When it comes advertising, context is king.
Simply having a bunch of people see your advertising is no longer good enough; your message now can, and should, be sent to reach the right people in the right place. Your ad impressions will mean something in the eyes of the right audience.
Fortunately with the growth of mobile, this is easier than ever before with Geo-targeting. Mobile and geo-targeting allow you to deliver personalized content at the precise moment the user might need it, while they are at a location that presents an opportunity for them to do so.
There are many ways to set up location based marketing programs. From the device’s own GPS to exciting opportunities with Augmented Reality the sky really is the limit right now for clever marketers. Add to this the opportunities to leverage near field communication or beacons and some incredibly powerful marketing opportunities exist.
One of the more clever location based marketing programs has come from Guatemala, where sneaker store Meat Pack has released a discount finding app called Hijack. Hijack will basically start a sale for a customer when they enter in a competing outlet. So if you were to enter a sneaker store in the same mall as Meat Pack, Hijack would send you a discount for sneakers of the same brand. The discount then goes down one percent per second so the faster you can get to Meat Pack to redeem the offer, the more you save. Meat Pack reported that more than 600 customers redeemed offers within a week.
On the other hand, Chrysler saw poor results when delivering ads near competitor’s locations. Purchases that require extensive research such as a new auto are different than impulse buys like shoes and marketing must be done differently. You will need to evaluate your business and competition to see what is best for you. Experienced mobile application developers can help, but be sure to take a good look at your product and customers before implementing a location based marketing program.
Chrysler saw success delivering messaging on their own lots. In fact, mobile has been so successful for Chrysler that 45 percent of the brand’s traffic now comes from mobile.
Keep in mind that offers don’t need to be targeted quite so precisely to be effective. Research has shown that ads delivered with a 2-5 mile radius of a business is optimum for performance. Meanwhile ads delivered 6 or more miles away saw rapidly reducing effectiveness, which just points to the power of location based marketing.
Photo: Vincent Lee (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1dsk3SM
At the recent Mobile Marketing Association Forum it was disclosed that an impressive 68% of mobile marketers are utilizing location based targeting. They further laid out predictions for more brands to utilize location as a key data source to help them market in the future. And its no surprise since location based mobile marketing is all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right place and time.
Mobile based programs featuring location based targeting can propel sales through messaging and spark impulse purchases. Location allows businesses to provide contextually relevant content to consumers. Savvy brands will leverage a consumer’s location with demographic information and predictive behavioral targeting to improve the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. iPhone Application developers and Android application developers can help you integrate these features into your mobile application development program.
Beacons will soon be invaluable tools for marketers to interact with consumers, as well as for collecting data about user’s preferences and building profiles that can be used to improve customer experiences by delivering messaging that is personalized to the consumer’s preferences and buying habits.
Geo-Fencing is a common tool as it allows retailers or other businesses to automatically alert customers to deals, discounts and more when they are near their location. These are sent to consumers via push notifications that are shown to currently have a very impressive 40% click through rate on average [Andrew Chen].
But don’t forget to personalize the content as people do not engage if content is not relevant. In a recent survey by Cisco, a full 46% of those surveyed said they would like personalized promotions delivered to their smartphone. The better you can engage people on their terms, the happier they will be.
Location based mobile advertising gives you a method of engagement with you customer base that is more targeted, more impactful and more actionable than other forms of advertising.
Image: Kārlis Dambrāns (Flickr) http://bit.ly/1HCzhO8