling to increase their online ad budgets to accommodate for this banner blindness of consumers.

Geofencing is a suitable alternative for organizations struggling with digital ad spend. Rather than dividing your targeting efforts in different demographics, targeting a specific location might yield better results. Geofences do not have an impression limit and work for the specified duration irrespective of the number of impressions/consumers.

Generally, a geofence can only send plain text messages to users which is not very engaging. However, when combined with a mobile application, the possibilities are endless. From promoting local offers to getting valuable feedback to monitoring in-store interaction. Geofencing can help organizations assess the success or failure of local marketing campaigns. While at the same time, deliver truly customized user experiences.

To use geofencing with your mobile application, all you need to do is integrate a geofencing SDK with your application. That’s it, and you are all set to utilizing location-based marketing to its fullest.

Once integrated, you can create custom marketing campaigns for every important location. Guide interested consumers with step by step directions to your store, gain valuable inputs about every outlet. Ask for consumer feedbacks, reviews, and ratings to increase your local search visibility. Learn about customer issues within stores and improve their experience with your brand.

Top four ways to gain a competitive edge

There are many ways to integrate Geofencing with your marketing efforts. Pairing it with Beacons is a lethal marketing combination. From being supportive literature to acting as a call to action card, geofencing opens a plethora of use cases for businesses across various industries. Here are four ways in which geofencing can help organizations attract walk-ins and convert prospects into customers:

1. Give time and place relevant notifications that solve problems

The surge in near me searches over the years is a clear indicator that mobile users are continuously using their mobile phones to find local information. Geofencing is a way to give them local information directly through your mobile app. If devised correctly with the right copy, geofencing can help organizations send specific offers that entice their customers through location-triggered notifications. These notifications will act as an ideal call to action card and deliver better success rates than traditional push notifications.

2. Improve in-store experiences

Geofencing can help track the movement of users in your brick and mortar space. Such spatial information acts as data-backed inputs that can have an immediate effect on sales. Firms can ask for feedback from customers and improve their offline shopping experience to match the online image. Big brick and mortar stores use geofencing to bifurcate notifications based on the products in that geofence. They are hence increasing the effectiveness of their marketing efforts while at the same time delivering customer satisfaction.

3. Competitive customer targeting

Another use case of geofencing is targeting customers in your competitor’s stores. Organizations can effectively target customers that enter a competitor’s shop by creating a geofence around their stores. Competitive offers work much better when targeted at customers interacting with the competition. Plus the sheer fact that a user is in a competitor’s shop shows intent to buy. Making a competitive offer to such a customer has higher chances of sales.

4. Retargeting customers using Geofencing

Geofencing can also help you retarget consumers that have previously visited your store. Retargeting customers after they show the intent to purchase is more effective than retargeting those that stumbled upon your webpage/product listing for a few seconds. Geofence campaigns can be linked to your Facebook pixel ID or GA code. Once a user interacts with a geofence-triggered notification, they can be retargeted with facebook and google ads. Campaigns that retarget such customers have higher chances of performing than usual campaigns. Traditional retargeting works based on the people that visit your website or social media page. Geofencing takes this a step further and retargets customers that have previously visited your store. Here customers have shown their intent by walking into your store once and interacting with your products/services. Strategies like upselling and cross-sell are efficient when used with Geofencing.

Marketing your products/services is fundamentally about sharing the right information to the right prospect at the right time. Geofencing helps in getting this right. With the help of virtual fences, you are sharing relevant local information about your products and services to consumers that already use your mobile application at the exact time when they are near your store. Geofencing your stores or your competitor’s store or a strategic location will yield results. Marketers will benefit from location-based campaigns as it personalizes mobile app experience for users with local offers and incentives. Are you excited about Geofencing? Use this location-based marketing technique and gain a competitive edge now!