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Do's, don'ts in deploying a location-based marketing strategy

An expert offers up best practices, tips and insight on making location-based marketing a success. Find out about potential pitfalls and misconceptions that can stall the retail strategy.

February 4, 2016 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com

Knowing your customer is critical when it comes to delivering a rewarding retail customer experience, but understanding where and when to drive marketing to that consumer is just as crucial.

Yet more often than not retailers discover a slew of challenges when it comes to understanding, deploying and attaining return-on-investment from location-based marketing.

One primary hurdle is clearly defining the role and expected success metrics for mobile location efforts, explains Brandon Starkoff, VP, product marketing at xAd.

"As a result, campaigns aren't set up correctly, and as a result, measurement is not proving a clear read on impact against the business," Starkoff said. The beauty of mobile location is the ability to 'connect the dots' between the online and offline world, he noted.

"In doing so, there are capabilities to literally connect with customers with very specific messages as they move through the physical world. Following this physical path to purchase offers the opportunity to increase consideration, intent and actual purchase of specific products," he said, adding retailers need to understand what can be achieved and how the right data sources will lead to meaningful outcomes.

But defining strategy isn’t the lone hurdle. Many retailers often have misconceptions about how best to capture location data and using that data to drive marketing success.

One misconception is that consumers will be turned off or repelled by marketing that relies on knowing where they are and what they’re doing in the retail environment, and that the data related to activity are not properly protected and managed.

"There are certainly fears around privacy, however, this is becoming less and less of a concern as consumers are seeing the benefits of location awareness in their applications," Starkoff said. "The reality is that consumers are increasing seeing the value of location awareness and care less and less about privacy."

Retailers striving to take advantage and attain the benefits provided by location-based marketing should follow a few best practices, Starkoff recommends.

"Choose your partner wisely and be very diligent about understanding the quality of their data set, how it’s derived, how their locations are defined and what forms of measurement they have," he advised. Retailers should also investigate a potential partner's capabilities and the ability to shift creative based on locations (proximity to store vs. in store). 

"This will ensure you get clear objectives and mechanisms in place to measure those objectives, whether it's awareness, intent or purchase," explained Starkoff.

Some biggest missteps by retailers, said Starkoff, are trying to test location-based marketing without sufficient scale and not having a real true audience measurement.

"We had clients who tried to test with a very small number of locations which limited our learnings and didn’t allow for confidence in the dataset," he explained. "It is critical you measure your audience in real-time and that your control group matches your test group," he added.

For more insight on location-based marketing, check out this free webinar that offers up greater insight from Starkoff.

About Judy Mottl

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Judy Mottl is editor of Retail Customer Experience and Digital Signage Today. She has decades of experience as a reporter, writer and editor covering technology and business for top media including AOL, InformationWeek, InternetNews and Food Truck Operator.

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