4 Reasons Why Location-based Marketing is Set to Disrupt Marketing in 2019

Location-based marketing is a powerful strategy to create opportunities based on the target audience’s location. It could be a targeted campaign for a location-specific audience, based on proximity, or contextual targeting based on history and customer behavior. Location-based marketing helps you reach out to customers in real-time and enhance customer experience. Let’s find out how.

Location-based marketing (LBM) typically takes advantage of the geolocation of a customer (usually via a GPS-enabled device) and uses techniques like Geo-fencing, Geo-targeting based on user input, Geo-conquesting, Geo-exclusion, etc. to send personalized and relevant messages at the right place, at the right time to the right person.

Wondering what Geolocation is? In our previous article, we touched upon what geolocation means and how it is used in targeting and advertising.

How Will Location-Based Marketing Up Your Marketing Game in 2019?

1. Augmented Location

Today’s tech-savvy, always online, and mobile customer expects valuable and contextual messages that address their ‘current’ requirement. It is no longer enough to use ‘pin-location’ to send out notifications to customers; rather marketers have to ‘augment’ location within the context of user data to create ‘smart notifications’ (marketing messages) for a richer experience.

Laetitia Gazel Anthoine, CEO, Connecthings, in her article, Beyond the Pin Drop: How Augmented Location Will Fuel Mobile Marketing of the Future, writes, “Augmenting location with data about user behavior patterns enables a brand to create more timely, customized user engagement.”

Augmented location will change the course of mobile marketing, by identifying the right time for user engagement, transforming mobile marketing by enabling marketers to solve problems, using context to create targeted notifications that would prove useful and relevant.

2. Beacon Technology

Though beacons have been around for a while, this technology has taken time to mature. Beacons are installed to send out signals to mobile devices within a range of a few meters to target messages to devices in close proximity.

Proximity marketing will become a priority for marketers in 2019, and the beacon network will make it possible to send highly targeted messages as a person moves from location to location.

Beacons offer opportunities such as location targeting, customer mapping, visit tracking, targeting with related products and cross-selling. They can also guide users in big shopping centers, offer rewards and send promotional messages.

Also Read: 5 Ways How Beacon Technology is Helping Brands Transform Marketing

3. Hyperlocal Marketing

Marketers today have broader goals and narrower strategies. Hyperlocal marketing is about targeting customers in a geographically restricted area or even a specific destination. It is an excellent strategy for small as well as large businesses, as you can craft extremely relevant and targeted messages to the set of customers at a particular location and capitalize on the fact that a customer is more likely to buy from the area she resides in or can walk to.

Although Google has discontinued a very popular 'Nearby Notifications' feature as it led to too much spam and poor UX, marketers will not shy away from exploring alternatives to bring relevant and engaging content to customers without affecting the customer experience.

Proximity Marketing Apps will also show an upward trajectory, through which customers can exercise full control over the messages and notifications they receive. This will help in sending out relevant messages without spamming the customer.

Other marketing strategies that you can incorporate in your hyperlocal marketing efforts include:

• Beacon technology (as mentioned above)
• Community-based marketing
• Local influencers
• Priority-based individual customer experiences
• Locally relevant content such as newsletters, emails
   

Also Read: Why Location is Everything for the Future of Retail Marketing

4. Mobile App Localization

Companies will adopt localization strategies on a global scale. If an idea works in one country, it may work in another country too, with some tweaks and local flavors added. Companies will invest more in creating localized app versions to suit local needs for a better user experience, which, in turn, will create substantial opportunities to tap different markets.

Also Read: Mobile App Localization and Internationalization

Location-based marketing is about showcasing your brand to a set of highly targeted customers at the right time and the right place. Leveraging the right technology in combination with user data, behavior, and context will help you deliver an enticing message to draw in newer customers and keep the old ones coming back.

How are you going to adopt location-centric marketing? Let us know in the comments below, or even on social media. We’re always listening!