What is Geofencing?
Geofencing
Geofencing has become one of the most powerful tools of mobile advertising and can be used in a number of ways to ensure your company can generate revenue in specific areas.
For a lot of companies, their ideal customers and clients are located in particular locations at certain times, i.e. Starbucks customers are located in shopping complexes at lunchtime. By using geofencing effectively, these customers can be targeted.
However, driving foot traffic is just one of the ways that geofencing can be put to good use. It also has a number of capabilities and uses, many of which we will explore below.
So, if you want to learn more about geofencing and how businesses around the world have been using it, read on!
What is Geofencing?
Geofencing is a technology that allows us to create a virtual boundary around a particular geographic area. After this, devices are triggered once they enter this area and sent an alert.
There are both active and passive types of geofencing.
Active - Require people to actively opt into location services
Passive - Don’t require opt-in and rely on cellular data, GPS and WiFi connections to target devices
To better understand geofencing and its benefits, below we’ve come up with a few examples of how companies have used it to create brilliant results!
Example #1 - Outback Steakhouse uses Geofencing to Target Competitor’s Customers
Outback Steakhouse targeted the areas of their competitors
The customers of your competitors provide an opportunity. While they are currently loyal to one of your rivals, you’re also certain they have an interest in the service you provide.
At which point, the only action that needs to take place is that they decide to start using your service or product instead of your rivals.
Easier said than done, yes, but Outback Steakhouse was able to successfully do this, by setting up geofencing near their competitors outlets.
That meant, every time their ideal customers were going to their competitors, they were provided with advertising that constantly reminded them of their outlet as the alternative.
To solidify this strategy, Outback Steakhouse set up geofencing around their own outlets to protect their existing customers.
Example #2 - Best Western Uses Geofencing to Acquire Last-Minute Customers
Best Western targeted airports to catch people likely to be looking for somewhere to stay
Best Western is a company that runs a chain of hotels across the globe. Because of this, their main goal is to ensure they get as many people filling their rooms as possible every night.
By setting up geofencing around airports, Best Western advertised to those people who were arriving in a particular region where rooms were available.
This campaign was started after data showed many people who arrive at airports still haven’t booked somewhere to stay and, through this, was able to clinch last-minute customers.
Example #3 - Uber Uses Geofencing to Protect Their Dominance
Uber also found success at airports and used geofencing to stay above competitor taxi ranks
Currently, Uber is the dominant company in the car transportation market, using their application to find and hail a ride near them.
As with any taxi company, airports are a hotspot for Uber and, because of this, Uber set up a geofence to protect their dominance near LAX airport.
Through this, they prevented the growing number of smaller, copycat companies that were aiming to encroach on their territory and held on to their market dominance.
For companies looking to defend against new competitors, geofencing is a great way to ensure you can protect yourself from losing competitors.
Example #4 - The British Open Uses Geofencing to Give Extra Benefits to Spectators
The British Open used geofencing to create a better experience for their visitors to improve the chance of them returning
The British Open Golf Championships attracts one of the largest collection of golf fans every year and, once they’ve bought their ticket, organisers are keen to ensure they stick around and spend additional money.
To help them with this, The British Open set up geofencing around the entire course and allowed spectators to track every player and see how well they were performing throughout the tournament.
This provided a nice little perk that many people attending the event took advantage of and will likely be a way to persuade a number of them to return to the next event.
Example #5 - Vouchercloud Uses Geofencing to Target People with Relevant Vouchers
Vouchercloud sent alerts to people close to the shops that they had vouchers for
A lot of the time, vouchers are location-specific and, because of this, geofencing becomes an extremely effective way for them to be advertised.
Vouchercloud used geofencing to send alerts to those that were close to shops they currently had vouchers available for. This allowed them to find their discount straight away as they headed to the shop.
This was both great for customers and Vouchercloud and has helped them to drive a large amount of relevant traffic to their website.
Conclusion
As the examples above show, geofencing and location-based advertising, in general, has had a large impact on how many businesses advertise.
It has provided a new and effective way to attract new customers in a manner that’s direct, relevant and difficult to ignore.
That’s not the sort of thing that can just be dismissed if you’re interested in growing your business and moving with the times!
It’s not always simple, though. Geofencing is only effective when it has been planned out correctly with a clear strategy.