6 Secrets to a Successful Geofence Campaign

If you are already familiar with the mobile marketing space, chances are, you’ve probably heard of geofencing. But in case you haven’t, geofencing is essentially the establishment of a virtual fence around a customised geographical area. When potential customers enter the designated geofence area, they receive a notification from the business.

Everyone loves a good bargain. But it’s made even better when you get notified about it when you’re just strolling past the venue.

Many different types of businesses can use geofencing in many different types of ways. However, there are a few general rules that should be followed, and methods put in place in order to get the best out of your mobile marketing.

6 Secrets To Getting Your Geofencing Campaign Right

1. Bigger is Not Always Better

A business can set their geofence to whatever size they wish. However, choosing limits wisely is the key to geofencing. Having a geofence that reaches all the way over to the other side of the city lacks relevancy and removes the convenience element from your messaging. When competition is high, it’s best to focus on your own backyard. A general rule of thumb is to have a perimeter within five minutes of travel time from the furthest point of the geofence to the business. However, if you are the only one of your kind in the town, then you do have the scope to have a larger radius.

2. Track Down Your Customers

Your geofence does not just have to be set up around your business. Think about where your customers currently are, not necessarily where you want them to be. Where do they work? Where do they go for lunch? Where are your competitors? Spending time doing some market research and understanding the behaviour of your customers will greatly improve the effectiveness of your campaign.

3. Timing is Everything

Sending an offer out for the likes of a retail store out of business hours defeats the purpose of the campaign. Timing is a crucial factor in ensuring you reach your target audience at the right time. When you notify your customers to take an action is just as important as where they are when you do so.

For example, if you own a busy cafe that is rammed full with people during the lunch time rush then you don’t need to try and attract more business at that moment in time. It would be more worthwhile to wait until a quieter period of the day to send out a message encouraging passers-by into your venue.

4. Give Your Customer What They Want to Hear

Geofencing isn’t about bombarding your potential customers with messages everywhere they go. If anything, this will just make them opt out of your messaging and become frustrated with your brand. Instead you need to offer your customers’ something beneficial that they will want to opt-in for. Give them something that creates added value for them. Something as simple as “Buy one coffee, get one free today between 11am - 4pm!” is enough to entice them into your cafe. Put yourself in their shoes and consider whether or not you would want to receive that message, and think about how it could improve the overall customer experience.

McDonald’s recently leveraged a similar marketing technique in 15 of their McD Cafes in Istanbul, Turkey. By sending promotions to customers within its venues via a mobile application 20% of visitors claimed the offer, and 30% of those who received the promotion used the offer more than once. This enabled McDonald's to enhance the personal relationships with their customers as well as increase awareness of their new lines of coffee-flavoured beverages.

5. Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If your message is just simply an advertisement telling everyone how great your business is then you will not get the desired customer behaviour. You need to give your customers a brief, location-relevant call to action that is important and engaging enough to target the appropriate user.

6. Measure, Measure, Measure

...Did I say measure? Record every little metric that may directly impact your campaign return on investment, even if you are unsure how it does! Measure how well your customer responds to each message and figure out what works best for your target market, and what doesn’t. This sort of information will help shape your future campaigns and allow them to be even more effective than the last.