You reach a mall or a different city, and immediately you receive text messages and mobile ads from local businesses in the area. That’s location-based technology at work. The huge dependency on mobile phones has opened up even more opportunities for sellers of products and services. GPS and Bluetooth-enabled devices use location-based data that monitor the movement of people. These tools help marketers in targeting potential patrons based on their physical location. For several small and medium businesses, location-based services are an effective way to reach their customers when they are a mile away from their stores.
No wonder, location-driven data is the driving force behind some of the most widely used mobile applications for retailing, geosocial networking, navigation, travel, real estate, marketing and advertising, among others. Small businesses are taking advantage of this technology to improve customer relationships and provide better services.
Understand Location Based Marketing
With the rise in internet usage on mobile phones, location has become one of the biggest factors to promote products and services. Location based marketing uses the data on mobile device user’s current or nearby location to provide relevant content to them. For example, if a person visits a restaurant the first time, the restaurant could target a promotion to the visitor when they are close to the area the next time around.
Various small business owners are inclining towards location based advertising. Here are some of the strategies that can be used to finetune your marketing strategy:
Localized Search
Whenever you search for a restaurant in food-searching apps, they always ask you to select your location. Why? Because it improves the search by showing you the nearby places in your area. Similarly, small business owners can use search-based technology, so that customers in that area can search for your business.
Location Based Advertising
This is one of the interesting advertising forms which combines mobile advertising with location-based services. The technology extracts consumer’s location and showcases location-based advertisements on their mobiles. Using location-based advertising, business owners can create ad campaigns that show your offers to the people near your store.
For example, let us assume that you are running an offer on your famous hoodies and want people to buy them. You can create an ad campaign to show your offer within the specified radius of your business to people who have searched for “hoodies” in their browser recently.
Geotargeting
Geotargeting has been around for a long time. It can be considered as the origin of location-based advertising. It uses real time location data provided by the mobile IP addresses. This method can help you display mobile ads to potential customers who are close to the particular geolocation based on the mobile IP address. Geotargeting is efficient to target a larger area. When you zoom in on a certain audience, such as pizza lovers in a specific part of town, you can remind them about your pizza offer. These types of ads can attract potential customers who are just around the corner.
Geofencing
Geofence is a virtual fence created within a certain radius to target customers around your store. It allows you to target users within a predefined area based on location-based information. Small business owners in shopping complexes can use geofencing as an effective strategy to leverage business. You can create a targeted ad with a 300-meter geofence radius with creative offerings to attract them towards your services.
Location-based advertising has been working magically for so many businesses. It has driven relevant traffic to their stores and increased customer engagement. However, to get the desired results, the targeting tactics will require some work. If you’re looking to expand your business digitally and seek assistance, our experts at Responsive MTS will help you create a unique marketing strategy that will garner immediate traction.
