How Does Location-Based Marketing Benefit Marketers?

DREAMS! From the dearth of the dire straits to the grandeur of the greatest Mahals (Palaces)! It is the one true common denominator of Humans that goes beyond the discrimination on Religion, Race, Sex and even Wealth! Every wo/man has a dream! A Dream to establish their presence and perhaps achieve the impossible!

Well, it’s this dream that every Brand wants to tap into. Achieve an emotional connect with the Target Audience, appeal to that emotion with the best of communication and once the ‘Share of Mind’ and the ‘Share of Heart’ are obtained, eventually tap into the ‘Share of WALLET’!

Sounds simple, right? Well, most of the brands go wrong at the very first step – Identifying the right TARGET AUDIENCE! All the Communication can go to waste if the right audience is not mapped. Here’s an inside joke at marketing agencies –

‘In the traditional medium of advertising; half of the marketing communication doesn’t reach the right audience. The Irony is no one knows which half!’

Well, with advances in technology, achieving the right target audience is getting refined every day. One such advances is the user’s ‘Real Time Location Data’.

All the advertising of any brand boils down to just one thing – Relevance
How relevant is the advertisement to the end user. Location data adds another level of filter to the existing filters of TG. Deriving Location Intelligence from the Location Data is of utmost importance. Following are the few insights that can help brands map the data to refine their target audience –

1. Offline-Online Behavior Mapping 
   1. Better understanding the user’s 
   2. For standalone stores, location data can be further used to map the purchase behavior
      For example – A McDonald’s can map a customer’s purchase pattern from the CRM to the time spent at the outlet. After analyzing the patterns, a highly personalized messaged can be sent to the customer thereby increasing the chances of conversion.
      So, the next time the customer drops in the vicinity, a personalized invite can be shared through push notifications thereby increasing his LTV
   3. Furthermore, the brand gains an exact mapping of the ‘Bang’ for the ‘Buck’ solving the perennial question of mapping Marketing expenses to the Revenues generated
2. Promotions
   1. Every brand offers some promotions to their customers in some point in time. For any event promotion, the likelihood of a customer in the vicinity to visit/convert for any tactical event/promotion increases manifolds 
3. Competitive insights
   1. In today’s world where the brand loyalty is a metrics of Price, having insight of a customer’s behavior is an added incentive for a brand to push its communications
   2. Well, obtaining the sales data of a neighboring McDonald’s store might not be ethically feasible for a Burger King but to get the location data of the customer and after mapping the behavioral patterns, it takes very little marketing for Burger King to tip the tides in their favor

Well, a few cautions to keep in mind while accessing the location data of a user. As we increase the relevance of ads by tapping into a user’s location, it always borders on the thin line separating the ‘Wow’ from the ‘Creepy’. With the roll-out of GDPR law in EU, it is crucial to inform the customer about the data s/he has shared with the brand.

Though the technology advancements are happening every day & more and more access to end user’s data is available, Zero spillage, the bounces and all other deterrent factors will still remain a distant dream!
Or Will It?