Marketers have long been challenged to reach consumers near the point of purchase decision, particularly when those decisions are made impulsively like quick-service restaurants and certain other bricks and mortar retailers. In fact, QSRs long fought to have presence within a 3-mile radius of their stores, often limited to reaching prospects in their cars with billboards and local radio. With technology, media channels have proliferated dramatically but the ability to target a message to a very specific geographic region has lagged other advancements.
Just this week Facebook announced the launch of hyper-local advertising, targeting ads within a specific distance of a bricks and mortar retailer. Advertisers can set their message as near as a single mile, meaning it would appear only on the mobile devices of consumers within that specific geography. Facebook says their geo-targeting feature will go live in a few weeks, with many micromarketing applications sure to follow. As features advance to real-time notifications, users with location tracking could dramatically change the relationship between retailers and consumers.
How? Here are just a few possibilities:
1) Less Time in Line
At the moment, potential consumers can’t see around corners…even corners just a half block away. A five-minute departure time could be the difference between a stroll directly to placing a burrito order or being number 12 in the burrito order-placing line. With geo-targeting, a message could inform the burrito cravers that their local outlet offers no waiting at a particular time—strong incentive to end that conference call right away. Efficient notification of supply (either because of a temporarily overstaffed store or a surplus of merchandise) to a potential buyer who may be able to quickly access that surplus presents a win/win proposition.
2) Opportunistic Sales
Imagine a Blue Light Special where the item highlighted isn’t within a single aisle of a single Kmart, but a favorite boutique within the mall a consumer is already shopping. Smart retailers will use highly targeted messages to highlight their best-selling merchandise or offer special offers on items they may have excess inventory to prospects already nearby with credit card in hand. The Louis Vuitton Store could not only add $2,500.00 in topline revenue from an iconic Alma bag in elegant Epi leather; they have usurped that revenue from Bloomingdale’s handbag department, all without a coupon or a newspaper ad.
Louis Vuitton in Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In our over scheduled lives, everyone has a running “to-do” list. With geo-targeted messages, Saturday-morning errands will be enhanced with task reminders. Imagine receiving a message guaranteeing 30-minute oil change while grocery shopping in the same strip mall. More compelling may be a deep-tissue massage concurrent with that oil change. Perhaps the local dog groomer just had a cancelation. With a notification to your smartphone, that Jack Russell could be looking even cuter within the hour. A local window washer may notify a neighborhood that their services will be available the very next day instead of the usual 4-week lead time, resulting in another task finally crossed off the “to do list.”
4) Loyalty Incentives
Like points for frequency or dollars spent, geo-targeting will allow retailers to reward consumers for shopping at a specific times or locations, leveling supply and demand, resulting in another win/win scenario. Quick service restaurants have long suffered from fixed costs of overhead and staff, despite bursts in need at mealtimes only. Geo-targeting will offer incentives for consumers who have the flexibility to shop at low traffic times, resulting in overall increased revenue for retailers.
5) Any Neighborhood Feels Like Home
Allowing a smartphone to recognize current location, geo-targeting will facilitate notifications in any other city in the US…and eventually in the world. Any city could be easy to navigate, offering the easy solution to a Subway $5 Footlong craving when in Buenos Aires.
Like all forms of advertising, the challenge of geo-targeted campaigns will be filtering meaningful messages from spam. Like many digital ads, there is high risk of clutter. With an already small screen, ads on a cell phone could quickly become a nuisance. Geo-targeting can only function if the consumer enables the location feature. Should advertisers not respect their audience, access can and will be denied.
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