Target Your Audience More Effectively by Zeroing in on Their Location
In “Mending Wall” by American poet Robert Frost, there’s a character who claims that “good fences make good neighbors” every time his neighbor questions the need for the wall between their properties. While the poem can be seen as a commentary on the figurative walls we build in different aspects of our lives, real fences often come in handy, whether keeping trespassers out or pets in. They have also proved quite effective in the marketing world since the advent of mobile phones and the increasingly popular audience-targeting tactic called geofencing. Today, one might say that good geofencing makes good leads.
What is Geofencing?
If you’ve ever used a digital map in your car or on your phone to get to and from certain locations, you’re familiar with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) which use satellites orbiting the earth to provide geographical location and time information to GNSS receivers on the ground. (The U.S. version of this is called GPS, or Global Positioning System, which started in the mid-20th century as a way to monitor submarines carrying missiles.)
Geofencing uses GNSS, combined with other technologies including Wi-Fi, RFID (radio frequency identification), and cellular data, to create a custom virtual fence around a specific geographical area in order to track and/or communicate with mobile devices that fall inside that fence. Utilized in everything from law enforcement to animal tracking, geofencing has become a powerful and versatile tool in geomarketing, allowing businesses to engage potential customers with mobile ads in the most opportune places at the most opportune times.
Once a marketer creates a geofence, a preprogrammed action is automatically triggered when a mobile device enters or exits the virtual boundary. If you’ve ever been inside a retail store and had an ad appear on your phone’s browser or received a text message that just so happens to be promoting a sale in the store, you’ve likely been targeted through geofencing.
Geotargets may also receive in-app notifications, social media ads, emails, or other types of marketing messages. Geofencing is able to interact with a number of different mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches.
Marketing, after all, is all about reaching just the right audience at the right time and place so that you can get their attention and persuade them to consider your product or service. Few tactics allow you to do this better than geofencing, which starts with a strategic game plan around who is best to target along with where and when.
Why Use Geofencing in Your Marketing?
Geofencing offers several marketing-boosting benefits for you and your business. Consider deploying a geofencing campaign to:
Get More Quality Leads
The physical location you choose depends on your specific strategy, as practically anywhere can be fenced in — a state, a zip code, your store, a mall, a park, a trade show, concert, or sporting event. Meanwhile, there are a variety of targeting options when it comes to your audience and their demographics — from age and income level to buying tendencies — ensuring that you reach the most qualified audience for your message.
Geofencing allows you to target your ideal customers more precisely and persuade them with attractive offers and messaging where they are, both digitally and physically, often when they’re at the peak level of considering your type of product or service. This leads to greater engagement with your target audience which typically results in more quality leads.
Once you get these leads, you can further target them with ads, emails, and other messaging in the days, weeks, and months to follow, regardless of where they end up. This will help keep your brand top of mind throughout their buying journey.
Steal Customers From Your Competitors
All is fair not only in love and war but also in marketing. You can even use geofencing while a potential customer is visiting your competitor’s store! That’s right. Imagine being able to send this person an offer or ad highlighting why your product is better as they are walking through your competitors’ aisles. Creating geofences around your competitors’ stores gives you the opportunity to snag prospects from the jaws of your business foes and encourage prospects to pick your products or services instead.
Optimize Your Ad Spend
Unlike many other marketing channels that cast a wide net hoping to snare a fish or two, geofencing’s precision gets that hook in front of the fish most likely to take the bait, which helps you optimize your ad spend. Wide-net messaging can be irrelevant and easily ignored by many viewers, which is a waste of money and energy on your end. By focusing your ad spending on prospects more likely to purchase, geofencing gets you more bang for your buck (ROI) and lets you trim some advertising fat.
Gather Valuable Marketing Data
Having a deep understanding of your audience is essential to successful marketing. From foot traffic to conversion numbers, geofencing provides valuable data that will help you improve your overall marketing efforts. Combine this information with your other audience insights to create better omni-channel campaigns and more-personalized customer experiences, which is what more and more consumers desire and expect.
While good fences don’t necessarily make good neighbors, geofencing makes for a powerful addition to your marketing toolbox, as these top benefits can attest. At M:7 Agency, we work with our clients to create winning marketing strategies that put your ideal customers in the center of our sights. For expert help developing a successful geofencing campaign that targets your audience exactly how, when, and where it will have the most impact, reach out to us today!