What is Geofencing?
Geofencing is a location-based service in which an app on your phone or other location-based service triggers a pre-programmed action when a mobile device or RFID tag enters or exits a virtual boundary around in a pre-specfied location. This is known as Geofencing.
The geofence can trigger a push notification to your mobile telephone.
Why use Geofencing?
Would you market to your target audience when
- They were out shopping with your competitor?
- Browsing offline or in a store
- They were thinking about using your service?
If the answer is yes, you should be thinking about Geofence Marketing.
Why Geofencing for Local Businesses will skyrocket their business in 2020
Post Covid-19 the high street will look a very different place. Buyers will soon tire of having to stand in line to find that shops don’t have anything they wish buy or their size is not in stock. Therefore businesses will have to adapt to keep buyers happy and to ensure their footfall in the shop counts.
Shops and businesses will be competing not only with each other but also with online businesses. Bricks and mortar businesses will need to adjust their business models and savvy businesses will be looking at geofencing as a way to increase footfall and online sales.
Smart companies are using geofencing as they allow businesses to engage with their audience by sending relevant messages to smartphone users who enter a pre-defined location or geographic area. To keep buyers interested not only will high street stores require to have the latest technologies on place – see our article how to make your buyers count but they will also be relying on geofencing as a means to attract buyers to their stores.
Geofencing Applications
Geofencing is a strategy that has been around for a few years, typically used by retailers to increase footfall to physical stores. With Covid 19 the battle between online and offline has never been so intense. Using Geocashing is a way of for physical location stores to trump ecommerce only stores. So how can Geofencing be put to good use?
Flash Sales
If you have an app for your band you could consider using – flash sales. These are a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of location-based push notifications and make it more likely people will queue as they create the FOMO (fear of missing out)
Send timely updates on stock
Running low on stock…. tell them
Stock just in … Tell them
Geofencing encourages your customers to spend more money. Once they get a notification, allow them to spend money right away
Audience Engagement
Used at events to engage crowds of people at organised events like festivals fairs. An example of this would be that a venue may use this to geofence social media post to deliver information about an event.
Immediate customer feedback
Retailers can use geofencing as a way to improve customer expericne. This is because the technology can be used to prompt shoppers to provide real time feedback. This can be highly valuable for CX-focused brands, even giving them a chance to turn around a poor experience with a targeted offer or apology.
Should I be doing it?
In short only if you have a physical location, where you are trying to
- Increase foot fall
- Increase audience engagement
- want to steel competitors footfall
- give them information about an event.
The answer is Yes!
For more information https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722043