Location-based marketing is a direct marketing strategy that uses smartphone technology to offer products to customers at the sales location or the area closest to that location. When customers are in the area, they will receive a message regarding the offer of the product being sold. There are certain area boundaries, so if visitors leave the area they will not receive any more messages. It is called geofencing.
The principle is that advertising messages are contextualized. The context is location, which is assisted with the technology with the aim of generating interest in the products offered. If smartphone users are near the location, they can be customers or at least visit the store when interested in the products offered.
Location-based marketing has been widely used and basically relies on location data to notify users through innovative technology. This can help customers and offer long-term loyalty. The contents of the message are not only intended for prospective customers but also contain details of the goods or services offered. Customers must be given relevant information in certain situations. One example is typing buying items in a store; the incoming message is about an event or promotion related to the store. The contents of the message must also be interesting so that the customer is interested and wants to ask more about the contents of the message obtained. This is a marketing strategy that utilizes technological developments.
If online, it will be sent via social media, while if the customer does not have internet access it will be sent using SMS. If there are special advertisements, it will be adjusted to the customer, still using a mobile device. It will be more profitable if the customer is online because the message delivered is not only in the form of monotonous writing. Promotions delivered will be more interesting and attractive, maybe in the form of images that don’t consume too much bandwidth.
But unfortunately, there was a debate over the use of this geofence system, because customer privacy cannot be hidden. Sending promos to customers means the shop owner knows the basic profile of the customer. One of them is knowing the social media used or the number used to send SMS. Despite the debate, this strategy is still used because it is considered more efficient than spreading promotions through brochures one by one. The use of geofence also shortens the time because entrepreneurs can spread many messages at one time. Even fewer costs.
A few years ago when geotargeting was in the popular category, the method was able to make many people amazed. Geotargeting can make an application have the ability to track where you are. Until now, the geotargeting or geofence method proved to be very helpful for application users.
This method will really be felt when you are in a foreign city and want to find a place to eat lunch? Too late to do an interview and take the wrong way? When you need an online taxi to break traffic jams? Geofencing ability has changed your days in more ways than we imagined. Localytics has made predictions that in 2 years, more than 90% of applications will utilize geofencing capabilities. That is important. If your application doesn’t have it yet, there’s no need to worry.