What is Geo-Fencing?

You know how you can get collars for dogs that send a signal when they pass an invisible barrier? Picture that, except instead of a zap to the throat, you get a txt message, and instead of a wire buried in the ground, we draw a virtual line on a map.

Geo-fencing is a term that has been around for a while in the logistics and fleet/employee management world, historically describing the virtual areas that a company car was allowed to be driven or an employee was allowed to traverse. Companies would track employees and property using GPS beacons, transmitting their coordinates, and making sure that they fall within the virtual boundary outlined on a map.

These days, the term has evolved into a broader area of technology, meaning any transition through a virtual boundary.  It can be tracked using a GPS transmitter, like those on trucks, or other smaller methods, like mobile smart phones.  Devices these days with GPS receivers and internet connectivity can use software to pinpoint a users location, as well as cell-tower triangulation to get pretty close.

How does this fit in with marketing?  Location is the new black.  Pushing offers, sending messages, alerts and reminders that are contextually relevant, sharing with friends nearby, finding social connections nearby and a myriad of other uses. Information on demand--- before the customer knows they want it. Imagine if you're walking down the street, having opted-in to receive offers from Shoppers Drug Mart. You get a txt message that reminds you that your spouses birthday is one week away and you can get a Birthday card at the shoppers coming up on the right and get 3X bonus Optimum Club points.  Finally, you're getting timely reminders, to the right channel (mobile) at the right time (social context of a birthday coming up) in the right place (location just up the street for purchase) with the right offer (they know I'm an avid collector and know the right lever to get me to purchase).  This is marketing that you actually want.

Sure, it's great to find out that Starbucks is having a 10% Off offer when I check in to a Foursquare location near a Starbucks-- but we're missing a few points.  The point of Geo-fencing is that I will only get that message when I enter the 'Send Zone' and those zones are only tight radii surrounding store locations.  Relevance becomes everything.

How else can we use Geo-Fencing?  Sure, retailers have a natural solution-- customer approaches store=blast offer, but what about CPG brands, non-profits, government, schools, service providers, and other users of mobile?  Is a Geo-fence right for everyone?  Nope. Just like billboards aren't right for everyone, a mobile Geo-fence program isn't right for every use either.  It's all about the location of the user, not the location of the marketer.  

Think about what you would want your ultimate customer/user to know and when you want them to know it, and WHERE you would want them to know it.  Then work backwards from there.

If I'm in the Skin Care business, pushing a new and innovative sunscreen, maybe my focus isn't the selling, but a service? Maybe I geo-fence all the beaches and parks in my market, and when my customers enter a fenced zone I message them with the current UV rating for that area and a sunscreen recommendation.

If I'm in the retail business, maybe I set up a Geo-Fence around my biggest competitors stores, so that I can send extremely lucrative offers (like, really crazy stuff) to my opted-in customers, but ONLY when they're shopping in my competitors locations? How's that for a retention and loyalty program?

The sky is literally the limit with location. Creativity and user experience that is memorable and more importantly useful, will keep your customers happy and satisfied with your brand.


Andrew Kinnear is an account executive and subject matter expert with MyThum Interactive, North America's leading mobile marketing agency specializing in connecting big brands with their customers via digital and mobile channels. For contact info, txt ANDREW to 24680 in Canada or 606060 in the US.

The Geosocial Universe

JESS3 is a creative company that specializes in data visualization. Credit to Jesse Thomas.

Amazing to see the amount press that Facebook can get when it launches a new platform like Facebook Places, vs. the actual number of people using Facebook on a mobile device vs. the number of people using mobile devices globally.

I'm also still amazed when I see that Skype has more users than the other platforms. I still think of Skype as just a way to get around long distance rates from the carriers-- I guess a lot of other people do too.

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Mobile, the new old thing.

Ironic use only please.

Mobile Marketing is the new old thing. It’s been around a lot longer that Social Media marketing, and yet flies somewhat under the radar in the marketing mix of some of today’s biggest brands. Why is that?
Mobile Marketing, in Toronto, but arguably in the rest of Canada and the US as well, is a channel that not every marketer understands. It’s personal. Very personal in fact. It skirts the line between broadcast like email, which can get deluged with spam, and 1:1 which can be geographically specific and targeted from a CRM database.

It requires planning and budget that is different from other channels. If you want to do a billboard, you have creative developed, someone helps you buy the media (in this case the billboard you want) and the outdoor company prints and attaches your creative to the media. Done. At the end of the month, if you don’t want to pay anymore, they take down your creative and it’s over. No more eyeballs.

With mobile, it’s different. You have to think about Short Codes, Apps, or Mobile Web. You have to decide if this is a one-off campaign or a long-term strategy—because that affects the cost. When you have a Short code there are maintenance fees (like owning a domain name) whether you’re active on the code or not. With apps, you need to be very strategic as far as getting your app used by your intended audience, and having a plan in place for things like updates, changes, etc. If your app is a one-off, then what’s the point? If it’s a long term plan, then you better be ready for it. And mobile web, really just your website but without the parts people don’t care about, has its own best practices. Small image sizes, low bandwidth, no flash, etc. There are a lot of things to consider.

But the real question shouldn’t be “What am I going to do in mobile?”… The real question should be “Why?”.
There are enough stats out there to be convincing, but I’m going to take a different approach. Think about what you take with you when you leave the house. House keys, wallet/purse, phone. You don’t leave home without it, and if you do, you’re unbalanced the whole day. It’s on you buzzing from the moment you wake up to when you plug it in before bed. You have your calendar, your email, your contacts—your life. How many phone numbers can you even remember? Your mobile device is part of you. Can you say that about Facebook? Who needs stats when you think about the user of the device in that context.

Now, this can also be a negative. If my device is so much a part of me, then even the smallest inkling of spam and I’m going to lose my mind. I have to pay for this thing, but I don’t pay for email. You have to make sure that if you’re sending someone something—they have said they want it. –and even if they change their mind, you have to make it easy for them to STOP*.
*STOP is the most common SMS keyword to end a user’s permission to message.

Let’s get back to marketing. How can you market to someone if it’s so hard to keep permission and blast messages at them? CRM. You build a relationship with them, you give a little, and in return—they listen. Hopefully if what you’re saying is relevant and worthwhile to them, they keep listening, and possibly even buy something from you. OR, maybe it’s a service you offer, like tickets to your phone, or alerts about missing kids—the user puts up with the occasional commercial message because they enjoy the service you provide.

So who’s doing this, and why isn’t everyone? Here’s what I think:
There’s a certain set of circumstances that encourage the perfect storm of mobile marketing, and here’s what I think they are

1. A primarily consumer-facing brand
• This could be Pepsi, or the fire department, but they’re both wanting the eyes and ears of the consumer public. B2B is a little trickier, unless the audience is really broad.
2. A marketing dept or person-- with budget
• This is often the biggest road block. “We want to do something cool, but we have to spend money on X,Y,Z *marketing first” *Where X,Y, and Z are channels or promotions that have been running forever, consistently declining in return, but everybody knows how they work and they have a predictable outcome.
3. A CEO or leadership team open to new ideas
• This sometimes isn’t important if you have #2 up there. If the leadership doesn’t micro-manage the channel marketers, then things can go pretty smoothly.

So why is Mobile the new old thing? It comes down to being both obvious and elusive. We all know we need to speak to our customers via mobile, but we either don’t know how, don’t have the money, can’t get the blessing of the boss, or a myriad of other hurdles. Those that you see taking maximum advantage of mobile in Canada and the United States?--- they’ve jumped those hurdles.


Andrew Kinnear is an account executive and subject matter expert with MyThum Interactive, North America's leading mobile marketing agency specializing in connecting big brands with their customers via digital and mobile channels. For contact info, txt ANDREW to 24680 in Canada or 606060 in the US.

Social meets mobile. Again.

Facebook joins the mobile location wars against current user leader Google Latitude and hype leader Foursquare.

Summer Vacation

Do Bloggers get vacation?  You bet.  It's called not writing or thinking about your blog for a month while you renovate the cottage, or find a new client or job.  Or all of the above.

I'm taking a short break, and should be back to writing, this time with a renewed focus on emerging tech, in September.  In the mean time, I will still be sharing via FourSquare and Twitter, and will always reply to email.

Have a great August!

-AK

Aeroplan updating web interface

I think I may have caught the site in mid-update, because some were in the new design, and others we're in the previous design.  Aeroplan, like Air Miles, is a Canadian coalition-style of rewards programs.  Air Canada, Esso, Sobeys, CIBC and others issue Aeroplan miles as a percentage of purchase, as well as bonus miles on certain products and brands like Tropicana or Life Brand cereal.

Here is the before:

...and here is the new version.  They've used the Aeroplan logo as inspiration for the background.  Not bad.  Certainly a lot more user friendly, and better readability and usability.

New Floating Alerts

Yes, another post about changes to Facebook.  This time just a useful feature update.  Friend activity is now appearing in the left rail as a floating alert.  You don't even have to click the X to close it-- just mousing over indicates you've seen it and it fades away.  Is it a test, or is it here for good?

What feature would you like to see Facebook develop or implement?