Geolocation is an up-and-coming marketing term that describes the way advertisers know and use a target consumer’s location to better connect with them.
Advertisers often know where their digitally connected customers are through their GPS location, but advancing technology allows them to know where the consumer’s attention is based on where they’re looking and how they’re engaging with their phones.
Geolocation can be as simple as letting Google maps find you on a map or as in depth as a company tracking your movements through a store, but it’s here to stay, and if you’re curious how this will affect local businesses, read on!
1. Location and Routine Based Offers
Marketing professionals can use geolocation to predict what consumers want to buy and then target ads towards their potential needs. For example, predictive algorithms forecast a user’s location based on time of day and send context specific offers to get highly targeted results.
A coffee chain could target a consumer who regularly stops for a morning latte, for instance. An outdoor goods retailer can target someone who just went to a travel agency. Agencies who use geolocation provide meaningful and highly relevant ads based on a consumer’s routine buying habits.
2. Viewing Experiences
Consumers can use their smart phones to experience events and landmarks in different ways. Visitors can now use their phones to get a new vantage point and see a historical site from a higher point of view- literally. Mounted cameras in strategic locations let them see higher and farther than ever before.
Concert goers can get a better view of the stage by pointing their phones at a viewing device. This gives consumers more incentives to return to the event after viewing their own personalized and unique experience there.
3. Getting Online Shoppers into Physical Stores
As online shopping continues to compete with brick and mortar stores, geolocation allows online shoppers to easily find a physical store that has the object they’re interested in.
With geolocation, online shopping and in person shopping work hand in hand to produce a shopping experience where the customer feels they’ve done their research, but they can still see the item in person before committing.
4. Incentives for Data Collection
More companies are offering a coupon in exchange for turning on location services or using a location specific tag. All the consumer has to do is consent to sharing their data, and the stores gives them something in return.
The consumer gets a deal and the company gets data on the shopping habits of their customers.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Offer a coupon in exchange for using a location specific tag #localbiz #Biztip” quote=”Offer a coupon in exchange for using a location specific tag #localbiz #Biztip”]
5. More check ins
Businesses already encourage their consumers to “check-in”, or publicly and digitally announce they’ve been to a store or restaurant. In the coming year, however, geolocation will increase this practice. As consumers become more comfortable with the idea of less privacy, check ins will also increase.
You’ll definitely see these trends in geolocation marketing in your town, so consider employing them for your business! You may be surprised at how popular they are and the enthusiastic response from your customers.
** This was a blog post original written for my client Kangaroo Rewards.
I’ve noticed that people rn don’t really want to ride too much to anywhere(a lot of people post COVID are rather order stuff online and have it delivered). So having extremly quick shipping in your local area is extremely important(why wait for amazon to arrive in 2-3 days when you can have stuff from your local sporting goods store like https://gritroutdoors.com/ delivered pretty much the next day). So from geolocation it kinda moved towards fulfilling order speed imo.