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Marketing and Location Intelligence

3 Ways Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Using Location Intelligence

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Many brick-and-mortar stores suffered financial losses in recent years due to the ease and efficiency of online shopping. While some businesses view the rise of online shopping as the ultimate enemy, innovative businesses are using the shift in consumer shopping habits as an opportunity to develop new and exciting incentives for driving traffic into their stores.

Omnichannel marketing is a powerful way for brick-and-mortar businesses to leverage multiple marketing channels to drive greater brand awareness, in-store traffic, and sales. Location based insights are at the core of this, helping businesses illustrate their unique value proposition and provide fun and fresh ways for customers to engage with their brand.

Here’s how successful brick-and-mortar stores drive foot traffic and generate sales using location intelligence:

Leverage Geofencing:

  • Gain competitive insights: Conduct trade area analysis by placing geofences around competitors to reveal how often your customers visit them. You can pair this with tracking competitor deals and incentives to gain knowledge on how to steer customers back to you…or keep them from visiting competitors in the first place.
  • In-store incentives: If your customers allow notifications, you can deliver limited time pop-up ads every time they are within a certain distance from your store, or an extra deal when they are about to leave your store.  Input customer data: Location intelligence platforms allow you to input customer information, useful for developing targeted marketing campaigns. This includes precise mailing addresses and detailed demographic information.

Precise direct mail campaigns:

Studies show that direct mail ROI is strong when marketers use omnichannel marketing methods to deliver a seamless and personalized customer experience to match lifestyles with customer buying trends. Pairing digital intelligence with direct mail can produce powerful results. Location technology delivers detailed demographic information along with accurate postal codes so that you are delivering the right message to the right people rather than wasting time and money on consumers that are unlikely to be interested in your product or service.

Location-based insights for site selection:

For brick and-mortar stores looking to open a new shop or to relocate, location intelligence platforms provide essential information on ideal locations. This includes demographic data, a historic view of how an area has changed over time, new developments, nearby points of interest, and much more.

Using location technology and the powerful insights it provides helps businesses integrate marketing channels for an omnichannel marketing approach. This leads to precise messaging and a highly compelling customer-centric experience that will have customers regularly engaging with your business on and offline.

To learn more download our guide Using Location Based Insights for Omnichannel Marketing

Additional Reading:  

5 Ways Canadian Retailers Should Be Using Location Data and Technology

Marketing Location tools

3 Location Tools Every Digital Marketer Should Be Using

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Even the most skilled digital marketers tend to struggle in one key area: knowing what their customers are doing offline, and how to use those offline behaviours to develop effective marketing strategies. Offline behaviours are the marketing touchpoints that consumers don’t actually physically engage with, such as seeing an advertisement on TV or a sign in a window when walking past a store.

Location technology offers unique insights into the complex customer journey. Customers do not operate in silos, and marketing shouldn’t either. A buyer has multiple potential touchpoints, and effective marketing requires understanding online and offline behaviours in order to optimize strategies. Marketers using location tools are able to view data on how customers react to various forms of marketing based on their physical locations. By tracking certain customer behaviours, marketers gain the ability to offer stronger and more effective experiences for customers.

Whether customers are shopping online or in a brick-and-mortar store, here are the top 3 location intelligence tools digital marketers should be using to develop a strong end-to-end customer journey.

1. Geotargeting

What is Geotargeting?

Geotargeting is a location intelligence tool used to deliver the most relevant content to people based on their location.
Even the most skilled digital marketers tend to struggle in one key area: knowing what their customers are doing offline, and how to use those offline behaviours to develop effective marketing strategies. Offline behaviours are the marketing touchpoints that consumers don’t actually physically engage with, such as seeing an advertisement on TV or a sign in a window when walking past a store.

How to Use Geotargeting

Geotargeting is effective because it allows you to create marketing strategies that connect with customers on their terms. You get the big picture view of customer locations so that you can communicate in a way that is personal and meaningful. This includes mobile notifications, targeted digital ads, email and much more. Geotargeting allows you to get very specific about who you are marketing to, and how location could play into purchasing decisions. Using geotargeting over a period of time allows you to gather data on customer behaviours for a deeper contextual understanding of what sort of messaging is most effective.

2.  Geofencing

What is Geofencing?

Marketers use GPS or radio frequency (RFID) to designate a virtual geographic boundary. The system is triggered in real time when customers enter or leave the ‘fence.’ This allows marketers to send alerts or notifications to encourage consumer engagement.

How to Use Geofencing

Geofencing allows you to engage with customers in powerful ways. When customers enter or leave the virtual fence, you can send very specific content to help them take a certain action. For example, you can set a fence for 2 miles from your store. If a customer enters the fence, they get an alert about a special deal or event happening at that moment. You can also set up a geofence around a competitor’s business, triggering a notification when your customers visit competitors with a compelling offer that could inspire them to visit you instead. Geofencing could also offer helpful insights by showing how often customers are in your fence, or whether they are inspired to visit your store when offered certain incentives.

3. Geofilters

What are Geofilters?

Geofilters are location-based screens that can be used on social media, and are only accessible when users are in a specific location.

How to Use Geofilters

Geofilters are a fun and unique way to connect with consumers. They are also a great way to have consumers promote your brand for you. You can create a filter consumers can use when they visit you. Alternately, you can allow users to personalize geofilters in your designated space and encourage them to share it on social media. You can even set up a geofilter in or near a competitor’s location to drive customer interest back to you.

Use Location Intelligence in Your Digital Marketing Strategies!

Geotargeting, geofencing, and geofilters are all powerful ways for digital marketers to better understand consumer behaviour. These tools offer location-based insights that help marketers refine messaging, and to develop streamlined customer experiences.

DMTI’s CanMap Address Data and Location Hub Visualization & Web Services deliver the tools can be used to support digital marketing strategies. DMTI is continually updating and cleansing data to deliver accurate and reliable location information.  Marketing teams using DMTI’s unparalleled location data consistently outpace their competition. When using any location tools to market your product or service, DMTI offers the most complete and accurate Canadian data and software services.

Click here to contact a DMTI specialist, and get information on how you can leverage location intelligence to optimize digital marketing campaigns.

Additional Reading:

5 Creative Ways Marketers Can Use Geofencing

 

Leverage Location Insight geofencing

5 Creative Ways Marketers Can Use Geofencing

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Location-based marketing is clearly on an upswing, with more and more marketers leveraging location intelligence to support marketing initiatives. Geofencing is a powerful way to locate and market to high value customers, boosting brand visibility and customer engagement.

What is Geofencing? Geofencing is the use of GPS, bluetooth or radio frequency (RFID) to designate a virtual geographic boundary around a specific area. The system is triggered in real time when people enter or leave the ‘fence,’ and can be used to communicate with people in the fence via text, email, or notification.

How Marketers Can Use Geofencing

Geofencing is the use of GPS, bluetooth or radio frequency (RFID) to designate a virtual geographic boundary around a specific area. The system is triggered in real time when people enter or leave the ‘fence,’ and can be used to communicate with people in the fence via text, email, or notification.

  1. Competitive Insights  

    You can conduct trade area analysis by placing geofences around competitors to reveal how often your customers visit them, and what sort of foot traffic they tend to get. Pair this with analysis of your competitor’s deals and incentives to learn how they drive traffic, and apply that knowledge to creating better offers for your customers.

  2. Incentivize Customers 

    Deliver limited time offers when customers enter your fence to incentivize them to visit your store. You could also offer an extra deal when you need to boost traffic in a part of your store that might be struggling to make sales. For example, use a push notification to alert of a deal in a low-traffic zone, encouraging customers to check it out. Bonus tip: Place a fence around a nearby competitor’s store and send an incentive for your store to draw them back to you.

  3. Collect Intelligence 

    Geofencing is a great way to gather information on your customers and get a better understanding of your customer base. You can get a sense of how often they visit, the most popular times, and what sort of deals incentivize them to come. You may even get a sense of who your most loyal customers are, and leverage that information by asking them to become a brand advocate or provide a testimonial.

  4. Target Like-minded Crowds 

    Do some research about where your target audience tends to hangout, and place a geofence around that area to target like-minded crowds. Send timely communication to let that crowd know what your company has to offer. For example, maybe you own a store that sells camping equipment. By placing a geofence around the parking lot of a hiking trail, you can target people who are likely interested in what you have to offer.

  5. Make it fun! 

    There are a lot of ways to get creative and use geofencing to engage your customers in fun ways. Create games or trivia that are triggered when customers enter your fence. Maybe winning a game provides them with an extra discount or bonus. Or consider creating geofilters that customers can use when they’re in your fence, and that can be easily shared on social media.

Geofencing can help you engage customers in powerful ways. Using the tactics above, you’ll be able to hypertarget customers with content that is very specific to their needs and consistently keep your company top of mind.

Learn more by downloading our Ultimate Guide to Using Location Based Insights for Omnichannel Marketing

 

 

What's in a Product Name?

What’s in a Product Name?

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“What’s the product name of that software again? You know, the one with the graphs and formulas? The one with the spreadsheets?”

– Said no one, ever.

It is very easy to name the top 3 games you played with as a child: Nintendo, Skip It, Ninja Turtles. It is also quite easy to name the first email provider you went with (Hotmail), the first chat room you visited when online chats were all the rage (Yahoo), and the first messaging site you became a member of (ICQ). But it’s not that easy to name a Product; yet, product names become synonymous with actual verbs: “I will Google it”, “Facebook me later.” Developing a Product Name isn’t Easy!

Why is product naming so difficult? Product names are crucial to brand awareness, and they become memorable based on activity or use. For example, can you remember the name of the software you used to fill out a job application? Probably not. According to Distributed Marketing by choosing a good name of a product a company is positioning itself for greater success.

Product name is without a doubt a difficult task. The wrong name can send the wrong message about the Product and brand; what if the user can’t pronounce it? What if they pronounce it wrong? What if it looks like our competitors? What if it’s offensive? What if it’s bleh?

Help DMTI Develop a Great Name

As DMTI gets ready to send a new Location-Based Analytics Product out to market, we face the challenge of providing it with the name. It’s totally new to the spatial visualization field, is incredibly fast and efficient at profiling, requires very little data awareness and manipulation, and is geared to fit multiple verticals without breaking much of a sweat.

So I ask you: what should we call it? email us with your suggestions. Be sure to check out our current lineup of digital mapping products here.

Marketing Relies on Location

Strong Marketing Relies on Location. Here’s Why.

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Accurate location information may not be the most exciting topic for your next dinner party, but under the hood most businesses depend on it to fuel their business processes, and to help them reach the right audience to drive marketing results. The ability to access accurate location information is impacting many of our customers because strong marketing relies on location. Let’s explore why.

Inaccurate Location Data Impacts Business Growth

Inaccurate location data can be a major inhibitor to growth in your business.  Marketing relies on location, and with more than 85% of customer data tied to a location component, it’s important that your company operate on valid and accurate data.

Customer and prospect data isn’t static – customers move, postal codes change and rural areas become urbanized.  As these changes occur, customer location information quickly becomes outdated. In fact, research by Sirius Decisions shows that 30% of B2B data is out of date within 12 months.  To put this into perspective, if your company has a database of 100,000 records and neglects to implement address quality measures, over 50% of your customer records would be entirely outdated in just over 3 years!

The Impact of Outdated Data on Marketing

Outdated data has an impact on sales and marketing. It’s estimated that 30% of marketing campaigns never make it to the intended recipient. That’s wasted marketing dollars, time and efforts – but most of all lost sales opportunities!

According to a study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), every dollar spent on direct marketing advertising, on average, results in $12.61 in direct marketing-driven sales.  Calculate how many marketing dollars you can save by focusing on data quality. Maintaining high data quality can help you drive better results and get you to your revenue targets that much faster.

We see that marketing relies on location, and location data acts as one of the information backbones for all your company operations.  Having accurate location information allows you to move beyond simple addresses – it allows you to integrate cloud based solutions to integrate demographics, firmographics, proximity, drive time, drive distances and many other variables into your decision making process.  This additional data can help you gain invaluable insights about your customers, and identify new markets.

Accurate location information solutions will allow your company to:

  • Visualize your market penetration to help you plan your new campaigns
  • Prequalify and identify new entry markets to increase marketing reach
  • Increase direct mail delivery by up to 30%
  • Reduce customer churn and increase customer satisfaction
  • Boost your campaign metrics
  • and learn more about YOUR customers!

Click here to see a free demo of DMTI’s Location Hub for marketing! 

Understanding location-based marketing

The Continued Rise of Location-Based Marketing

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Location-based marketing is helping a whole new generation of marketers understand how using data helps them better find, target and message to their best prospects and customers.

A report from Juniper Research estimates that revenues from the Mobile Context and Location Services market will reach $43.3B by 2019 almost 4x the current market valuation at this point.

But how should marketers leverage location to better understand and reach their customer base?

How to Leverage Location to Understand Customers

The first thing to take into consideration is the accuracy of your location data, or the location data of your ad provider. Paying for ads that are presented to someone who is nowhere near your location defeats the entire purpose of location-based messaging.

According to a study published by ThinkLinear in July of this year:

“The problem is that, on average, only 34% of ad requests that include latitude and longitude data are accurate within 100 meters of a user’s location. That means advertisers are paying to target a user in a specific location, but the person isn’t really there. Advertisers aren’t getting what they paid for, performance suffers, and the whole industry ends up looking bad.”

In these types of instances, providers like DMTI Spatial are able to bring their GIS knowledge to the table to help – transforming traditional address data into geocoded roof-top accurate locations to ensure that advertisers have a much more accurate data set to work with.

How Different Demographics Use Location-Based Services

The second element to consider is how people access and leverage location based services.  For example, a recent survey posed by the Location Based Marketing Association (LBMA) titled “The Internet of Things: The Future” found that:

Women are slightly more likely than men (54 percent vs. 47 percent) to share data from their connected car in exchange for location-based coupons or discounts.

Men are more likely than women (33 percent vs. 22 percent) to share data from their connected car if informed of potentially interesting locations along their route.

These behavior patterns mirror what we as marketers might expect from the non-location marketing based world, but are worth taking into consideration when considering the use of location-based marketing to reach out to your customers.  Who are you looking to target, and what information do they want to receive from you on their mobile device.

The combination of behaviour and location are quickly pulling marketers, particularly in the retail space, to focus on location-based offers.  The launch of the Apple iBeacon and Google Glass last year are heralding a new era of communications as customer visit retail locations.  Large brands, including the Bay, Lord & Taylor and others are leveraging the new iBeacon technology, along with location intelligence to message to potential customers.  And it appears that the public is interested too – 77% of us are OK with sharing our location information while we shop, and 81% of those receiving mobile messaging read those messages.

Does your organization have precise location data for your customers?  How will your organization take on the brave new world of location-based marketing? Click here to learn more about how DMTI helps marketers leverage location data to increase the ROI of marketing campaigns.