What Do Geofencing Marketing Companies Do?
When Harold Samuel coined the famous phrase, “location, location, location,” he was referring to real estate sales. However, the quote can arguably apply to any business you can imagine. So much of your success depends on being able to reach customers at the right time and place.
To this end, most successful businesses are now employing geofencing marketing companies in order to target potential customers. These companies are able to utilize the latest technology to send ads to customers in specific geographic areas, helping businesses to make better use of their limited resources.
Location-Based Marketing
As long as advertising has existed, advertisers have sought different methods for pinpointing their specific customer base. After all, marketing budgets are not unlimited: choosing where to place your ads must be done with some strategy in mind. This is true with traditional advertising methods, such as billboards, print ads, and television commercials, and it’s also true with digital marketing.
Location-based marketing takes this to the next level by utilizing GPS technology in order to create targeted ads for a specific area. Nowadays, with every person carrying a miniaturized GPS in their pocket, this technology can trigger when a person enters a specific area. For example, if a person walks by a clothing store, they might receive a text message with a coupon to entice them to enter that store. This is far more effective than simply sending advertising to a broad area and hoping for the best.
What Is a Geofence?
Geofencing is the core concept on which location-based marketing is based. A real-world location is chosen—for example, a building—and a virtual border is drawn around that spot. The border can be any size. It could be the perimeter of the building, or it could be a wide radius encompassing several blocks.
Geofencing marketing companies establish the boundaries of the geofence utilizing their software. They can do so by selecting several points on a map that are then connected to form the geofence, or they can draw a simple radius around an epicenter.
When a person with a GPS-enabled device, such as a smartphone, enters the pre-established perimeter, an alert is sent to the operating system of the geofence. This system can be programmed to then send a targeted ad to that smartphone, getting the attention of the potential customer in the best possible location to do so.
Note that the location of your geofence doesn’t have to be around your business; it can be placed anywhere that will give you a strategic advantage. This means near competing businesses or in any other area where prospective customers are likely to be.
Geofencing can also be utilized in a more passive manner, as it can track activity in a given area to help businesses make logistical and marketing-related decisions. For example, if the management of a store knows what time of day sees the most foot traffic, they can plan accordingly.
What Are the Benefits of Geofencing Marketing?
Geofencing marketing has several benefits over less advanced methods. The first, which we’ve already mentioned, is its cost-effectiveness. Most traditional forms of advertising cast a very wide net, meaning that the vast majority of people who view the ads will not be potential customers. This can put a huge strain on a business’s resources. Narrowing the area that ads have to reach can save a lot of money.
Geofencing can also save your business money by reducing the need for expensive print ads and billboards. The more that you focus on digital marketing, the more money you can save, especially since with most digital marketing, you do not pay unless the customer clicks on your ad.
One of the other great benefits of geofencing marketing over other methods is timeliness. Timing, like location, is everything. If a prospective customer doesn’t see your ad until they are already home, then it may be too late to truly reach them. The sooner you can advertise to them, the better, and with location-based advertising, you can start reaching them as soon as they are within range of your business.
How Geofencing Marketing Companies Create Your Marketing Strategy
When you hire a geofencing marketing company, such as InnoVision, they will immediately begin taking steps to create a location-based marketing strategy for your business. They may begin by gathering data on your customer base. Who is your target audience? What age are they? What are their spending habits? All of this information may help your marketing company to create effective targeted advertising.
Once your marketing company has an idea of what your product is and who it is most likely to sell to, they’ll begin taking location into consideration. What are some areas where your target audience is most likely to be found? For example, if your customer base belongs to a demographic that uses the train a lot, your marketing company might decide to set up a geofence near the train station. This way, customers on their way to and from an area can be reading your advertisements as they travel.
The timing of everything matters too, of course. A geofencing marketing company will create a targeted system of advertisements that are based on the time of day. For example, if your business is a hotel, a geofence could begin sending messages to sleepy travelers starting in the late afternoon and early evening.
Choosing the Right Marketing Company
It’s important that the marketing company you choose will work closely with you and really put effort into understanding the product you offer. Sadly, most marketing agencies do not focus on this, instead outsourcing a good deal of the marketing work to overseas companies who have no understanding of your industry or what it offers.
For this reason, it’s a good idea to look for an anti-agency like InnoVision Marketing Group. This means we don’t treat the business you’ve put so much into as just another disposable client. Instead, we work closely with you and develop a truly bespoke marketing strategy that helps you to connect with your clients like never before.
