Geofencing can be a very important tactic in your local digital marketing strategy, especially for businesses with physical locations, as it allows for highly targeted advertising by delivering messages to potential customers based on their precise geographic location, leading to increased foot traffic and engagement with nearby stores and services.
Geofencing is a location-based technology that creates a virtual boundary around a physical area. When a device enters or exits that boundary, a pre-programmed action is triggered, like delivery of an advertising message. Geofencing uses technologies including GPS, Wi-Fi, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and cellular data to create a virtual boundary around a location.
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Within your local digital marketing plan, geofencing can deliver many benefits:
Precise Targeting: Unlike traditional marketing methods, geofencing enables you to reach customers who are physically close to your business, making your ads more relevant.
Boosting Local Sales: By sending targeted promotions or reminders to customers when they are near your store, geofencing can significantly increase walk-in traffic.
Personalized Messaging: You can customize your geofencing messages based on the customer’s location and past interactions, further enhancing engagement.
Some key applications for using geofencing include sending targeted push notifications, offering location-based discounts, promoting nearby events, competitor strategy, driving foot traffic to stores, and collecting valuable customer location data to better understand their behavior and preferences. Some specific ways to use geofencing in digital marketing include:
- Store-based promotions: Send special offers or discounts to customers when they enter your store’s geofence, encouraging immediate purchases.
- Competitor targeting: Create geofences around competitor locations to attract customers with targeted ads when they’re shopping your competition.
- Event marketing: Promote your booth at an event or conference to attendees by sending notifications when they enter the event venue area.
- Location-based loyalty programs: Reward frequent customers with exclusive deals when they visit a location within your geofence.
- Neighborhood marketing: Target specific neighborhoods with tailored ads based on demographics and interests.
- Enhance the retail experience: Provide personalized shopping recommendations based on the aisle a customer is currently browsing.
- Customer engagement: Send reminders about abandoned carts or upcoming appointments when customers are near a relevant location.
Another interesting tactic associated with geofencing is the “look-back” concept. The “look-back” feature allows marketers to target individuals who have previously visited a specific location within a defined timeframe, even if they are no longer physically present there, essentially enabling your business to look back at past visitor data to retarget those individuals with relevant ads once they leave the geofenced area. The timeframe for the look-back window can the past week, month, or sometimes as much as a year.
A retail store might use the look-back feature to re-target promotional offers to people who recently visited a store but didn’t make a purchase. Restaurants might remind customers about special deals or offering loyalty rewards to entice diners to return soon after visiting. Event organizers might target individuals who attended a previous event with information about upcoming similar events.
To optimize your geofencing program, be sure to precisely define your geographic boundaries to ensure the relevancy of your messaging. As well, segment your audience, targeting specific demographics or customer groups within your geofence can further enhance campaign impact.
However, there are some important points to consider. It is important to be mindful of user privacy when implementing geofencing and ensure you are transparent about how you collect and use location data. As well, a poorly designed geofencing campaign can result in irrelevant messages and notifications that can annoy potential customers and harm brand image. Be careful when using geofencing.
Geofencing is a highly effective tactic in digital marketing. Geofencing can be twice as effective as other marketing campaign because it provides an opportunity for personalized interaction, and improved relevancy of your messaging.
If you’d like to learn more about geofencing and how to use it as a component of an integrated marketing plan, please give us a call or email us here at Sentinel Solutions.
We are experts in media and effectively incorporating these tactics into the marketing mix. We can help you build a compelling campaign that engages your audience and drives sales.
Give us a call if we can help at 603-352-5896 or e-mail to Advertising@SentinelDigitalSolutions.com. We’re here to help you succeed.
Additional Resources:
- Why Does Your Local Business Need a Strong Digital Presence?
- What is Re-Marketing and How Can It Help Your Local Business?
- What Is Multimedia Marketing and How Can It Help Your Local Business?
