The masks are starting to come off (if you are vaccinated). And if you are not, get vaccinated. We need to get back to having fun together in bars, restaurants, theaters, parks, sports, events, and family gatherings. Yes, you have a choice, but let's get over it to get back together.
We have spent too long working from behind a screen, a phone, and with the family. Our customers, clients, and buyers want to be set free to touch, feel, and experience your brand. If you are a consumer or B2B brand, the physical component should be considered one of your tactics.
As we start to move about the country, how will your marketing mindset change to reinsert the physical into your marketing mix?
Social media is the obvious answer to the question. We can embrace Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, adding the GEO targeting component to our mix. The location components enable marketers to deliver contextual content or advertising to monetize a point in time. A marketer develops a defined target audience and offers ads to drive spending behavior. Consumer companies use this technology, and B2B needs to discover how to implement GEO targeting their social mix.
GEO Fencing and GEO Framing are two technologies consumer and B2B marketers need to evaluate for their strategy.
GEO framing is an opt-in technology enabling a marketer to target a buyer in a defined geographic location. In the B2C world, the customer opts in via a mobile application or some other decision point. You sign-up for a rewards program, and in the detailed terms and conditions, you agree to monitoring and tracking. The challenge with GEO Framing is the overhead required to collect and capture your audience's behavior. And there can be specialized equipment to implement a GEO Fencing network.
GEO Framing is a passive opt-in solution leveraging satellites and your phone ID. If a phone user downloads and launches an app, they passively agree to monitor without the overhead. This technology enables a digital frame around a location to monitor user behavior. The use is tracked over time, creating a historical profile to the square meter without any special equipment. And yes, you are being surveilled.
The uses for consumer brands are apparent. You can track the movements of your customers in retail, sporting or event venues, or other physical locations. And you can also monitor your competitor's sites. If you are a car dealer, imagine the ability to identify customers browsing a car lot at all hours; yours and your competitor's. Additional data is added to hyper-target your ideal buyer based on income, credit score, or other available information, extending your advertising budget.
"The outcome is higher conversion rates and increased revenue because you are connecting with the ideal buyer."
B2B organizations can benefit from GEO Framing. Connecting with the C-level or your target buyer is next to impossible. It is the marketing and sales holy grail. Imagine the ability to GEO Frame the CEO's main office, track their movements and patterns, follow them home, and advertise your service at halftime during the big game.
Or GEO Frame a trade show venue to hyper-target your ideal buyers, and the best thing is you do not have to spend tens or hundreds of thousands in trade show fees to hope to collect information.
"GEO Framing is cool, powerful, and creepy all at the same time."
It captures the movement behavior of your ideal buyer. On a recent Procter & Gamble podcast, Gary Vaynerchuk, the Chairman of VaynerX, said, "CPG companies are levels away from their customers. They need to be closer to their customers to understand their behavior." GEO Framing is a vehicle to collect information over time to understand client behavior. His point is that startup companies closely interact with prospects to understand the behaviors. We can learn from a buyer’s patterns and better communicate with your customers to accelerate conversion.
As we get back to normal or freedom (depending on your perspective), location services are more critical than ever. Whether you GEO Target, Fence or Frame, implementing hyper-targeting improves your ROI, stretching your budget further and improves your results.