Location-based marketing is getting a lot of attention from marketers these days. There’s a good reason. Nearly 90% of marketers report this form of advertising is resulting in higher sales. 86% have used geofencing and location-based marketing to grow their customer base.
The potential of geofencing marketing to deliver contextually and geographically relevant marketing messages is simply incredible. It’s a powerful tool for businesses. However, there are some verticals that will benefit more than others.
Geofencing marketing works by delivering location-aware ads by using location data from mobile devices. Advertisers and marketers can target exact locations to deliver hyper-local and relevant ads when consumers are online.
59% of smartphone shoppers report using their mobile devices to compare prices while in-store. That represents a perfect place to offer additional incentives or reasons to complete a purchase while already at your store.
You can target areas around your location to encourage consumers to stop in. You can also target consumers that need your services by marketing to them when they are in places that might indicate such a need.
Which Verticals Benefit Most from Geofencing?
We have seen that businesses with a specific type of distribution channel can take advantage of geofencing and reap the benefits relatively much faster. Here are some of the verticals that might benefit the most from geofencing marketing along with some examples of effective marketing strategies.
Automotive Dealerships
Vehicle purchases are made at a physical location. The very nature of the distribution channel of dealerships makes them ripe for benefitting from geofencing. Since the car buyers are located within the vicinity of the auto dealership, targeting just that geolocation is ad budget well spent.
When shoppers drive by your dealership, stop in at nearby businesses, or set foot on your competitor’s lot, it’s a good time to deliver ads. An effective strategy is to target competitive dealerships, this works well because car shoppers are often going online to look up information or competitive shop while at the dealership.
Quick Serve Restaurants (QSRs)
Geofencing can be especially effective for QSRs. Customers often make quick decisions on where to go. Delivering messages whenever consumers enter your immediate area can attract impulse buyers. Some restaurants have had significant success by geo-conquesting competitor restaurants with a deeply discounted offer to lure them away. QSRs that offer delivery or online ordering might target college campuses or office buildings. Also, QSR is an industry where audiences are very reactive to deals/discounts. Delivering the right message at the right time can boost sales.
Healthcare
Like every vertical mentioned in this article, Healthcare is a service that can be sourced only locally. When it comes to healthcare or pharmaceuticals, personalized advertising can be difficult because of regulations. Geofencing marketing becomes an attractive alternative because you are focusing on location rather than individuals. Pharmaceutical companies might geofence hospitals and clinics. You could also serve digital coupons to people in proximity to pharmacies.
Hospitals that are recruiting medical professionals can use geofencing to showcase job opportunities at medical trade shows or competing healthcare facilities.
Real Estate
Real estate is a perfect business for geofencing marketing. Real Estate organizations or agents can use geofencing to create virtual geofences around a listing or property ‘s radius. They can then show ads or listing for anyone entering the geofenced zone. They can track property visitors and retarget them with ads for the same listing and similar listings in the area.
Agents can geofence the area around open houses to attract home buyers. Another option would be to target areas near compatible businesses, such as mortgage brokers or banks
Legal
Legal is one of the industries that have the highest cost per click. When it comes to finding a lawyer or a law firm, 76% of consumers go straight to a search engine to research for options. Because of the higher cost per click and very high competition for the keywords make it an unfair game for smaller law firms and attorneys. They usually get eclipsed by large firms that have deep pockets to dominate the search real estate. That’s why Geofencing is a perfect recipe for law firms to tighten their target audience and spend diligently. Combining this with retargeting, they can target their site visitors with much cost-effective channels such as display advertising. So they can track the device where the ad was shown and measure when it enters the law firm. Personal injury attorneys successfully target hospitals or auto repair shops. If you are in the Estate and Will business, it might work well to target destinations frequented by high net-worth individuals such as art museums or country clubs.
Politics
During election years, politicians exhaust their budgets on multi-channel marketing. Historically, traditional media has been the main channel of choice. In recent years, we have seen the ad money flow into digital media. Politicians can combine traditional media with geofencing and target of political districts to send political messages to voters in key voting areas. They can also use geofencing to draw boundaries around polling places to catch voters right before they cast a ballot or while attending political rallies.
Finance
Geofencing can work well for those in the financial industry. Banks and credit card companies can combine their direct mail campaigns with geofencing marketing. They can simply upload their direct mail contact lists and show ads specifically to these households. They can target geofenced areas near auto dealers or real estate offices with advertisements about competitive loan options. They can target customers that visit the competing banks or financial institutions.
Retail
Retailers can take advantage of a nearby shopper to deliver targeted ads to shoppers when they are near your stores (or at your competitors’ stores). You can also draw tight geofenced areas around your store’s footprint to market special offers to in-store shoppers.
Are you taking advantage of Geofencing Marketing?
While we have mentioned only a few verticals in this post. Geofencing can work really well for most types of businesses. Geofencing can be highly effective when consumers are near or in your location. It can be used to draw customers from your competitors and make them aware of your services. It allows you to identify high concentrations of relevant customers. Geofencing optimizes your marketing by targeting relevant customers that are more likely to convert.
Especially with Walk-in attribution, that allows you to measure the actual number of visits to the store and attribute it back to the actual ad impression, geofencing can be a really powerful marketing strategy.
