The terms like geofencing, geotargeting, or Local PPC/SEO are quite a buzz in the digital marketing world. They are all same, however, to a greater extent, if we give a close look at their definitions and best practices. For now, let’s just focus on geofencing and why it is considered the future of consumer management.
Geofencing is a technique of creating a virtual boundary on a real location and for marketers, that location is their target market and people residing in the periphery act as their target audience. It has evolved as a way to turn your marketing strategy hyper-local and focus on providing value to those who are your audience.
Creating a geofence based on your buyer persona – or the traits of your exact buyers – allows you to avoid sending your pitch to the people who are most likely not interested in your product. It saves a huge amount of cost and time, which you can invest in other crucial aspects of your business demanding your attention.
With an effective geofencing strategy, you can take good care of your customers and prospects residing in your target market, and offer them value so they don’t consider moving to your competitors.
Geofencing has definitely taken marketing and customer service to the next level. The popularity of smart, GPS-enabled, and location-aware mobile devices has paved the way for this modern science fiction-like technology.
So, in a sea of social, web and mobile users, how do you find your exact audience? The answer is – with the help of Geofencing. You can locate your customers and prospects and send them your most convincing marketing pitch – which increases the chances of a sale. The technology can also help you address customer issues and queries within a targeted geofence.
Every business has unique services or solutions for its unique buyers. For example, iCustomLabel is a website that custom designs stickers and labels in bulk. The ideal customers for them are companies, manufacturers, resellers, gift shops, local people and event organizers that often need different types of stickers and labels. The company can provide a high level of personalized customer experience – deciphering the location and interests of their customers with the help of geofencing marketing.
About 30% of the international population is using location-based services. Of which, 80% want to get location-based alerts from businesses they love or trade with.
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Send Alerts in Real-Time
If your ads and marketing alerts are not on time, they are nothing but confusing text for the recipient. There is no point in showing a user a Valentine’s Day discount offer once the occasion is gone. Even the marketers who practice traditional marketing take their ads down when their offer or occasion is over.
Using geofencing, you can send your ads and alerts in real-time, without any delay, without confusing the customer. The technology helps keep your ads relevant.
You can send anything like – an offer to encourage your prospects to visit or buy from you, or some kind of information to show that you care for them. The idea is to gain the attention of customers in real-time.
Deliver competitive offers
You can easily decode the location of your competitors, and make it your geofence to attract their customers. Wow, that’s smart.
When you do that, you already know that the audiences you are targeting are already interested in the product (you and) your competitors offer. So, you do not have to run a filter to create a different audience segment to start delivering your ads.
All you have to do is to create a compelling geofencing ad and offer that has the potential to clinch the attention of even the loyal customers of your competition.
Go hyper-personalized
You can also target people in and around a company headquarter or office complex with the help of geofencing. You can create virtual fencing around shopping malls, cinemas, and tourist destinations, and other specific places to offer and sell your services.
A number of marketers are using this technique to display their ads on digital and social to spread awareness about their brand.
Ella Bing Haberdashery is an online store that offers men’s accessories. For them, creating a geofence around salons, clubs, and places that are common for men above 15 years of age would be the right strategy. However, since they are an online store, they can target men in multiple locations they deliver their products.
And when you should your ad this way, you need to pay close attention to the responses you receive from your audience. This gives you a chance to understand their preferences and interests more and deliver a superior customer experience through your future strategies.
How geofencing works in favor of businesses
Increased engagement –
Sending your audience the right offer at the right time increases the number of clicks, queries, and visits. It also augments the chances of sales one way or another.
Find partners and investors
If you are exploring a new marketplace to find a new partner who can sell your products and services in that location, geofencing is technology to play with.
Analyze customer behavior
Almost all marketing tools with geotargeting features allow you to analyze the outcomes of your every campaign. You can now check the behavior of your audience or ad recipients – whether they reported your ad as spam, click on the ad, generated an inquiry, booked your product, or shared the offer with someone in their friends and family.
How to get started with Geofencing for your business
Know where your customers are –
This is the very first step to getting started with geofencing. Every business has a unique service delivery location. Locate your audience on your digital or social marketing tool. Segment them if needed.
Keep it as close as you can
Do not keep your geofence too large just to gain more impression, attention, likes, views, and clicks. If someone from a location where you do not deliver your service clicks your ads, it will be of no use to you.
Have a killer Call to Action
Each of your ads should have an actionable CTA – that encourages the recipient to take some action such as to buy or call.
Last but not the least, do not spam. Just because you know they could be your customer does not mean you have the right to spam their inbox. Remember, you have to stay relevant – not repetitive. Although you can retarget your audience, make sure you do not send them your ads very often. You can use your analytics here to figure out the day when your audience responds favorably to ads.
Geofencing has transformed the marketing landscape empowering marketers to generate sales without putting in hard effort. It will continue to do so. However, we must not consider geofencing as our right to offend someone’s privacy.
