Geolocation is the usage of location technologies like GPS or IP address to identify and track the precise whereabouts of connected gadgets. Since these devices often get carried by people, many use geolocation to track these individuals’ movements, locations, and surveillance.
Because of this, geolocation allows direct marketing companies and other service providers to connect with customers in closer physical proximity to their businesses, significantly increasing the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and strategies.
If you’re looking to improve your marketing strategies or create a new marketing plan for your company, here are different ways to use geolocation data for marketing.
Marketing Based on Location
Geolocation allows companies to pinpoint where their target customers are at any given moment, then send these individuals notifications with digital coupons, promotions, and other offers. The use of geolocation is completely transforming the shift to mobile commerce by giving instant relevancy and value to consumers. For instance, clothing retail stores can spend promotions to consumers near their location or while a customer is visiting competitors.
Geolocation achieves this through geofencing, allowing you to target ‘smaller’ customer activity areas, like a particular neighborhood or block. You can do this by using a smartphone’s GPS location, enabling you to pinpoint customer location and track their movement.
Identify Actual Customers and Not Just Their Devices
As smartphone capabilities and other technologies become more advanced, you can now identify actual customers by their gadgets. Although there are plenty of technologies that can target customers by market segments and devices, only a few technologies have traditionally been available to target ‘actual’ consumers connected to these devices—until now. Thanks to geolocation, anyone can now identify which customers visit your brick-and-mortar locations and your competitors’. You can identify real customers, including cross-channel contact information, demographic characteristics, and other targeted marketing insights.
Geolocation does these through beacons. It’s the most specific form of geolocation marketing, which involves placing small devices in physical locations. These allow you to get data from Bluetooth signals in mobile devices, pinpointing where customers walk within the space, enabling you to market them accordingly. Beacons are fantastic for places with poor reception, like department stores and supermarkets.
Geo-targeted Mobile Advertisements
Using geolocation on services like Google and MSN allows you to allocate search campaign resources locally. You can target audiences at the country, state, city, and ZIP code level to see the best potential ad placements. For instance, if you’ve recently established a physical branch of your business to a new location, geolocation can help you send digital ads to individuals near that area.
Micro-moment Marketing
Micro-moments are moments when individuals intuitively turn to smartphones when they need to learn, do, find, watch, or purchase something. They’re the moments when a person makes a decision or discovers their preferences. Companies need to take steps to get in front of consumers with relevant content during these micro-moments.
That’s why you need to ensure your content strategy is optimized for mobile use for all stages of the customer’s journey. Using geolocation to optimize local search results in your content increases engagement and awareness.
Improve Customer Experience
Business owners and marketers can use geolocation technologies in innovative ways to improve mobile customer experience. That’s because by knowing who your target audience is and what they value, you can incorporate strategies tailored to mobile users. Doing this makes your business appealing to a targeted audience, ensuring a smoother user-interface experience.
Now that people are accustomed to using mobile devices rather than computers when looking for local products, geolocation can be a game-changer in the marketing niche—improving marketing efficiency and optimizing profits. And using the geolocation data, such as those mentioned, can help you make a high-converting targeted marketing plan in no time.