Location-based marketing: make a targeted marketing plan

Geolocation is the use of location technologies such as GPS or IP address to identify and track the precise location of connected gadgets. Since these devices are often carried by people, many use geolocation to track the movements, locations, and surveillance of these people.

For this reason, geolocation allows direct marketing companies and other service providers to connect with customers in physical proximity to their businesses, dramatically 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 business, here are some ways to use location data for marketing.

Location-Based Marketing

Geolocation allows businesses to locate their target customers at any time and then send those individuals notifications with digital coupons, promotions, and other offers. The use of geolocation completely transforms the move to mobile commerce by giving instant relevance and value to consumers. For example, retail clothing stores can run promotions to consumers near their location or while a customer is visiting competitors.

Geolocation achieves this through geofencing, allowing you to target “smaller” areas of customer activity, such as a particular neighborhood or block. You can do this by using the GPS position of a smartphone, which allows you to pinpoint the customer’s location and track their movements.

Identify real customers and not just their devices

As the capabilities of smartphones and other technologies become more advanced, you can now identify actual customers by their gadgets. Although there are many technologies that can target customers by market segments and devices, only a few technologies have traditionally been available to target “real” consumers connected to these devices, until now. Thanks to geolocation, anyone can now identify the customers who visit your physical sites and those of your competitors. You can identify real customers, including cross-channel contact information, demographic characteristics, and other targeted marketing information.

Geolocation does this through beacons. This is the most specific form of location-based marketing, which involves placing small devices in physical locations. These allow you to get data from Bluetooth signals in mobile devices, identifying where customers are walking in space, allowing you to market them accordingly. Beacons are fantastic for places with poor reception, like department stores and supermarkets.

Geo-targeted mobile ads

Using geolocation on services such as Google and MSN allows you to locally allocate search campaign resources. You can target audiences at the country, state, city, and zip code level to see the best potential ad placements. For example, if you recently established a physical branch of your business in a new location, geolocation can help you send digital advertisements to people near that area.

Micro instant marketing

Micro-moments are times when people intuitively turn to smartphones when they need to learn, do, find, watch, or buy something. These are the times when a person makes a decision or discovers their preferences. Businesses need to take steps to present consumers with relevant content during these micro-moments.

That’s why you need to make sure your content strategy is optimized for mobile use at all stages of the customer journey. Using geolocation to optimize local search results in your content increases engagement and awareness.

Improve the customer experience

Business owners and marketers can use location-based technologies in innovative ways to improve the mobile customer experience. Indeed, by knowing who your target audience is and what they value, you can incorporate strategies tailored to mobile users. This makes your business appealing to a targeted audience, ensuring a smoother UI experience.

Now that people are used to using mobile devices instead of computers when searching for local products, geolocation can be a game-changer in the marketing niche, improving marketing efficiency and maximizing profits. And using geolocation data, such as the ones mentioned, can help you build a targeted, high-converting marketing plan in no time.