How to Set Up Geofencing Marketing

If you’re looking for a way to successfully connect with your audience, geofencing marketing is for you. 

Geofencing marketing is the concept of targeting your marketing efforts around a certain geographic radius. This means that businesses can send targeted geofencing advertising to the potential customers within the chosen zone. 

In this article, we’ll tell you all about how to set up geofencing marketing and how does geofencing work. We’ll explore the right geofencing tools to define your geofencing area. Basically we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to get started with geofencing advertising. By the end, you will be able to use this tool to improve your marketing strategy, and you will definitely be able to reach the right audience at the right time.

What is Geofencing?

Geofencing means creating a virtual fence or perimeter around a physical location. These locations can be all sizes, large and small. It could be a single building or a whole city. When a person enters this area, they receive targeted advertisements, notifications and messages on their phone. 

Geofencing marketing is an important technique to accurately attract a company’s most likely customers. Geofencing advertising reaches the customers where they are and delivers relevant content based on their location. For example, a flower shop that uses a geofencing marketing strategy will send you a coupon as you pass by the shop. This increases the chance of the customer to walk into the store.

39% of marketers say that geofencing targeting performs better. A good real life example is Dunkin Donuts. They used geofencing marketing to take customers away from their competitors. They targeted competitor businesses’ locations and sent coupons to the people in that area. 36% of people clicked on the offer and took secondary action. 18% of these actions was savng the coupon and 3.6% redeemed the coupon.

So, how exactly does geofencing advertising work? It uses Wi-Fi, cellular data, GPS and RFID to recognize when a phone enters a specific location. Once the person is in the geofencing area, the system automatically sends a notification or ad to their phone. 

Benefits of Geofencing Marketing

Geofencing marketing is a valuable tool in modern advertising. These are some main advantages that this strategy can offer:

• Cost-Effective Marketing: Businesses maximize their advertising budget and reduce waste to a minimum. That’s all because of geofencing marketing’s unique way to focus on a specific geographic area. It’s cost-effective because the geofencing advertising will reach only people who are most likely to engage.
  
• Increased Engagement: Your company will send personalized offers and messages to potential customers, whenever they enter the targeted area. This way geofencing advertising increases the likelihood of engagement.
  
• Real-Time Interaction: Geofencing tools will help your business to interact with your customers in real time. This means that you can provide timely offers that need immediate action.
  
• Precise Targeting: Geofencing marketing targets your customers based on their exact location. This way you will make sure your geofencing advertising reaches the right audience at the right time.
  

One of the most successful geofencing examples is Starbucks’s strategy. They use push notifications and geofencing to send their customers personalized offers. If you are near a Starbucks, they send you offers if you have the Starbucks app on your phone. 

Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Geofencing Marketing

There are several geofencing tools on the market. Each has different capabilities and features. So, you need to choose carefully which tools you want to work with. Popular geofencing tools are: Facebook’s Local Awareness Ads and Google Ads for location-based advertising. There are also platforms like Blueshift and Radar. With these tools you can manage and create geofencing advertising campaigns. You can also analyze the effectiveness of your marketing and track user engagement.

When it comes to choosing the right geofencing tools, there are several factors you need to consider. These factors are integration with your company’s existing marketing platforms, the level of targeting precision and it’s also important to consider the ease of use. Some geofencing tools offer advanced features. It could be real-time data analysis or audience segmentation. This way you’ll be able to optimize your campaigns. 

The cost is also an important part to consider. Some tools are way more expensive than others. This choice depends on your geofencing targeting efforts. 

It’s also important to consider cost, as some tools may have higher fees depending on the scale of your geofencing targeting efforts. 

Defining Your Geofence Area

• Identify the Target Location: Identifying the geofencing targeting location is the first step in how to set up geofencing marketing. This location could be anywhere and any size. It could be a small store or the whole event venue. This location should be well thought out because it must be the place your customers are most likely to be.

• Determine the Geofence Size: In geofencing marketing the location size is important. To not waste your money, you need to align geofencing targeting location size with your goals and business in general. If you are a small coffee shop owner, you will need a small geofence around the neighborhood. But if you are a retail chain you need to cover larger areas.

• Use Geofencing Tools to Draw the Boundary: Use your geofencing tools to draw a boundary around your target location. You’ll be able to do this on a map, with the geofencing tool you’ll choose.

• Be Precise in Your Selection: Always be precise when you create your geofencing location. You should not target the irrelevant areas. The well-thought-out geofence will target the people who enter your chosen zone. 

• Create Targeted Ads: Once you finish setting up your geofence, start working on targeted ads. They will be shown to the customers once they enter your geofencing targeting area.

Creating Targeted Ads

• Focus on Relevance: You need to consider the interests and needs of the people who enter your geofenced zone. This way you’ll stay relevant. For example, if you’re targeting people near your coffee shop, offer special discounts. This will encourage them to visit. 

• Use Clear and Concise Language: Your geofencing advertising copy needs to be on point. Use strong CTA that call for immediate response. It could be “Buy one, get one for free” or Visit today for 20% off.”

• Incorporate Visual Elements: Visuals are always important especially in marketing. Use images that are vibrant, appealing and noticeable. 

• Ensure Mobile-Friendliness: Make sure your geofencing advertising is optimized for mobile devices. It’s important because most of the geofencing marketing targets mobile users. 

• Engage and Drive Action: Relevant, simple and visually appealing ads will capture your audience’s attention and it will definitely drive in more customers.

Monitoring and Adjusting Your Campaign

• Track Key Metrics: Once your geofencing marketing campaign is live, start by monitoring key performance metrics. These include: foot traffic, conversion rates and CTR. With these you’ll find out how well your geofencing advertising is going.

• Use Analytics Dashboards: Use analytics dashboards to see real-time data about the metrics mentioned above. These dashboards are provided by the most of the geofencing tools.

• Adjust Underperforming Ads: If some of your targeted locations or ads are not performing as expected, adjust your targeting. Maybe use a different CTA, image or an offer. 

Geofencing vs. Geo-Targeting 

Geofencing and geo-targeting are both location-based marketing strategies. But you should know that they have different purposes and therefore are used in distinct ways.

With geofencing you create a virtual border around a chosen location. When a person enters this area, they receive notifications or ads on their phones. With geofencing tools businesses send the ads only to the people who are in that area. 

Geo-targeting is broader than geofencing. It delivers the ads to the users based on their general location. This means city or zip code. It’s not as precise as geofencing. But it might be effective if you want to reach a wider audience over a bigger area. Geo-targeting is usually used for raising brand awareness rather than immediate foot traffic.

Business owners frequently wonder about the choice between geofencing vs geo targeting. If you need location-based, real-time results and preciseness use geofencing. If you want to reach a wider audience in a general area use geo-targeting. Both are successfully used in marketing campaigns and are considered to be powerful tools. You should choose between the two depending on your campaign goals.

Conclusion

There are some important steps for setting up geofencing marketing campaigns. Completing each of them ensures that your efforts drive real-life results and are effective. 

It doesn’t matter if you are a small business or a larger company, geofencing strategy will help your business get fast and effective results. The geofencing marketing strategy will engage customers at the right place and time. This will lead to higher conversion rates and more interactions. Based on what kind of campaign you run, you set the locations accordingly.

If you are ready to take your geofencing marketing to the next level, explore Purplegator’s services. Our team of professionals will help you set up and optimize your geofencing marketing campaigns. We will make sure your business gets the best out of this technology. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to connect with more of your customers effectively. Contact us today and start your geofencing journey with us!