Geofencing has been coming to the forefront over the past few years as a fantastic tool for businesses to drive both sales and traffic. As companies across the country start to reopen, geofencing is becoming one of the more popular aspects of digital marketing used by businesses with physical locations.

A Geofencing Primer

While geofencing has been around for a number of years, not many people are familiar with it by name. However, most people have used geofencing in one form or another, when they “check in” at various places on social media. In broad terms, geofencing creates a perimeter around a specific location. When a person enters that perimeter, messages are pushed to their smartphones from the business that set up the geofence. Customers receive tailored messages directly to the IP addresses of their smartphones via apps designed specifically for businesses, or embedded within other apps that use geo location, such as Facebook, Foursquare, and others.

Using Geofencing for Sales

Businesses use geofencing to drive sales and get an edge on their competition. The classic example is a car dealership that sets up geofencing to push messages about matching or beating their competitor’s offers when potential customers are about to leave the perimeter. Some businesses also offer exclusive discounts for people who present their notifications at the point of sale. The key is to be creative in order to catch the attention of people in your vicinity.

Driving Traffic

Businesses with physical locations rely on foot traffic to make sales. Geofencing has become a great way to encourage people to visit specific businesses. Taking cues from the punch-card discounts of the 1990s, some businesses will target customers with cumulative discounts based on the number of visits or sales. When a customer makes a purchase consecutive purchases, they can rack up points for a free item or a greater discount on their seventh or tenth purchase.

Similarly, businesses are partnering with one another and using geofencing to drive traffic to multiple locations. For instance, if a customer makes a purchase at one business, they will get a notification on their phone that they are entitled to a special discount at the partnered business, and vice versa. This goes a long way toward driving traffic and building brand loyalty with customers.

Tailoring the Shopping Experience

Like every digital marketing strategy, geofencing provides quantifiable data to businesses. Getting an accurate breakdown of demographics allows businesses to better understand their customers by age, gender, and more. This allows businesses to tailor their marketing and messaging to drive sales and grow their client base.

At Outpace, we work directly with businesses and organizations of every size to create innovative digital marketing strategies to help them reach their goals. To learn more about our geofencing solutions, reach out to the team at Outpace today.