Billions of people from all around the globe spend a tremendous amount of time on different mobile applications. This is making an online presence for brands and businesses a necessity. Mobile applications create new opportunities and a massive platform for marketers to grab the attention of millions of potential users. Mobile marketing allows businesses and brands to engage and communicate with wider audiences in real-time and for personal purposes globally. Among many other advantages, mobile apps allow marketers to take advantage of advanced features like geofencing. It provides limitless opportunities for location-based marketing.
Below find valuable insights on what geofencing is and how your mobile application can benefit from it.
What is geofencing?
Geofencing is a location-based technology providing mobile apps with a powerful force for geolocation marketing. Geofence creates a virtual boundary around a selected geographic area supported by both iOS and Android operating systems. Geofencing will enable your mobile application to use GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi, or other mobile data to send notifications when mobile devices enter or exit a specific area with the device on.
It can be used as a practical and effective marketing practice. Especially effective it is with time trackers, shopping apps, navigators, to name a few. Advanced features like geofencing will allow brands to let people know about their services and products directly to their target audience.
Geofencing VS Geotargeting
Geofencing and geotargeting are powerful marketing strategies that allow brands and businesses to provide users with a personalized approach tailored to their location and needs. However, it is crucial to understand that the two marketing strategies pursue entirely different objectives. Geotargeting is primarily focused on a targeted audience in the area of a geolocation point. Geofencing creates virtual borders that trigger particular advertising to show when users pass a specified geolocation point. Let’s break it down into more details.
Geofencing
Geofencing refers to the use of IP addresses to create a virtual barrier around a location. So whenever anyone passes in this location, they can see advertisements on their computer, mobile phone, or any other device. This method of marketing strategy is often carefully tailored to local audience’s needs. This works because they are likely to be interested in local discounts, offers, or any other services. Keep in mind that depending on your marketing objectives, a geofence can be large or small. Therefore, you may select a massive area for geofencing if you want to advertise your products and services to everyone in a given city or only focus on a specific neighborhood. However, it is vital that it is not too large, as it may affect the overall efficacy.
Geotargeting
Geotargeting is the practice of providing notifications to a specified target audience in a specific location based on certain parameters. It is distinct in that it concentrates on particular customer characteristics such as demographic peculiarities, user behavior, interests, geography, to name a few. The tool can be an effective option if you want to create a strong engagement with an audience interested in your services. You may experiment with different ad keywords and visuals. By doing this, you will find out more about what strategies work best for your user base.
What are the prerequisites for geofencing?
In order to use the geofencing functionality, you will first need a mobile application. Depending on your objectives and strategies, the mobile app can be either self-developed or an affiliate one. Keep in mind that in order to reach out to users, they have to have your mobile app installed on their devices. Moreover, you need to ask users for permission to send them notifications based on their geographical location.
It is essential that you briefly explain to users why you need their geolocation to gain their trust, guarantee their privacy, and illustrate what value it can bring to their daily lives. Remember, you will only receive updates on the user’s location if they give their consent. Also make sure, that your geofencing does not merely rely on GPS as it will quickly drain the battery of your app users. For instance, the geofencing functionality may be exceptionally accurate, but the effectiveness will suffer if it drains the battery immediately.
For that, make sure that you choose a perfect balance between geofencing accuracy and battery depletion. Another primary consideration before implementing geofencing is ensuring that you analyze and use mobile data precisely, avoiding sending irrelevant push notifications to your users. It is essential that you send targeted messages with a clear call to action that needs rapid response.
What are the benefits of geofencing?
Geofencing is a fantastic method to make your content and promotional campaigns more efficient. Geofencing marketing strategies can help you build a more robust user base and brand reputation over time.
Below find some of the benefits of geofencing.
Advanced Targeting
Due to the advanced geofencing feature, you can engage with users at the right time and in the right place and provide them with timely and relevant information.
Supported by all platforms
All platforms fully support Geofencing, so whether your mobile app is for iOS, Android, Appcelerator, Xamarin, to name a few, you will not meet any limitations. Moreover, all of the abovementioned platforms have many tutorials and guidelines to help you get started.
Personalized approach
In a digital age, each user expects an experience tailored to their personal expectations. With geofencing, you will be able to target a specific geographic area, analyze the peculiarities of local demographics and build your marketing strategies according to users’ needs.
Increased brand recognition and boosted revenue
You can use geofencing to boost revenues and sales cycles by attracting people to your area, analyzing customer frequency, and combining them with competitor data.
Geofencing will also help to promote your business and will significantly raise your brand recognition. With geofencing, you will promote your services and brands each time users are in a specific geographic area. Therefeore, the more creatively you can present your company’s benefits, the more you will be able to persuade your users to choose your company over others.
