Why Is Location Important in Marketing for Healthcare?
Location matters even more in healthcare than in other industries. Take a moment to learn more about how marketing for healthcare should focus on...
Geofencing is a location-based mobile marketing optimization strategy companies use to target a specific location or area of smartphone users. When a potential customer enters a particular geographic location, they receive targeted information or advertisements on their smartphone or device.
With geofencing, users get ads that are relevant to who they are and also where they are. Geofencing allows companies to focus their marketing campaigns on specific areas where their potential customers are, rather than wasting their budget on generic ads for the wrong audience. It also helps increase product interest and conversion rates compared to broader, less targeted advertising and marketing campaigns.
Geofencing exists to help you find interested customers when and where they are most interested in using your services or buying your products. It is a conversion-focused advertising method designed to get results because it reaches out to the right people instead of anyone who might want what you have to offer.
You can better understand the purpose of geofencing when you understand how a geofence works.
The first step of any geofencing advertising campaign starts with the company. They establish when and where they want to advertise, and most importantly how they’re going to advertise. The advertisement is distributed within the selected area to anyone using their phone. However, the advertisements don’t spontaneously appear. A customer has to be using an app or be in an active web browsing session.
Once the campaign is active, anyone who uses their phone in the specified area will receive the customized message via in-app advertisements or a web browsing session. The company then gets data about who saw their ad, the demographics of that group (like age and gender), and what kinds of interaction took place (like clicks on the ad).
Geofencing might feel like the perfect blend of digital media and location-based advertising, but what do you need to start using this technique? A geofencing platform. Geofencing platforms allow advertisers to strategically spend advertising dollars by tracking users that enter conversion zones and get served their ad.
Geofencing is targeted marketing. It may feel limiting since you will probably not reach as many people as with other forms of advertising. But geofencing brings a laser-like focus that leads to better results. Here are a few ways to get the best from geofencing marketing.
When picking the area you’re targeting, try limiting your scope. The best ads are ones that speak to a customer’s situation and location. If you go too big and try to cast your net too far, you might reach more people but your ad will be less relevant to most recipients.
The standard rule of thumb is you should keep the area limited to a 4-5 minute walk if you are in an urban location. If a person gets your ad, they should only have to walk or drive a short distance to take the action that is part of your campaign. If you’re in a more rural location, you can increase the range by a mile or two, but it should still be nearby and a short trip to fill the call to action in the ad.
Good ads should always move the customer to do something, and with geofencing, those calls to action can be powerful, traceable actions. Invite your audience to interact with your brand. Have them come into your storefront right then or call to place an order.
A major strength of geofencing is that you can instill a sense of urgency with limited-time sales and deals. Because customers are close to your store, having an advertisement that offers a limited-time 20% off deal could provide that extra incentive needed to check out your business. Your call to action can also be related to the area that the store is located in. If you’re close to a sports team (professional, college and even high school teams can work), you can create a call to action related to the games that are happening close to you. For example, you can give everyone with a ticket to the game 10% off for a home run or offer a free dessert for everyone if the team wins.
Your biggest goal in creating a geofencing call to action is to tempt your targeted audience into coming to your store. Provide them with real value, in the form of a special deal or discount, to motivate them to take those few extra steps toward a purchase.
If you want to get the best out of geofencing, make sure it’s unified with your other marketing campaigns. This can include content marketing, remarketing, search engine advertising, other forms of display advertising, video advertising, etc.
While your geofencing campaign is targeted to a very specific audience, it should be paired with campaigns that are not as specific or that target different groups and locations. Your ideal customer often needs to be marketed to multiple times before making a purchase, and you need to make sure your overall marketing campaign is unified so the end-user has a cohesive, positive experience with your brand.
Geotargeting is when you are marketing towards a certain demographic in a geofenced area. Companies will usually start with a geofenced area and wait to receive data back. Next, they analyze the data to understand the general demographics of who is in that area. Then, they re-target their platform to a specific type of audience.
When comparing geo targeting and geofencing, it’s important to know the difference. Sometimes these two phrases are used interchangeably, but they are not the same. With geofencing, you reach anyone and everyone with a smartphone that enters the designated area, whereas with geo-targeting you can create a platform to reach a specific demographic that enters the designated area.
To use geofencing, you first need to know what geofencing is. Once you understand the basic concept and the audience you’re targeting, you can then team up with a company like Agility to choose a geographic area that you want to target. Targeted areas can range from a specific competitor’s store to an airport. Once people with smartphones begin entering your geofenced area, you will receive data and be able to send advertisements.
Geofencing is used by a variety of businesses, from startups to well-established franchises. For any company wanting to market a specific demographic or reach a group of people in a specific location, geofencing is here to help. With geofencing, you can target anyone with a smartphone, which is most of the population. And for those companies that don’t know where to begin with geofencing, Agility is here to help you navigate this new platform.
Geofencing ads appear on smartphones with apps and mobile browsers that have ads enabled. This includes apps like YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and more. A majority of social media apps allow ads, along with certain shopping platforms, music apps, and generally any unpaid app.
Yes, you can geofence on Facebook. Social media platforms are a popular way for companies to reach their audiences. When someone enters the geofenced area and is currently using the Facebook app, they will receive your ad.
The short answer is no, you cannot use geofencing without an app. However, it’s not that potential customers need your app to receive your advertisements. Geofencing can be used through any app that has ads enabled. For example, you can geofence the airport and anyone there watching YouTube with the ads could receive your advertisement.
Mobile geo-targeting is a way for companies to gain information about their audience with help from mobile devices. There are two sub-categories in mobile geo-targeting: place data and device data. When using mobile geo-targeting, you can gather information about the physical location, like who is shopping there and how long they are there, or collect data from the devices of people entering the physical location.
If you’re still asking “Does geofencing work?”, here are a few results companies have seen from Agility that show just how powerful a tool geofencing is and how it helps all types of organizations to improve traffic and build their business.
With 23 years of combined industry experience, the team members at Agility have built a platform that delivers on what other geofencing providers are selling but not delivering. Agility’s platform is more accurate and yields better performance. We fixed the accuracy and inventory problem that many geofencing providers struggle with. Get started with Agility today.
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