Cross A Boundary, Get A Text

While savvy marketers have been using geotargeted strategies for years, they might be surprised about the many ways they can fine tune and better pinpoint marketing efforts with “goefencing” tactics.

Geofencing adds an interesting weapon to the digital marketer’s arsenal, capable of making a serious impact on competitors in a local market tug of war for customers. The tool lets digital marketers identify prospects’ locations, using GPS or RFID to tailor customized texts and emails. A marketer can track its prospects’ location either by the use of a downloaded, branded app on the smartphone or via software that is capable of identifying location based on the customers’ visit to the brand’s website.

Geofencing helps retailers create virtual targeting boundaries

A marketer can also deploy an unlimited number of tactical executions using geofencing. It could deploy a defensive strategy to ward off competitors’ attempts to siphon off their existing customers or it can use the strategy to conquest new prospects.

For example, a local retailer who is using a geofencing platform, like Cloud Engage, can draw a virtual fence around a competitors’ location so that each time a user crosses the virtual boundary he or she can be served up an incentive promotional text aimed at steering the prospect to the marketing retailer’s establishment instead.

Not only can the marketer trigger a text when the prospect enters the virtual fence, but he or she can also customize the message based on a weekly or daily merchandising offer and/or a specific demographic, such as seniors visiting the website or using the app who have been identified as living in a retirement community area.

After several years of mobile check-ins, geofencing appears to be taking location-based marketing to the next level.