Here’s The Deal With Geofencing

Understanding Geofencing

If you’re a local business, or your business otherwise takes advantage of regional marketing, you’ve likely heard about geofencing. With the exponential growth of marketing via smartphones over the last few years, marketers are taking advantage of just about everything they can when it comes to our trusty devices—including our locations. If you’re interested in learning more about how geofencing can help your business, as well as the difference that Navazon offers (more on that later), this article is your go-to guide. Keep reading to learn more about geofencing and how adding it to your marketing strategy will help catapult your business.

Wait – What is Geofencing?

A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. A geo-fence could be dynamically generated (as in a radius around a point location) or match a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighborhood boundaries). Geofencing is a powerful location-based marketing tool that allows you to target customers in a specific area with customized messages. With Geofencing, you can create virtual boundaries around places of business or even homes, and trigger automated alerts when someone enters or exits the area.

The use of a geofence is called geofencing, and one example of use involves a location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user entering or exiting a geo-fence. This activity could trigger an alert to the device’s user as well as messaging to the geo-fence operator. This info, which could contain the location of the device, could be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account.

The Stats: Here’s Why Geofencing Works

• Wondering if geofencing really works? Here are some statistics:
• Mobile ads with geofencing have double the click-through rate.
• Geofencing is compatible with 92% of smartphones.
• The average consumer spends 5 hours a day on their mobile device.
• 71% of consumers prefer a personalized ad experience.
• 3 out of 4 consumers complete an action after receiving a message when approaching a specific location
• 53% of shoppers visited a retailer after receiving a location-based message

Use Cases for Geofencing

Okay… we know what you’re thinking. Geofencing sounds fancy and everything, but what are some of the real-world applications?

Here are a couple of use cases from our very own clients, using geofencing:

During the height of COVID, we targeted all COVID testing areas that the government set up, as well as urgent care and ER rooms. Anyone who went for a COVID test would start to see our client’s ads alerting them to come to our client’s clinic if they tested positive. When they did come into one of our client’s clinics, they would be tagged as a conversion.

Simply put: Geofencing is replacing door hangers and flyers. A new restaurant client insisted on sending out paper menus to all the businesses and residences nearby. We printed and distributed door-hangers and paper menus to all buildings with limited results. Then we tested Geofencing targeting the same buildings; we also targeted the other neighboring restaurants to reach frequent diners. The Geofencing ads showed pictures of the dishes and coupons for pickup and delivery, all of which significantly increased the amount of orders and walk-in traffic compared to door hangers and printed menus.

Benefits of Geofencing

What is so great about sending out push notifications, ads, or texts to people who happen to be in a certain area at a certain time? Other than the fact that it works to get you conversions and more business, there are a ton of other benefits to using geotargeting for your business. A few of them include hyper-targeting, tons of data, a huge competitive advantage, great personalization for the customers, and more bang for your buck.

Hyper-Targeting

Ever heard of being at the right place at the right time? It won’t just be a stroke of luck anymore. Hyper-Targeting ensures that every customer receives the most relevant content, driving more engagement and satisfying their needs in no time. With geofencing, you will be right where all of your potential customers and target audience hangs out. With Geofencing, you can easily create targeted campaigns that reach potential customers and build relationships with existing ones. You can track user behavior and customize offers to increase brand awareness and loyalty.

At Navazon, we can also layer demographic, behavioral, or in-market audiences. For example, we can target people who are already in the market to buy a car or a house, people who are beauty buyers, frequent restaurant diners, and so forth. Once you add that to the geo-targeting data to get very granular targeting, the number of your hot leads shoots up exponentially. This saves you time and money in the long run (more on that later), and you will only ever get good, quality leads.

Geofencing Relies on Tons of Data

When it comes to marketing, data is king. As marketers, we love gathering as much information as humanly possible to ensure we are doing things right. Geofencing allows us another layer of information to gather and mesh with all of your other data.

What are traffic patterns like? User engagement? Does one demographic perform better than the other? How do we target those better in the future? All of these questions (and hundreds more) can be answered through all of the information that geofencing provides.

Competitive Advantage

As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to shine through your competitors. How can you get people to notice you and choose you over your competitors? Well, one of the ways you can do that is to go out and grab them via geofencing. You can engage with potential customers who are near your business and take advantage of the power of geofencing. Show them that you’re different from your competitors and create personalized advertising messages that will grab their attention and make them choose you over the competition.

You do not have to limit geofencing to just your own location. You can add geofencing to your competitor’s location, too! In 2016, Dunkin Donuts famously utilized geofencing technology to lure customers away from the competition by creating geofences around other coffee shops in the area and sending targeted ads to those prospects. Of the 36 percent that clicked on the offer (a coupon), 18 percent saved the coupon and 3.6 percent returned to redeem their coupon. You can literally draw people away from your competitors with geofencing.

Personalization

Who doesn’t love a personalized shopping experience? With geofencing, you can welcome back return customers, create customized promotions, and get into the community spirit all through the demographics of a local area.

Is there a local holiday parade happening? Offer a discount or something for free that is redeemable right after the parade ends! Is your business located near a sports stadium? Offer freebies or discounts for when the home team wins to the entire stadium! Is Harry Styles in town on his world tour? Offer discounts or freebies to anyone who shows up with a ticket stub or Harry Styles merch! The list goes on and on.

More Bang for Your Buck

When it comes to serving ads to your target audience and potential customers, finding hot leads can be expensive and time-consuming. This is why geofencing generally has a high price of entry with most marketing networks. At Navazon, our monthly minimum is much lower than our competitors, because we’ve done it a lot and know what works.

Geofencing allows you to cherry-pick hot leads like low-hanging fruit. It eliminates a lot of the need for testing and waiting for conversions, which means more bang for your buck out of your marketing budget. As mentioned earlier, 3 out of 4 consumers complete an action after receiving a message when approaching a specific location.

This is in stark contrast to regular ol’ Google ads, for which the average Google Ads CTR for ads placed at the first position is 7.94%. Don’t get us wrong—we love Google ads and are experts with those, too—but geofencing is on a whole other level and is an excellent addition to every marketing strategy.

Ways to Use Geofencing

Now that you know what geofencing is on the technical side, why it works, and how it is so beneficial for you, here are some actual ways of using it. They include:

• Apps. Does your business have an app? Once people download it, you are able to send them push notifications through your app. This means you’ll have to make a big push for app downloads in your business through offers and incentives. Then—if you’re a restaurant, for example—you can start sending push notifications around lunchtime to nearby complexes, enticing them to get on their lunch breaks and come to you.
• Texts. There’s no doubt that you have received promotional texts at some point, and that is all thanks to geofencing. You can get customer numbers through website sign-ups, new account set-ups, and much more.
  Through other apps. That’s right, you can actually purchase geofencing through other apps. Third-party apps are usually more than happy to sell ad space to non-competitors. For example, you can advertise your business on a coupon app or online ordering app through geofencing.
• Social media. Geofencing through social media is nothing new, and it is likely you have seen it in action on your own phone. Ever travel to another city and start receiving their local marketing? Hello, geofencing! Welcome new travelers into town by targeting the airport, hotels, and much more if you’re near them.
• Web browsing. Once you’ve entered a new geofence, you will likely start receiving some new ads on your web browser. This works very similarly to how social media takes advantage of geofencing.

Are There Any Downsides to Geofencing?

Like any marketing tool out there, there can be a few downsides to geofencing. However, they are so much less risky than any other marketing strategy out there, and the benefits greatly outweigh the negatives.

For example, one of the downsides of geofencing is that you may not be able to differentiate between employees and customers of a certain store. This can cause people to opt-out of your app or text messaging, so you will see some bounce numbers on your geofencing report. This is one of the innate flaws of geofencing, so don’t be scared if your marketer shows them to you!

Also, as mentioned, many marketing networks require a high price of entry to get started with geofencing—we’re talking $10k a month or more. Luckily, as mentioned, Navazon has perfected the process enough to the point where we won’t charge you nearly that much.

Geofencing and the Navazon Difference

At Navazon, we do things differently. Navazon helps businesses increase profits through data-driven marketing that expands opportunities and reduces risk. As marketers and entrepreneurs, we understand the value of developing a memorable brand through creativity and consistency. This is accomplished through targeted graphics, videos, and websites that reflect our proven, time-tested methodologies and detailed analytics. It is an approach that’s proven effective for companies of all sizes, from start-ups and medium-sized businesses to large firms with an international presence. We are content creators who listen to our clients so that we can formulate ideas and strategies based on your unique goals and philosophies.

When it comes to geofencing, we also offer:

• A better competitive advantage. We are marketing experts, and we know exactly how to target your competitors’ office buildings, pinpoint your target audience, and much more.
• Creative. Our banner ads are just better. Navazon will create your banner ads in many different dimensions as required by the geofencing network, worked on by professional graphic designers and copywriters.
• Better minimums. As mentioned, the best geofencing companies require a $10k a month minimum ad spend. When you work with Navazon, we do not have that minimum requirement as we have deals grandfathered in with the network. We have also mastered the system, allowing us to jump right in without any need for adjustment periods.

Stop relying on traditional marketing methods and start taking advantage of geofencing today. Unlock new opportunities to engage with potential customers and stand out from the competition. Ready to get started with geofencing? Visit our website and get in contact with us today! Set up your free consultation now at navazondigital.com.