Geofencing is a marketing technique that lets businesses target mobile users based on their location. By setting up a virtual fence around a specific area, companies can send targeted messages and offers to users within that fence. This fence could be another business, a venue like a convention center, a hotel, a park or any geographic area. This year, a wide variety of businesses and will take advantage of geofencing to boost sales. From retailers and restaurants, to gyms and personal injury lawyers, there are dozens of industries that can benefit from this new technology.

But what is geofencing marketing, and how can you use it to boost your sales this year?

What Is Geofence Marketing?

Geofence marketing is a targeted marketing approach that uses GPS technology to target consumers in a specific geographic area.  This type of marketing can be used to target potential customers near your business or to reach customers in a specific geographic area that want to target. It identifies customers by their unique mobile device code.

You can target ads on mobile devices to people that are currently in geofenced area in real time. Or you can build a list of people that have visited a geofenced area and run ads to them later on their mobile devices and you can also cross-device market and get your business in front of them on their home and work computers and tablets.

Examples of How Geofencing Can Work

Geofencing marketing is an excellent way to drive customers into your physical business or to your website and boost sales. By creating a virtual fence around any geographic area including your own store or business, you can target potential customers nearby and send them special offers and ads.  Done right, geofencing marketing can help skyrocket your sales.

Here’s some examples of how geofencing can work:

• A gym or personal trainer could geofence other gyms and exercise facilities.
• A retail store in a mall could geofence the mall and run ads to everyone currently inside the mall.
• A concert promoter could target the all the concert goers in the arena of another music festival to promote their event.
• A company that supplies materials to roofing companies could target annual roofing trade shows and conventions.
• A restaurant could geofence nearby hotels to entice guests with special offers on their cell phones.
• A personal injury attorney could target local emergency rooms.

The list goes on and on. Geofencing marketing is a highly targeted and effective way to get customers and increase your business’s visibility to a very specific audience.

Geofencing Marketing Tips to Help Boost Your Sales

Here are several geofencing marketing tips that can help you get started:

Start Early With Your Strategies

Geofencing marketing is a new and innovative way to reach customers, but it is crucial to start early. Like a lot marketing strategies, they are most powerful and effective before everyone is doing them. Also, as online advertising channels get more popular the cost usually rises. Think Google or Facebook clicks for pennies a few years ago that are now dollars, often lots of dollars. If you can design a strategy with a proven ROI while the competition and cost is low you can scale and still be profitable if prices increase in the future.

Improve Your Campaigns With Demographic, Behavioral and Interest-Based Audiences

If you’re looking to take geofencing marketing campaigns to another targeting level, layer on specific demographics, behaviors and interests to your audiences. With this you can target different geographic areas and only advertise in front of certain people (i.e. your ideal customers) in that area.

• Demographically you can select age, gender and income levels for examples.
• Behavioral Interest-based targeting allows you to target your audience based on their interests, which can help you create more relevant and effective campaigns.

Now you can target specific geographic areas with specific behaviors and interests

For example

• If you were a local gym that catered to women you could geofence other gyms, a 5 mile radius around your gym and target and only have your ads appear in front of women 18 to 50 years old that have an interest in fitness.
• A restaurant could layer on people that identify as diners and foodies to their geofenced areas.
• A veterinarian could target their neighborhoods and show only to consumers that have self identified as pet, cat and dog lovers.

Geofence Your Competition, Too

If people are visiting your competitors they are proven buyers in your niche. Why not run ads in front of them on their cell phones, tablets and computers? Sit down and map out your geofences and determine where your customers are.

Conclusion

Geofencing marketing can a highly effectively way to reach consumers who are likely to be interested in your product or service. Using geofencing technology, businesses can create a virtual perimeter around their location, any other location, zip codes or regions and send marketing messages to consumers who enter or exit that area. When you layer filters on top of this such as demographics, behavioral and interest filters it is hyper-targeted way to get in front of your ideal customer.

Champion Online Marketing is a marketing company in Folsom that specializes in generating real leads, real customers and an help you with your geofencing marketing strategies. Get in touch with us to learn more about the services we offer!