Geo-fencing – The future of mobile marketing

The key to be an accomplished marketer is to stay well-informed of the latest trends. This really helps adjusting your marketing tactics with the latest industry developments so that you put a leg up on your competitors. In mobile marketing, SMS still remains the best option marketers use today to reach their customers but too many of them are flooding their customers with unwanted SMSs. This kind of spamming can really take your customers away. So how can you commendably engage customers without drowning them? One smart option is geo-fencing.

What is geo-fencing?

Geo-fencing is a location based service that sends messages to opt-in smartphone users who enter a defined geographical area. In order for this service to work, customers have to opt-in to geo-fencing. That means they must agree to have their mobile devices geo-located by the sender.

How geo-fencing is adding value in mobile marketing?

One of the most crucial goals of any business today is to create meaningful engagement with their customers at the moment that matters the most. Geo-fencing (through mobile marketing) empowers the businesses to achieve this goal in various ways.
For example, a fast food restaurant can send a text message with the day's specials to an opt-in customer when the customer enters a defined geographical area (normally within the close premises). This could help the restaurant stand out from their competitors and gain more engagement with their customers which could turn into more sales.

When you have consumer behavior data analytics, the geographical location of customers adds another layer of understanding. Since you know the frequency of customer’s visits to your store and the time spent on your store, you can not only customize your geo-fencing offers but also give him a more personalized experience.

As a mobile marketer you can also use geo-fencing messages to work with complementary products. For Example, a cosmetics retailer may geo-fence the area around boutiques closely located near their store. While people are shopping for dresses at the boutique, they may be interested in buying cosmetics as well. So when customers walk up to the geo-fenced boutique they receive a coupon offer from cosmetics store that may drive them to redeem the offer at cosmetics store. This method would leverage your location.

Marketers can also send coupon offers, discount vouchers or any message that has potential to drive customers in. Your geo-fencing message needs to be precise, locally relevant and prompt positive action. A bland message will not trigger the desired customer behavior. Geographically a geo-fence can be of any size or shape. But as a rule of thumb, big fences do not produce better results. If you build small geo-fences it will be more relevant. For Example, if your fence is geographically optimized to cover a small distance let’s say 5 minutes’ walk to your store, the message you are sending to opt-in customers will be more relevant to trigger an action. Anything larger than that would reduce the relevancy to your local massage.