Whether your business is small, big, new, or old, you can use location-based marketing to your advantage and watch it transform your marketing strategy. Innovative solutions like geofencing send hyper-specific advertising to mobile users within a specified area, allowing you to capture quality leads and serve existing customers simultaneously.
What Is Geofencing?
Before diving into how geofencing can fit into your marketing strategy, let’s look at what geofencing is.
Geofencing is a marketing solution that sends your ads directly to smartphones, tablets, or other receptors within your chosen boundary or geofence. These fences are made through GPS signals or local radiofrequency identifiers (RFIDs), like Wi-Fi nodes and Bluetooth beacons, which surround a physical location.
- How GPS works – Earth-orbiting satellites triangulate to track GPS-receptive devices with specific accuracy.
- How RFIDs work – Mobile towers and other radiofrequency technology create electromagnetic fields that communicate with a device’s RFID chip or tag.
Geofencing Improves Customer Targeting
Now that we understand how geofencing works, let’s look at how geofencing can fit into any business’s marketing plan. Whether your geofence radius is 10 feet or 100 miles, you can ensure your ads, notifications, or announcements appear on any mobile phone that enters the boundary. There are millions of websites and mobile apps in the geofencing ad network, allowing mobile users to receive your ads whenever they cross your fence.
What does this mean for your business? You can use geofencing to capture quality leads through hyper-specific targeting efforts.
No matter the nature of your business, geofencing is an excellent tool to help target potential customers, cater to current customers, study your audience in real-time, and so much more. Some geofencing campaign examples include:
- Sales promotions
- Event announcements
- Job openings
- Brand awareness and general advertisements
Want to reach your audience with precise targeting? Set up geofencing with M&R! Give Us a Call at 478-621-4491
Capture Leads in Various Markets
While geofencing applies to all sorts of campaigns or marketing strategies, there are some tactics that various businesses can take to capture users’ attention and convert leads into customers.
Geofencing for Retail Stores
Clothing boutiques, general stores, car dealerships, and other retail-based brick-and-mortar businesses can target mobile users through geofencing efforts. Add geofencing to your marketing strategy to:
Create a personalized shopping experience.
Let’s say you operate multiple retail locations. You can create a fence around a specific store and cater to customers with store-specific messages and announcements.
Increase sales.
By fencing your locations, you are communicating with leads who are already interested in your products. Geofenced ads improve the likelihood of turning an interested shopper into a satisfied customer.
Outperform the Competition.
Because you can create a geofence anywhere, one of your targeted areas can include competing retailers. Create a fence around a competitor’s store so your brand and messaging will appear to users who enter the boundary.
Gather customer data.
One of the most beneficial aspects of geofencing is the data you can gather in real-time. Geofencing allows you to see the number of mobile users who enter the fence, encountered your ad(s), and more. If you have fences around multiple stores, you can compare the data to see which one outperforms the others. If you have different fencing campaigns running simultaneously, you can see which gained more traction and strengthen both moving forward.
Geofencing for Restaurants
Whether you operate a fast-food chain or an independent restaurant, your marketing can include geofencing ads that speak to current and potential patrons. Incorporate geofencing in your strategy to:
Appeal to hungry mobile users.
You can apply geofencing to high-traffic areas where people commonly gather. Consider targeting places where people often grow hungry, like:
- Courthouses
- Gyms
- Malls
- Movie theaters
- Shopping centers
- Stadiums
- Universities
You can even fence large neighborhoods or commonly populated areas.
Your target market is out there. Win them over with geofencing through M&R! Our digital team is ready to help: 478-621-4491
Keep diners updated.
If your menu changes or you’re offering a new item for a limited time, let frequent visitors or nearby mobile users know with geofencing advertisements. This adds personalization to their experience and allows you to continue customizing your messaging with patrons.
Beat the competition.
One of the strongest examples of competitive geofencing among restaurants involves the classic fast food rivals, McDonald’s and Burger King. In 2018, Burger King created geofences around McDonald’s locations across the country. Those within 600 feet of a fenced McDonald’s received a deal through the Burger King app offering the Whopper for a penny if they ordered through the app and picked it up at the nearest Burger King location instead. The geofence-based #WhopperDetour campaign not only took business away from McDonald’s, but it also increased Burger King’s overall sales and app downloads.
Your strategy does not have to be as aggressive as Burger King’s, but you can apply similar tactics to win customers to your restaurant. For instance, a local pizza parlor can geofence a nearby competitor and send ads for enticing deals to hungry customers.
Adjust Strategy According to the Data
You can analyze the data of your geofencing campaign to adjust strategies quickly. If people are not encountering your ad as you had hoped, you can refocus your fence’s radius or geographical location. Use the data to compare how many people receive the ad in a day vs. how many customers you serve that same day, and let the results guide your strategy moving forward.
Geofencing for Service Companies
Accounting firms, HVAC businesses, law firms, and any other service-based company can take advantage of geofencing’s targeting benefits.
Increase brand awareness in target locations.
Consider these examples:
- A law firm wants to grow awareness in the community. It could add geofencing to nearby courthouses to raise brand awareness among visitors and legal employees.
- An HVAC company is entering a new service location. It could geofence a 10-mile radius around the town or area to help raise brand awareness among audiences.
- A financial management group wants to win new leads. The company can raise brand awareness among ideal clients by geofencing a business-populated area.
Reel in leads.
Sometimes a potential customer needs a little extra push to begin utilizing your services. Geofencing marketing can help reel them in and gain their business. For instance, a landscaping company can create a fence around lawn mower repair shops to convince lawn DIY-ers to use their company instead.
Target competitors’ clients.
Like we’ve mentioned before about beating or outperforming the competition, service-based companies can apply geofencing to target their competitors’ clients and win them over. For instance, a local dentist can apply geofences to competing offices so that visitors may encounter appealing ads and make the switch.
Still Curious About How to Use Geofencing in Your Marketing Strategy? Talk to the Experts at M&R Today! Call us at 478-621-4491
The in-house digital team at M&R Marketing understands geofencing and other location-based solutions. Tell us about your marketing goals, and let our experts apply the right solutions so you can capture even more quality leads.
If you’d like to learn more about geofencing and location-based marketing, stay tuned for our upcoming blog articles:
- How to Use Geofencing to Capture Quality Leads
- Geofencing 101: The Essential Guide to Location-Based Marketing
- Immediate Benefits of Geofencing Advertisements
- Do Geofencing Ads Work? How to Track and Understand Campaign Performance
- Tips to Leverage Location-Based Marketing in 2023
- Practical Examples of Location-Based Marketing Campaigns for Your Business
- Find Your Audience: How to Apply Geographic Segmentation to Your Campaign
- How Geofencing Advertisings Can Help Your Business’ Foot Traffic
- Proximity Marketing: How Your Ads Can Go Where Your Audience Goes
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