Understanding Geo-Fencing

Geo-fencing is a location-based marketing technique that involves creating a virtual boundary or “fence” around a specific geographical area. This boundary can be as large as an entire city or as small as a single building. When a user with a mobile device enters or exits this predefined area, they trigger a pre-programmed action, such as receiving a notification, a discount offer, or an advertisement on their device.

Advantages of Geo-Fencing

1. Hyper-Personalization: Geo-fencing allows for highly personalized marketing messages. When users enter a geo-fenced area, businesses can send them targeted offers or content based on their location, making the message more relevant and engaging.
2. Real-Time Engagement: It enables real-time engagement with potential customers. When someone is physically near your business location, you can send them timely offers or incentives to encourage them to visit your store or make a purchase online.
3. Competitive Advantage: Geo-fencing can provide a competitive advantage by allowing you to target users near your competitors’ locations. You can send special offers or promotions to attract customers away from rival businesses.
4. Increased Foot Traffic: For brick-and-mortar stores, geo-fencing can help drive foot traffic by enticing nearby consumers with exclusive deals or promotions. This can ultimately lead to higher sales and brand visibility.

Use Cases for Geo-Fencing

1. Retail Stores: Retailers can use geo-fencing to send special offers and discounts to shoppers when they are in close proximity to their stores. This encourages impromptu visits and increases the likelihood of making a purchase.
2. Restaurants: Restaurants can use geo-fencing to push notifications of daily specials or happy hour deals to people nearby during meal times, attracting more diners.
3. Events and Conferences: Event organizers can set up geo-fences around venues to provide attendees with event-related information, schedules, and promotions.
4. Real Estate: Real estate agents can use geo-fencing to alert potential homebuyers to available properties in specific neighborhoods when they enter those areas.

Understanding Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting, on the other hand, is a broader approach to location-based marketing. Instead of creating virtual boundaries, geo-targeting relies on users’ geographic data, such as their city, zip code, or GPS coordinates, to deliver relevant content or advertisements. This technique doesn’t require users to enter or exit a specific area to trigger actions; it simply targets individuals based on their location data.

Advantages of Geo-Targeting

1. Wide Reach: Geo-targeting can reach a broader audience since it doesn’t rely on users physically entering a specific location. It can be used to target users at various stages of their customer journey, from awareness to consideration and conversion.
2. Scalability: Businesses can easily scale their geo-targeting efforts to cover larger regions or even entire countries. This makes it suitable for both local and global marketing campaigns.
3. Persistent Targeting: Geo-targeting can continuously target users in a specific area, even if they don’t move in or out of a particular location. This is beneficial for businesses with long-term marketing goals.
4. Customization: It allows for customization based on user data beyond just their location. Businesses can combine location data with other demographic and behavioral information to create highly tailored marketing campaigns.

Use Cases for Geo-Targeting

1. E-commerce: Online retailers can use geo-targeting to display different products, promotions, or shipping options based on the user’s location. For example, showing winter clothing to users in colder regions and summer clothing to those in warmer areas.
2. Service-Based Businesses: Service providers like plumbers, electricians, and locksmiths can use geo-targeting to reach potential customers in need of immediate assistance in their vicinity.
3. National and International Brands: Large brands can employ geo-targeting to run nationwide or global marketing campaigns, tailoring content to different regions and languages.
4. Weather-Dependent Businesses: Businesses that rely on weather conditions, such as ski resorts or beachfront hotels, can use geo-targeting to promote their services when the weather is favorable in specific locations.

Comparing Geo-Fencing and Geo-Targeting

Now that we’ve explored the definitions, advantages, and use cases of both geo-fencing and geo-targeting, let’s compare these two location-based marketing strategies across various dimensions to help you make an informed decision for your business.

Precision and Specificity

Geo-Fencing: Geo-fencing offers higher precision and specificity because it relies on users entering or exiting predefined geographical areas. This means you can send highly targeted and contextually relevant messages to users when they are physically near your business location.

Geo-Targeting: While geo-targeting is precise in terms of delivering content based on users’ geographic data, it is not as specific as geo-fencing since it doesn’t require users to be in a particular location. Geo-targeting can be more versatile in terms of reaching a broader audience.

Real-Time Engagement

Geo-Fencing: Geo-fencing excels in real-time engagement. It allows you to capture users’ attention when they are physically nearby, increasing the chances of immediate action, such as visiting your store or making a purchase.

Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting can provide timely content based on users’ location data, but it may not create the same sense of urgency as geo-fencing, as it doesn’t require users to be in a specific location at that moment.

Scalability

Geo-Fencing: While geo-fencing is highly effective for targeting users in specific areas, it may not be as scalable for large-scale national or global campaigns. Managing numerous virtual fences can become complex.

Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting is more scalable, making it suitable for both local and large-scale marketing campaigns. It can efficiently cover entire regions, states, or even countries.

Customization

Geo-Fencing: Geo-fencing offers a high level of customization within the defined boundaries. You can tailor messages and offers based on the unique characteristics of each geo-fenced area.

Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting allows for customization based on users’ location as well as other demographic and behavioral data. This versatility can lead to highly personalized marketing campaigns.

Persistence

Geo-Fencing: Geo-fencing is transient by nature, as it relies on users entering or exiting specific areas. Once a user leaves the geo-fenced location, the engagement ends.

Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting can persistently target users in specific areas, making it suitable for long-term marketing goals. It can continually deliver relevant content to users based on their location data.

Which Is Right for Your Business?

The choice between geo-fencing and geo-targeting depends on your business goals, target audience, and the nature of your products or services. Here are some factors to consider when making your decision:

Choose Geo-Fencing If:

1. You have a physical store: If you operate a brick-and-mortar business and want to drive foot traffic to your location, geo-fencing is an excellent choice. It can help you engage with nearby customers and encourage them to visit your store with real-time offers.
2. Competitive advantage matters: If you want to gain a competitive edge in your local market, geo-fencing around your competitors’ locations can be a strategic move. You can lure potential customers away by offering them better deals when they are close to your competitors.
3. Events and promotions: If you regularly host events or promotions at specific locations, geo-fencing can be highly effective in notifying attendees and participants about the details and incentives related to the event.

Choose Geo-Targeting If:

1. You have a diverse target audience: If your target audience spans across different regions or locations, geo-targeting provides the flexibility to reach a broader audience. You can tailor your marketing messages based on their geographic data.
2. Scalability is essential: If you plan to expand your marketing efforts beyond a single location or region, geo-targeting is a more scalable option. It allows you to cover larger areas without the need for numerous geo-fences.
3. Persistent engagement is required: For businesses with long-term marketing goals or those that want to maintain continuous engagement with specific areas, geo-targeting offers a persistent targeting solution.
4. Customization beyond location is needed: If you want to personalize your marketing campaigns based on multiple factors, including demographics, behavior, and location, geo-targeting provides a more comprehensive approach.

Best Practices for Geo-Fencing and Geo-Targeting

Regardless of whether you choose geo-fencing or geo-targeting, here are some best practices to maximize the effectiveness of your location-based marketing campaigns:

1. Respect Privacy

Always prioritize user privacy and ensure compliance with relevant data protection regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA. Obtain explicit consent when collecting location data and provide users with options to opt out of location-based marketing.

2. Define Clear Objectives

Set specific goals and objectives for your location-based marketing campaigns. Whether it’s increasing store visits, boosting online sales, or raising brand awareness, having clear objectives will help you measure success accurately.

3. Segment Your Audience

Segment your audience based on location, demographics, behavior, and other relevant factors. This allows you to create highly targeted and relevant content for each group, increasing the chances of conversion.

4. Monitor and Analyze Performance

Regularly track and analyze the performance of your location-based campaigns. Use analytics tools to measure key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI). Adjust your strategies based on the insights gained from the data.

5. Optimize Content for Mobile

Since location-based marketing often targets mobile users, ensure that your content and messages are optimized for mobile devices. Make it easy for users to engage with your offers on their smartphones.

6. Test and Iterate

A/B testing can help you fine-tune your location-based marketing campaigns. Experiment with different messages, offers, and timing to determine what resonates best with your audience.

7. Provide Value

Offer real value to users through your location-based campaigns. Whether it’s discounts, exclusive content, or helpful information, make sure your messages enhance the user experience.

Conclusion

Geo-fencing and geo-targeting are powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal, each with its own strengths and use cases. The decision to use one over the other depends on your business objectives, target audience, and the level of customization and precision you require. Whether you choose geo-fencing for real-time engagement or geo-targeting for broader reach, it’s essential to implement these strategies with careful planning, user privacy in mind, and a commitment to delivering value to your audience. By doing so, you can leverage the potential of location-based marketing to drive growth and enhance customer engagement for your business.

The post Geo-Fencing vs. Geo-Targeting: Which Is Right for Your Business? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

On October 22nd, at 11:00 a.m. PST, Locaid will lead a thought-provoking discussion about the strategies and best practices associated with optimizing location-based mobile marketing to earn more and accelerate business growth.

The anticipated topics for discussion include the evolution of location-based marketing, the importance of an integrated mobile strategy, why leveraging location should be a primary targeting strategy, the best practices to optimize location-based marketing, how and when to leverage geofences to deliver results, and the importance of location + analytics.

To learn more or to sign up for the Locaid webinar, click here.

In case you missed it, last Thursday Mobile Marketing Watch, along with our sister sites mHealthWatch and mGamingWatch, hosted an emergency webinar for marketers and related professionals across numerous industries who must urgently educate themselves on a variety of emerging issues related to consumer privacy, location based services, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

To check out MMW’s webinar, click here.

The post Locaid Webinar to Offer Valuable Insight on Location-Based Mobile Marketing appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contribution by Rip Gerber, Founder, President & CEO of Locaid.

The biggest consumer brands are fattening up their marketing budgets and adding LBS. Not pounds, but Location–Based Services (LBS). The possibilities for LBS go way beyond check-ins and store finders. Location is becoming an integral driver of any mobile campaign.

Why? Location-based advertising lifts response rates with relevancy. That’s why the mobile ad networks are boasting 5x lifts in CPMs when a lat/long turns a campaign into high click-through rates. Expect to pay hefty premiums for location-based ads over the next three years.

Should you pay to play in LBS?

You want relevance, you want to reduce spam and annoyance in your customer ranks, you want meaningful click-throughs and mobile purchasing and drive-to-action. All of which means you have to fatten up your mobile marketing budget. Mobile is innovative and effective and, as a result, expensive. The question is how can you cut through the hype and negotiate a good deal on mobile marketing, stand out from the noise and drive the growth of your business all at a high ROI?

Each week I meet with CMOs who share their mobile concerns and plans. Here are the three “Must-Do’s” I always hear:

Get high on smartphones and tablets. There are 1.2 billion smartphones in use worldwide today. It’s not a phone. It’s a computer, camera, browser, shopping assistant, communicator, game platform, wallet, tracker and more. Think beyond your app. While smartphones present a marketer’s dream and endless opportunities to reach out to customers via a device they voluntarily interact with daily, consider this: how is that smartphone or tablet integral to my customers’ lives? And how can I make my brand and products relevant in that relationship?

Go deep on relevance. You’ve probably realized that your mobile app and mobile-friendly website is no longer enough. Daily, as I speak with my company’s clients, they tell me about abysmal download and engagement rates for their apps. My first question to them – are you offering anything that a customer needs? Or are your just pitching your stuff on a smaller screen? Be relevant.

Go wide on location. Knowing the location of your message/offer/service is the #1 way to be relevant. Any mobile campaign you’re running without location should be stopped immediately. After you add location, you will double your ROI at a minimum. Location not only enables greater personalization but adds a layer of verification to help prevent fraud and reduce the unnecessary admin costs of many mobile marketing campaigns. And use geofences. Geofencing provides a unique opportunity for you to target your ads at nearby consumers. When a customer enters a set radius, you can push a discount on that customer’s favorite item through your mobile application. Combine the use of geofences with a targeted mobile advertising strategy and you will increase engagement, footfall and ultimately, wallet share.

So start putting on the LBS. Get high on smartphones and tablets, do deep on relevance, and go wide on location… and start fattening up your mobile marketing ROI.

About The Author:

Rip Gerber (@Locaid) is the founder of “Location-as-a-Service” (LaaS) and has built Locaid into world’s largest location company. He has served as the CMO of two public companies and as a senior executive at two of the largest worldwide interactive agencies. He started his marketing career running card acquisition direct mail programs for American Express. Rip holds several patents and is the only mobile CEO to be certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

The post Is Your Mobile Marketing Putting On Enough LBS? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In the microblogging platform’s ongoing effort to regain some of the market share lost to competing third-party Twitter platforms, the company is believed to be planning a new integrated photo-sharing service to take on the likes of Twitpic, Flickr, and others.

Sources speaking with TechCrunch reveal that Twitter could announce the service as early as this week. As a result, all eyes are now turning to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who is set to speak tomorrow at the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

The Twitter photo-sharing service is all but certainly expected to become the company’s latest branded application.

Two months ago, Twitter director of platform Ryan Sarver made it clear in a Twitter post that Twitter is poised to ready to take on the most popular third-party services.

“Developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience. The answer is no,” Sarver tweeted. “We need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.”

Despite the fact that Twitter claims 90 percent of users presently access the microblogging platform via the company’s official applications, social media analytics firm Sysomos recently discovered that (based on its findings), 42% of tweets actually originate from applications made by independent developers.

The post Twitter Rumored to Be Planning New Photo Sharing Service appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Patent number 7,848,765 was issued on Dec. 7th, more than five years after it was originally filed in May of 2005.  It details the company’s method and systems for “geofencing and the associated delivery of applications, content and mobile coupons.”  In relation to how the technology works for Where, the language in the patent describes it as:

“A method of providing a location-based service, comprising: providing a user interface that enables a user of a portable electronic device to define a geofence at a user-selected distance about a user-selected location, the geofence graphically indicated by an outline on a map displayed in the user interface; determining a current location of the portable electronic device using a location facility of the portable electronic device; passing the current location to an application server that monitors the current location of the portable electronic device with respect to the geofence; and in response to the application server determining that the current location of the portable electronic device is within the geofence, transmitting instructions to the portable electronic device to cause said device to offer a service to the user that is not offered when the user is external to the geofence.”

The concept of geofencing has been around for a while, and has just recently began to see usage skyrocket as more startups turn focus to mobile marketing and especially location-based services.  For Where, the patent for its geofencing tech was a defensive move.

“Our strategy with patents is to use them to protect our business.  As a growing and successful company, we have become a target and have been on the wrong side of two settlements already.  We look at our patents as a shield to protect against predatory trolls, not a tool to stifle innovation,” says VP of Marketing Dan Gilmartin.  “We do not see this as a game changer, rather a means through which we can continue to operate and grow our business and continue to innovate without threats.”

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