Retailers can utilise beacons as far more than simply mobile advertising broadcasters. A recent trial by Coke in Norway movie theatres demonstrates that there is huge potential in layering beacons to create a unique, individualised customer experience. Their aim was to not only communicate with customers but to remember them for re-targeting later.
According to this article in computerworld.com, Coke offered a free soda to get the initial click — from 24% of moviegoers — and then used the mobile app to find those people later to offer a free movie ticket if they returned. That re-targeting effort delivered a stunning 60% click-through and an almost-as-impressive 20% redemption.
The trial was done with VG, which is Norway’s largest newspaper, along with Unacast. A mobile advertising vendor collected data about these users so that, a week later, when any of them opened the VG news app on their phones, they would receive a Coca-Cola ad offering them a free ticket that could be redeemed at the movie theater.
Trials like these are crucial if beacons are going to evolve. It’s all about layering. It’s not about using the beacon or the mobile phone or POS or a mobile app. It’s about layering — integrating — as much together as possible. Hence, it’s using the interaction with the beacon on top of the mobile app, which leverages geolocation and the proximity of a Wi-Fi connection (and that beacon) and accessing existing CRM profiles of that shopper. And then watching for profile online and matching it with activity in-store.
What Coke has done is use the beacon not to engage the customer directly, but to encourage an interaction with a specific app. The app then continues the conversation later. The next challenge is having that conversation move deeper online, with an individualized experience. Then it must come full circle, as it should influence the next in-store interaction.
When this works, it goes beyond being seamless. Ideally, the interactions should be almost invisible, undetectable. The customer should see the online site as more useful, clueless that his/her online experience is different from anyone else’s experience. In-store interactions should seem comfortable and store associates simply attentive and knowledgeable. “I just got really lucky, asking a store associate who happened to already know about the specific product I cared about,” should be the reaction.
This creative experiment with Beacons does not necessarily prove that this marketing concept is a must-do, but it definitely hints at the future possibilities for location-targeting technology in the retail industry.
This is where XtremePush are pushing the envelope – we are working with several mobile app clients on exciting and innovative new location-targeting projects in a variety of sectors. If you would like to find out more about this powerful location based targeting technology and what we can do for your business, contact us for a 1:2:1 demo.