Inboxes are flooded with marketing messages, and despite GDPR and a general leaning towards businesses being more careful with both the audience they target and the content they deliver, this is not a trend looking like it is slowing down any time soon. Something we talk with clients about all the time is ‘beyond CRM’, so really answering the question: OK so we have the content now, how do we get it to our audience but avoid or supplement email as a channel?”
Well, there are many ways of course, but we’re seeing a growing interest in leveraging geo-location technology. So, identifying where your audience is and tapping into that space with content as the hook. Our Head of Production, Nick Salt, takes a closer look…
In its simplest form, geo-targeting technology enables businesses to drill down and target audiences through display advertising by placing a radius around specific post code areas. Once you have decided where you want to target, you can provide compelling content or individual offers via your digital ads. Effectively, you are buying up media space in real time on websites and in apps that are relevant or local to your product or service. In this ‘space’ you can display adverts that link back to websites with more information, downloads or products to buy.
For example, if you can ring-fence geographical areas where your competitor customers are based, serve them with ads promising a better, more lucrative or even cheaper service to win their attention.
Campaigns can run for a determined period of time, sometimes useful for potential customers living further away as they’re more likely to respond to offers that run for a few weeks, giving them the time to come and meet you or make a decision to buy.
Audience on the move?
If your audience is on the move geo-fencing technology operates in a slightly different way to geo-targeting, because you can define a location to target by drawing a digital fence around it, so when people walk inside that fence they are served ads and subsequently targeted with those ads for a period of time after leaving the fenced area.
If a user passes through your fence in real-time you can place a digital marker on them and target them on whatever device they are using. It’s an extremely effective way to target people heading into your competitor, or simply catching people close to your business.
B2B and B2C
Consider both a B2B and B2C example where this could be very effective.
An automotive retailer has an exciting offer on a new car and has seen an increasing number of customers come across from other brands to test drive the car. The retailer geo-fences ten of its competitor sites, including those that have events running and are bound to be enjoying high footfall. For each individual entering those competitor sites, promotional ads are served to entice them across for a test drive. It’s a highly effective strategy to target people who are already looking at your competitor products because they match your key customer demographic and are in the buying cycle already.
In B2B where sales cycles can be drawn out and complex, content plays a key role in starting potential buyers on a journey to becoming a customer. The first challenge in B2B content marketing is building awareness. How do we get as many of our target audience reading our content as possible? Let’s take a consultancy firm which has created a report into the state of the industry and designed a download facility on its website. Each time someone downloads the report, they get a lead and the chance to build their client network. The firm geo-fences the location of an exhibition and conference where a huge number of potential clients will be attending, and serves ads to all who enter the fence with a link back to the download page for the industry report. In a very short space of time the consultancy firm can strategically target its key demographic and leverage both technology and content to grow new business opportunities.
Feel free to get in touch with the team at GoldSand Digital to find out more about this technology to either boost the exposure of your content or to push competitor traffic to your products or services. We’re available on info@goldsanddigital.com so drop us a note.