Mike Smith

5 Things You Need to Know About Geo-fencing

1. A geo-fence is a virtual barrier that is circular in shape and centers around any physical address of your choosing.

Fences can be as small as 50 meters or as large as 50,000 meters. With mPlace, you can set up as many geo-fences as allowed by your plan. You can ‘fence’ your stores, competitor stores, and any other place of interest like stadiums, museums, concert venues, college campuses. If it has an address, you can fence it! And once you set up a fence, you can then set up a trigger so when a device enters, exits, or even ‘loiters for 5 minutes’ the boundaries defined by your geo-fences, a push notification, text message or email alert is sent! So, you can easily geo-fence the parking lot of a shopping mall and be the first to send a notification to customers as they enter that mall! Here's a few more things you need to know about this location-based mobile service that lets marketers send messages to your smartphone when you enter a defined geographic area, such as a shopping mall.

2. Use it to engage your offline, local shoppers.

Geo-fencing is a location-based service that sends messages to smartphone users who enter a defined geographic area. Some companies send promotions to customers' smartphones when they enter a store, mall or neighborhood.

3. Use it to create deals that can be hyper-local.

Knowing that customers are nearby lets businesses tailor offers based on local events or holidays. For example, 1-800-Flowers deployed targeted notifications for 20 percent off bouquets in the days leading up to Valentine's Day. Their ads pushed traffic to their local retail stores and included a click-through map to show your location and how to get to the store. Companies can also work with businesses that offer complementary products. For example, 1-800-Flowers geo-fenced the area around jewelry stores that are close to their flower stores.

4. Learn to leverage your customers’ locations.

By sending a targeted offer to a customer in a parking lot, you may be able to steer them away from competitors.

5. You need more rewards.

When you know where customers are and how they behave, you can not only customize offers but also give them rewards and a personalized experience. Neiman Marcus is piloting geo-fencing in its stores so salespeople can see when VIP customers are in store, look at their purchase history and provide more personalized service. But Costa warns: "Make sure it's not intrusive, make sure it's additive. The value exchange has to be there."