It is the right time to integrate geofencing into your business. It’s proven to get you more engagement, sales, and loyal customers.
Various smart companies send specific promotions or product offers to customer’s mobile gadgets when they trigger a search in a pre-defined geographical location, neighborhood, enter a mall or a store.
Do you want to progress your customer experience? I am sure most of you will raise your hands to say yes. Based on that, 90% of customer experience decision-makers have agreed that good customer experience is essential for their business success.
We all know that customers are the primary source of revenue for every organization, and delivering high-quality service via geofence is important.
You can’t neglect this if you are into any form of digital marketing, as it will help in acquiring new customers and convert them into clients. According to the Harvard Business Review, enhancing customer retention rates by 5% raises profits by 25% to 95%.
Since customer retention is a tough task, knowing how to interact with your potential leads in a more personalized manner will help.
In earlier stages, you start reaching out to loyal and potential customer’s at the most appropriate time, with the suitable service/product, the better results you are likely to get.
You may be thinking about how to achieve the above strategy?
Just a simple solution. Integrate geofencing into your marketing strategy, and you will be surprised after seeing the consistent results.
I think you are wondering what it is all about? On the other hand, you might have an idea about it.
Just relax and continue reading; you will get a clear view of Geofencing by the end of this guide.
Now, let us start with the basics.
What is Geofencing?
Let us have a guise at some of the geofencing definitions.
According to the TechTarget, geo-fencing (geofencing) described as:
While Wikipedia defines geo fencing as:
A geo fence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographical location.
To make you understand easily, I am giving you a simple definition; Geo-fencing is a simple technique of serving smartphone users with the ads that are pertinent to them, by creating a boundary around your business location that notifies users when they enter the virtual perimeter.
You can select and mark off a geographical location from a map and set up a digital barrier around it. Therefore, this fenced-off area can now discover and interact with the mobile devices that breach its territory.
Both IOS and Android enable you to create a geofence by providing the lat-long and radius of the center of the real geographical region that you want to look after.
People are always using their smartphones with them even though they are on the go, to search for services or products before purchasing them.
Now, you have a clear view regarding whether to build geofencing campaigns or ignore. At the current stage, it is the right choice to include geofencing marketing in your marketing strategy.
Let’s move on to the technical aspects of geofencing.
Possibilities of Geofence marketing
After knowing about the geofence, you may be curious about the options of geofence marketing?
Continue reading
Here are the six places you can target with geofence marketing
- Your pre-defined location
- Competitor’s locations
- Colleges
- Events or trade shows
- Nearby stores and streets
- Households via addressable geofencing
Why does Geofencing required for your business?
Whether you unbelievably geofencing works well for local businesses, expressly for those who rely upon on-location visits to generate leads, as it enables you to do it following:
1 . Enhances brand awareness
The mobile marketing strategy that influences on geofencing that provides multi-channel and local businesses, the option to interact with their potential customers who are nearby and ready to purchase through mobile gadgets.
It helps as a reminder to your consumers to select your brand out of hundreds of other similar businesses in a particular region.
2 . Easy customer reach
It is the option that you can’t take for granted to reach out to your customers. The reason is it sends notifications to your customers about your service/product whenever they come close to your business location with the help of their mobile phone.
There is no doubt on the results that it will generate, after seeing the usage of various digital devices.
3 . Reduction in the cost of marketing
Most of the companies will spend a lot of money on creating ads campaign, which became a burden for most of the companies. In this type of situation, you can cut down the cost by using geofencing, and still, we can produce great results.
You may think of how it is so efficient.
Because it focuses on local customers, and these customers are likely to buy from you.
With the introduction of geofencing, you do not need to stand in front of your shop to call anybody who passes by because you are already aware of your potential customers.
By using GPS virtually on tablets and smartphones, efficient tracking is easy for both consumers and marketers. Introduction of geofencing given various opportunities for online entrepreneurs, because they can now locate their qualified customer’s right on the go.
In the market, most of the companies have recorded success with the help of geofencing advertising and campaigns.
To get more clarity to have a look at the business models that can make use of the geofencing Android/IOS applications:
- Human resource management
In this case, geofencing used to restrict staff from entering some spaces within the firm without a second verification.
- Law enforcement
The geofencing can help the security authority when a person under arrest goes out of the building.
- Asset management
It will send a notification to the network administrator when a company asset goes missing, which meant to be utilized within the firm. From there, the network admin can track the location and lock it from being accessed.
- Telematics
Geofencing can also be helpful with telematics, enabling companies to draw virtual zones around sites, secure areas, and work areas. They can be triggered by a person or a vehicle and sends alerts to the operator.
- Marketing
A company can utilize the geofencing feature to notify its customers related to coupons, ongoing promo, and new products when the customer enters a pre-defined geographical location with the help of their smartphones.
4. Attract new customers
It helps to attract new customers to your store by sending them special discounts/vouchers when they come to your geofencing area.
Types of Geofencing
Currently, we have two kinds of geofence virtual barriers; they are:
1. Active geofence
The active geofence mainly depends on the end-user. It can effortlessly use location services to locate them down. It can also be done using some mobile apps.
Have any app idea? What kind of app are you look out?
Here our analysis of famous apps
2. Passive geofencing
The passive geofence is something that stays active all the time. It mostly depends on internet connectivity; it may be Wi-Fi/cellular. It always works on the background if the location on the smartphone is enabled.
How does Geofencing work?
So far, we have concealed a lot about Geofences, what geofencing marketing software can do for your business.
Now, it is time to know how it works.
It is simple, though.
To make use of geofencing, a developer or an administrator must establish a virtual boundary around a specified location in RFID- or GPS enabled software.
Do not panic. It is as simple as a circle drawn 250 feet around a location on Google Maps, as specified using APIs when developing the mobile app. ( Get to know How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Mobile App)
After this, geofencing will help you to keep control of your business by notifying you when a potential customer passes by your store/enters a predefined area.
You get geofence working; you need to use a mapping product like Google map to map out locations you want to geofence. You can define your geofence region in a polygon or circular shape in most of the cases.
Source: Developer Android
Once your geofence activated, the system can trigger any action that is defined by you. It may be enter, exit, and time spent, and it keeps track of everything.
To attain successful geofencing, you need to incorporate explicit personalized messages and customer targeting.
You can’t be so effective when you entirely depend on technology.
When accuracy is not the point of concern, then its good to go with creating a circular geofence. But, when you are targeting exact locations like Postmates- in such cases, you need to go with polygonal Geofences.
- Uses of Geofencing
We all are aware that if we used well, the result of geofencing would be safe and efficient.
Though it is a new practice, the rate of success achieved with it is limitless.
- Traffic restrictions
Urban areas are the primary sufferers of traffic problems. Especially during office hours, it becomes very tough to reach work on time and even at home. This issue can be resolved by placing restrictions in that particular area.
To the restricted areas, we can use the geofencing that can be used to alert vehicles to not enter through specific points.
- Location tracking
Before the arrival smartphone, it is very much challenging to monitor the total visit to a particular place. However, the introduction of Geofences made it possible. It shows the number of times an asset goes to a specific location that used to increase the ROI.
The information we collected helps analyze the insights that help in decision-making.
- Billion accuracy
This technology offers easy tracking and evidence of the total time, which spent on a specific location. This kind of information does not need manual input since it will be done automatically to billing.
It is done extensively to pay quicker and reduce administration.
- Notifies when assets leave
An alert will be triggered when a person enters a geofence area/leaves that particular area where it is assigned to be located at. You are notified; it is possible to investigate the situation as early as possible before we lose control.
- Turnaround times
This technology used to monitor asset timing exit and entry from a particular location. With the help of this, it is possible to track down the turnaround times, and we can find whether the location performance is accurate or poor.
This type of application mainly followed in the transport or logistics industry to keep an eye on the vehicles. With the help of geofencing, we can easily check the products loaded, reloaded, unloaded, and time to reach to the final destination.
Limitations of Geofencing
- Background functionality
Geofencing in the background is crucial for most of the projects because majority of the people generally don’t walk with their phones or apps open all the time. The functionality will differ from IOS and Android, but both can achieve the desired geofencing capabilities.
- Battery consumption
While building your geofencing application ( Case Study) , make sure you maintain a perfect balance between battery consumption, background functionality, and accuracy.
There is no doubt; the battery consumption increases a bit when you enable location services. It is imperative to find a geofencing solution that has decreases dependence on GPS.
- Indoor setup
If you are looking to setup Geofences indoors, you need to do a bit of preparatory work in the venue. For indoor installation, you need to map for geomagnetic coverage or Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth beacons installed.
When you for Bluetooth beacons, remember to also ask for permission for Bluetooth.
- Size
When it comes to the size of geofence, it raised different questions about how big I can go or what is the minimum size of a geofence.
Geofence has does not have any limit in size, but the issue is it could send the same notification to all app users in bulk, regardless of their position. The minimum size of geofence depends on the technologies used, and also the physical location and accuracy of Wi-Fi/GPS data there.
- Amount
The limitations for Android & IOS SDK is a maximum of 20 different Geofences/regions that the app can detect. However, for Android, the limit for the geofence amount is 100 Geofences.
If you want to go over the limit, then it is better to go for the external geofencing platform, then Proximi.io is the right choice.
Benefits of Using Geofencing
- Online presence for your offline business
With Geofencing technology, you can alert nearby to look you up on social media for better user engagement.
To be precise, it serves as your gateway to your social media and internet identity.
- Ads portal
Geofencing also acts as an ads portal when potential users come close to your store, and you are notified of their presence. When businesses receive an alert, they will send new products and discounts to the users that help them to consider your business.
- Real-time analytics
Good marketing requires two-way communication between marketers and customers. The use of Geofencing makes it a lot easier and effective. As Geofencing gives you real-time analytics to the business, it helps them to receive and provide what customers want.
- It offers a service
In recent times, mobile use rate has gone, and mobile users are highly interested when they go online; providing a free Wi-Fi service in your restaurant, hospital, and bar will improve customer experience.
- Geo-fencing tools
Marketing tools help you to make work faster, efficient, and on time. Therefore, it is better to go for geofencing tools to run successful marketing campaigning.
Below are some of the best geofencing tools available in the market that we can use
- Koupon media
Every business knows targeted marketing works well, it is the best way to reach out to people, and Koupon media allows you to do just that.
Koupon media not only delivers location-specific messages or ads depending on their customer geofence area, but they also offer in-depth targeting that enables you to minimize the demographic.
It has a feature that studies the behavioral attribute of customers within the geofencing location and uses that information to present offers to the buyers they cannot resist while they are shopping.
- xAd
xAd is a leading proprietary platform that spontaneously creates borders around places that often visited by a user.
A tool removes every form of assumption in the field of marketing because it serves messages depending on your customer’s location. You can also call it as proximity targeting.
- NextBee
NextBee is another excellent tool for geofencing. The platform provides you location-based rewards.
In this case, when a user comes to your geofence area, they receive a notification about a limited time exclusive offer on one of the products that users regularly buy. Remarkably few people will not follow in this strategy, and since they are there already, it is effortless to sell.
- Ninth Decimal
This tool helps the companies to target customers near their stores and users at competitors’ locations. The tool has a driving and walking map to lead your customers to your nearest store easily.
- LocationSmart
It is all about saying the right thing to the right person at the right time.
LocatioSmart is a combination of carrier networks, and big data from devices to match the right offers to the targeted customers and send marketing messages within the mobile fence area.
- Conclusion
At present generation, most of the people attached or you can say addicted to mobile phones all the time. Therefore, it is your responsibility to engage customers when they are not asleep.
Based on the report of MarketandMarkets, global geofencing marketing size expected to reach US$ 1,825.3 million by 2022, with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 27.5%. Its major part is the logistics and transportation industry.
So, it’s right time to go with geofencing marketing to enhance your business.
I hope this guide has given a clear view of the geofencing.
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