How Location Based Marketing Works & 5 Proven Ways to Do It

Wondering how location based marketing works? It's simple: by using mobile devices' GPS, marketers can target ads to users in specific locations. By sending personalised messages and promotions based on users' locations, marketers can increase engagement and drive sales.

When a consumer is in a specific location, they will receive targeted advertising or information relevant to that area, for example, if a consumer is near a retail store, they may receive a push notification with a coupon or promotional offer. Businesses can use geofencing, to define virtual boundaries around specific locations and foot traffic analytics to monitor customer behaviour and store performance. This is how location based marketing works to engage the consumer in a relevant and timely manner, encouraging them to visit a nearby store or take advantage of nearby offers.

With location-based marketing, businesses can reach consumers in real-time, at the moment they’re near a store or in a specific location, greatly increasing the chances of a successful engagement. Additionally, by using geofencing, foot traffic analytics, and other techniques, businesses can gain valuable insights into consumer behaviour and improve their marketing decisions. This form of marketing can be used by businesses of all types and sizes, from small retailers to large enterprise companies, and can provide a significant boost to the bottom line.

In this article, we explore how location based marketing works and how to do location based marketing for businesses to leverage this powerful strategy to reach their target audience.
 

How Location Based Marketing Works

Here’s a brief overview of how location based marketing works :

 

- The consumer’s device (such as a smartphone or tablet) is equipped with location-tracking technology, such as GPS, Bluetooth, or WiFi. This allows the device to detect its location within a certain area.
 

- When a consumer is in a specific location, they will receive targeted advertising or information relevant to that area. For example, if the consumer is near a retail store, they may receive a push notification with a coupon or promotional offer.
 

- The advertising or information can be delivered through various channels, such as push notifications, text messages, in-app messages, or social media ads.
 

- The goal of location-based marketing is to engage the consumer in a relevant and timely manner, encouraging them to visit a nearby store or take advantage of a nearby offer.
 

- To make location-based marketing even more accurate, marketers can use geofencing. This technique allows marketers to define a virtual boundary around a specific location, so that the customer will only receive the message when they are in that specific area, for example inside a mall.
 

- Additionally, businesses can use foot traffic analytics, which uses Bluetooth or WiFi signals from customers’ smartphones, to monitor how many people are in the store, how long they stay, and how often they return.

 

Location-based marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses of all types, as it allows them to reach potential customers in real-time, while they’re most likely to make a purchase. Additionally, it can provide valuable insights into customer behaviour, enabling businesses to make more informed marketing decisions.
 

How To Do Location Based Marketing

To do location based marketing, there are several steps that you can follow:

 

- Define your Target Audience

Understand the demographics and behaviours of your target audience. Use data such as age, gender, interests, and location to create a buyer persona that you can use to segment your audience and create tailored marketing messages.

- Identify your Location-Based Marketing Goals

Determine what you want to achieve with your location-based marketing campaigns. Examples of goals may include increasing foot traffic to your store, promoting a new product, or boosting sales during a certain time of the year.

- Choose your Location-Based Marketing Technology

There are a variety of location-based marketing technologies to choose from, including GPS, Bluetooth, and WiFi. Each technology has its own advantages and disadvantages, so you’ll need to choose the one that’s right for your specific goals and audience.

- Set Up a Campaign

Once you’ve chosen your location-based marketing technology, you’ll need to set up a campaign. This may involve creating a geofence or other location-based parameters, creating a message or offer, and choosing which channels to use to deliver the message.

- Test and Measure your Campaign

Testing and measuring your campaign is crucial to its success. Make sure you have a way to track the effectiveness of your campaign, such as by monitoring how many people opened your push notification or how many people redeemed your offer.

- Monitor the Behaviour of your Audience

It is important to track the results of your location-based marketing campaigns and monitor how your audience is interacting with your business. This will help you identify trends in consumer behaviour and make data-driven decisions to improve your future campaigns.

- Optimise and Adjust

Based on the data, optimise and adjust your campaigns. Make the necessary changes to improve the campaigns and continue to monitor their performance.

- Leverage Personalization and Automation

Use the data gathered to personalise the message and use automation tools to make the delivery of the messages more efficient and timely.

By following these steps, you will be able to understand how location based marketing works which helps businesses to grow and improve their customer engagement. Remember that location-based marketing is an ever-evolving field and as new technologies and platforms emerge, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices.
 

Benefits & Challenges of Location-Based Marketing

Location-based marketing is a form of targeted advertising that uses a consumer’s location to deliver targeted content and promotions. This can be done through mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, or through location-based services, such as GPS and Wi-Fi.

 

a. Benefits of location-based marketing

- Increased Relevance

By using location data, businesses can ensure that their marketing messages are relevant to the customer, increasing the chances that the customer will be interested in the message.

- Improved Targeting

LBM allows businesses to target their marketing messages to specific groups of customers based on their location, which can help increase the effectiveness of the marketing campaign.

- Increased Foot Traffic

By targeting marketing messages to customers who are nearby, businesses can increase foot traffic to their stores.

- Better Data

Location-based marketing generates data that businesses can use to better understand their customers and improve their marketing efforts.

 

b. Challenges of location-based marketing

- Privacy Concerns

Some consumers may be uncomfortable with the idea of businesses tracking their location, which can lead to concerns about privacy and data security.

- Technical Limitations

Location-based marketing requires the use of mobile devices and location-based services, which can be affected by factors such as spotty mobile coverage, battery drain, and the accuracy of location data.

- Adoption Rates

For location-based marketing to be successful, it relies on consumer adoption of mobile devices and location-based services, which can vary by region or demographic.

- Competition

Location-based marketing can be competitive with other businesses targeting the same consumer group and can be hard to differentiate from other location-based advertising in the area.

5 Proven Ways to do Location Based Marketing

There are several proven ways to do location based marketing (LBM):

 

1. Geofencing

This involves creating a virtual boundary around a specific location, such as a store or a neighbourhood. When customers enter the boundary, they receive a notification or message from the business. This can be done through mobile apps, SMS, or push notifications.

2. Beacon Technology

Businesses can use beacon technology to send notifications or messages to customers who are in proximity to a specific location. Beacons are small, low-energy Bluetooth devices that can be placed in a store or other location.

3. Location-Based Mobile Marketing

Location-based mobile marketing aims to grab users’ attention and hopefully convert them into customers. That is done by showing users relevant, location-specific ads. Your target audience receives notifications on their smartphones or tablets. When a user searches for “near me,” location-based ads can also appear.

4. Location-Based Social Media

By targeting social media ads to customers who are in a specific location, businesses can increase the relevance of their messaging and drive foot traffic to their stores. This can be done using platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

5. Proximity Marketing

It’s a wireless technology that enables the targeting of offers and advertisements to people who are in close proximity to a physical location. This is commonly used in mall, retail stores, airports, and transportation hubs, where the signals of a specific wireless technology like NFC, BLE, WiFi or GPS. The mobile device that captures the signal will receive the offer, coupon or advertisement.

 

It’s important to note that Location Based Marketing can also be done in a number of ways, including SMS messaging, push notifications, and email marketing, with the goal of reaching customers where they are, with a message that is relevant to their current context.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some frequently asked questions about location based marketing (LBM) to help provide more clarity on how it works:

 

1. How Does Location-Based Marketing Work?

Location-based marketing uses location data to deliver targeted content to a specific audience based on their physical location through various channels such as mobile ads, email, SMS, billboards and more. This increases the relevance and personalization of the message.
 

2. How Many Types Are of Location-Based Marketing?

There are various types of location-based marketing, including geofencing, proximity marketing, location-based targeting on mobile apps or websites, GPS-enabled search and display advertising, location-based social media marketing and location-based SMS marketing.
 

3. What are the Advantages of Location-Based Marketing?

The advantages of location-based marketing include

- Increased relevance and personalization of messages.

- Improved efficiency of reaching the right audience.

- Ability to drive foot traffic to physical locations.

- Potential for increased sales and revenue.

- Better engagement and customer loyalty.

- Better measurement and optimization of the campaign.
 

4. How Do I Start Location-Based Marketing?

To start a location-based marketing campaign, you can follow these steps:

- Define your target audience and their location.

- Choose the right channels to reach your audience, such as mobile ads, email, SMS, billboards and more.

- Use location data to personalise and optimise your messages.

- Set up tracking and analytics to measure the success of your campaign.

- Continuously test and optimise your campaign based on the results.
 

5. What is the Future of Location-Based Marketing?

The future of location-based marketing is likely to involve increased use of technology such as location-based data and mobile devices to personalise and target marketing efforts to specific groups of consumers in specific locations. This may include the use of location-based advertising, location-based coupons, and location-based loyalty programs.
 

Conclusion

In conclusion, location based marketing (LBM) is a powerful tool for businesses to connect with customers in a more targeted and relevant way. By utilising location data, businesses can create customised marketing campaigns that reach customers at the right place and time, increasing the chances of a positive response.
 

Take Advantage of Sekel Tech’s Location Based Marketing 

Sekel Tech is a company that provides location-based marketing services and solutions for brands looking to reach, engage, and convert their customer base. The company’s location-based marketing solutions claim to increase foot traffic to stores by targeting nearby locations, neighbourhood, nearby events, or nearby competitors’ locations, which can help businesses increase awareness, drive sales and improve customer engagement.

Sekel Tech’s location based marketing platform bridges the online-offline consumer experience by providing simple, rich content generation and distribution tools. Insights and data are gathered in multiple directions and shared with customers through its multidirectional insight approach. By using sophisticated, highly accurate geofencing tools, Sekel Tech’s Location-based marketing platform allows content and customer engagement at specific times and places. Building detailed customer profiles, providing first-party data, understanding customer behaviour, and increasing revenue are all possible with the platform.