Why Location is Everything for the Future of Retail Marketing

A retail marketer’s goal is to engage consumers at the time and place that will most heavily influence their buying habits. But with so much noise, Bill Ogle, CEO at Koupon Media explains how can marketers effectively break through and drive traffic online AND in-store?

A retail marketer’s goal is to reach consumers at a time and place that will most heavily influence their decision to purchase. Plain and simple.

And with today’s increasingly on-the-go consumer base, it’s no surprise that mobile has become one of the biggest influencers in the retail industry. According to Forbes, a whopping 86 million consumers will make a purchase on their mobile device in 2016, with 96 percent of consumers using their smartphones to find the best available deal.

As consumers become more mobile — and as decisions on whether to purchase a product continue to be made quicker—closing the loop on the path to purchase will become an increasingly important channel on which retail marketers will need compete. The majority of consumers activate an offer within the first two minutes of receiving it, underscoring the value of targeting consumers where they’re at in real time.

But with all the noise, especially around the holiday season, how can marketers continue to get consumers across the finish line?

The answer is location, location, location — also known as, “proximity marketing” by its more technical name. This tactic utilizes both location-based data and existing consumer data to bring uniquely customized and relevant experiences to consumers that prompt them to make a purchase. Marketers who want to get into the proximity game can apply this tactic in three different ways:

Push Notifications

For retailers that deliver offers through an app, proximity marketing is best done with push notifications — retailers that deliver push notifications increase app engagement by 88 percent and increase offer views by an average of 300 percent. Sending timely and location-based push notifications significantly impacts views and redemption rates, which ultimately leads to more foot traffic and more sales.

Mobile Web

For retailers without an app, do not fear: proximity marketing can be easily implemented through the mobile web. The mobile web allows retailers to deliver redeemable ads, which see incredible success when linked to a specific location - that probably explains why location-based ads were ranked one of the most effective mobile ad formats by mobile marketers.  In fact, limiting the display of a redeemable ad to consumers in the same zip code as participating stores increases offer views by six times and offer redemptions by four times.

The Connected Car

The connected car market is growing rapidly. A June 2016 BI Intelligence report forecasts there will be over 380 million connected cars on the road by 2021 and that consumers are adopting to this new technology faster than expected.

For marketers, this should scream “OPPORTUNITY.” Consumers are in their connected cars an average of 46 minutes a day as they complete the rituals of shopping, dining, and increasingly, living life on the move. Marketers can leverage this new medium to deliver hyper-relevant, hyper-localized offers that are specific to consumer location and behavior and ultimately, extend the life of the in-vehicle experience to a purchase in-store.

So what does all this amount to? No longer do consumers simply want brands and retailers to send location based marketing messages – rather, they expect it. That’s why consumers have become increasingly comfortable with sharing personal information and location data in exchange for rewards and offers. In fact, 77 percent of consumers are now willing to share their location data, and 89 percent of consumers indicate that they will share their location in exchange for discounts.

As the demands and expectations of consumers continue to rise, location will only become more critical to the success of the retail industry. And as consumer lifestyles become increasingly on-the go, with the onset of mobile and the connected car continuing to transform shopper behavior, proximity marketing will become more commonplace.