Location-based Marketing Can Spark Customer Engagement in a Big Way

The exciting aspect of location-based marketing is it can connect a brand to a customer before, during, and after he or she has made a purchase. Being there throughout the entire customer journey can surely help elevate and spark better customer engagement.

During the Jan. 17 Loyalty360 webinar titled, “The State of Loyalty in 2017 – An Exclusive Webinar with Snipp and Loyalty360,” presented by Snipp, Carlos Dunlap-Beard, vice president, loyalty solutions & business development at Snipp, discussed this important theme.

“Back in July, Reveal Mobile published a blog highlighting that more than twenty-five percent of Target and six
percent of Walmart locations have deployed Bluetooth Beacons within their locations,” Dunlap-Beard explained.
“This type of location-based tracking and marketing – whether powered by the store or in the app of a smartphone – provides retailers with the opportunity to influence matriculation through their stores, understand when a customer is close to a location to shoot them a message and quick offer to lure them to the store; provide an automatic check-in or inform the consumer that a connected friend is also in the store; and, of course, we know that with RFID technology, customers can also use their phones for contactless payments.”

There is a way to combine most of this functionality into a single strategy that benefits all parties, Dunlap-Beard said.

“For instance, let’s say that a soft-drink brand partner with a retail/convenience store brand to recognize and reward customers who purchased that brand of soft drink from participating locations,” Dunlap-Beard explained. “With the incorporation of contactless payments, all required information can be tracked, aggregated, and attributed to an individual consumer, leading to more affinity for all participating brands and rewards earning for the consumer.”

Subway recently deployed a location-based strategy that is incorporated into its free Wi-Fi system in some of its Northern Ontario locations. These participating Subway locations may not capture every customer’s information because not all customers will log onto the store’s Wi-Fi network, however, they will capture a great deal of information that allows them to know far more than they previously knew – giving Subway the ability to drive incremental visits and spending.

What’s more, Dunlap-Beard said that virtual and digitized consumer experiences continue to increase in frequency and are changing the way consumers engage with brands and their own realities.

Not all digitized experiences need to be virtual, he noted. What’s more, voice-controlled devices will continue to be introduced and evolved.

“It’s only natural that this type of user experience gets incorporated into loyalty programs,” Dunlap-Beard said.
Starbucks recently used an augmented reality experience in combination with Pokemon Go.

“The promotion allowed fanatics to encounter Pokemon at participating Starbucks stores to feed the Pokemon Go craze while driving traffic into Starbucks locations across the country,” Dunlap-Beard said. “As marketers, we need to stay very diligent about recognizing opportunities early in their lifecycle. Virtual is the tech and opportunity. Something like Pokemon should be an initiative or tactic that supports your overall strategy. The tech is here to stay, the tactic may be opportunistic, so timing is critical.”

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