Recent surveys reveal that 80% of mobile users will allow you to track them in exchange for discounts. How are you leveraging this opportunity?
What at first sounds like a huge hurdle is in fact a simple, yet powerful, technology to tackle. Turning your users' location into a rich contextual notification or automating how you categorize them based on their location history is, in general, a privacy concern. But if done right and transparently, it can become an enabler for great experiences.
So... What is a Geofence?
The best way to describe a geofence is by imagining a virtual circle or polygon in a map. Using Notificare's location services, you can then apply rules whenever a user crosses these boundaries. This makes it easy to send a notification or add/remove a user from a certain segment, each time they enter or exit the geofence.
Using it at scale
Notificare's added value is to be able to bypass limitations and restrictions found in both iOS and Android, allowing companies of any size to deploy any number of geofences and triggers in any point on the globe. You'll also enjoy years of expertise and best-in-class techniques that enable your app to use lowest power possible while maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy.
On top of that, Notificare's smart rules for geo-triggers enable you to create location based messages or categorize user's location behaviour with a couple of simple steps. No matter if your brand has a couple of stores or thousands of shops spread over several countries, you'll be able to create as many campaigns as you want, whenever you want and manage it all without driving your marketing team nuts.
Defining who and when users receive these location based notifications is one of the best reasons you want to use Notificare instead of considering building it yourself. Unless you have mastered geographic information systems (GIS) you will want to delegate the nuts and bolts of geofencing to a 3rd party tool like Notificare and avoid endless development sprints that will never catch up with the latest features.
Taking it further with iBeacons
To kick it up a notch, you can increase to a very granular level the way you send notifications when users are inside your geofences, by creating micro-locations inside existing fences. This is done by installing BTLE beacons inside your regions. Where geofences are usually used to track larger areas, people arriving at your stores or your competitors, iBeacons can be used to track proximity to physical objects and considerably increase how meaningful your location based messages are.
Can you give me some use cases?
Some of our clients are currently doing great campaigns by harnessing the power of geofences, here's some examples:
- Offer last minute discounts whenever your customers are around
- Build up user profiles based on their location behaviour
- Send coupons whenever they walk into competitor's stores
- Request feedback about in-store services whenever their leave your store
Privacy Concerns
It's always good to highlight that this functionality requires user's opt-in. This means that users will need to download and install your app, open it and accept your app to track their location, pretty much the same way you already do for push notifications. It is also possible for a user to opt-out at any time so it is imperative that they understand what you do with their location and that they see the benefits of allowing your app the privilege to keep tracking them. This is usually best explained in your own privacy policy and by designing a compelling location on-boarding tutorial in your app. We will also allow you to erase location history on the platform side of things allowing you to comply to data protection requirements from governments around the world.
In time for the holidays
One of the busiest periods of the year is near but you're still in time to make the most out of it. With a couple of hours of development and some setup from your marketing team, you can be creating location based campaigns in time for the holidays and potentially generate more revenue by creating moments that put a smile in your customer's face. Feel free to contact our Sales Team for more information.