The Rules Of Geofencing: What You Need To Know?
The term Geofencing can sound too tech-savvy for those who aren’t aware of it. If you are someone who has always wondered how your favorite retail store knew you entered the mall and notified you with a sale ad, well don’t be surprised as that wasn’t your shopping angels. That’s marketing at work. Being one of the most effective and increasingly popular digital marketing tools, Geofencing has marked its place to stay. It’s easy to use, highly effective and has proven to be a strategic marketing tool for brands.
The term Geofencing can sound too tech-savvy for those who aren’t aware of it. If you are someone who has always wondered how your favorite retail store knew you entered the mall and notified you with a sale ad, well don’t be surprised as that wasn’t your shopping angels. That’s marketing at work. Being one of the most effective and increasingly popular digital marketing tools, Geofencing has marked its place to stay. It’s easy to use, highly effective and has proven to be a strategic marketing tool for brands.
What is Geofencing?
Geofencing is where the latest technology such as RFID and GPS is used to create a virtual geographic perimeter, which is used to enable software that triggers a response when a mobile phone enters or exits that area. Now add marketing to this and we get the new generation digital marketing tool- Geofencing marketing.
Geofencing marketing is possible when the user is using an app or a web service on their phone that allows location access. Once the user location is recorded, this clever tool then triggers the user with local personalized ads of products and services that are in the vicinity and are of potential interest to him. Enabling specific online ad campaigns to go more specific, geofencing advertising adds layers to the kind of target audience businesses want. According to a study, a normal human is targeted to an average of 5,000 ads per day. How many of these converts, let alone stick to their minds? Geofencing is the apt solution to this whereby customers are targeted in this ‘invisible perimeter’ and only those are targeted who are in the vicinity of the service or product.
Geofence advertising has changed the game of business in recent years. As with any game, there are rules too. Read on to know what they are, when it comes to geofencing:
1) Geofence zones, not mediums!
Most people think of mobile phones only when it comes to geofence advertising. While it makes complete sense to trigger an ad to a user by geofencing through their mobile phones, it probably will not make sense doing the same to a desktop as there may be no one to see it. For example, if your user is searching for the best car dealership online, it makes sense to let them know you are one of the top-selling ones. But if he’s searching for a dining option, think of a mobile app.
2) Geofencing through App or Website?
There are two ways you can implement geofencing-through an app or a website. The next option is to partner with a third party and add it to their mediums. Consider which one works best for you.
3) It’s in the specifics
Be specific when you design your geofence. What is the area you need to cover? What areas do you want to include? These critical questions should be asked based on your type of business and location. You can go as the micro-level you want, the more you do, the better the target reaches you get.
4) Call for action
You’ve set the geofence, triggered an ad, what next? Geofence advertisements must push customers to act immediately. Use it to notify them about a limited time sale that they can enjoy if they visit now.
Avoid using Geofencing to notify customers of events that are to take place next month. This will not add sales value or encourage any sort of immediate engagement from the customer. Use this tool to optimize the user’s online experience.
5) Avoid spamming
The last thing you want is to set a trigger for every time a user enters that specific zone. Imagine someone lives in your geofence and every time this person enters or exits this zone, they get a notification of your service or ad. This could prove to be very irritating to the user and lead to him disabling notifications from you again. Set the right frequency to entice the customer and not annoying.
7) Monitor results
As with any campaign, this too needs active monitoring for performance. Are you reaching the right set of customers through geofencing? Check analytics and buying patterns of customers to be able to get good insight. Make sure to give your online ad campaign a good few weeks to be able to get reasonable data.
Using Geofencing marketing to your business benefit is probably one of the best moves. Use it wisely and boost your business sales performance.