This is a guest post by Jerome Granados, CMO at GoodBarber
Beacons are the perfect tool to enhance UX, and providing an exciting user experience has always been at the core of GoodBarber. Offering features through the use of beacons had been at the back of our minds for quite some time when we decided to add it to our roadmap. We had a clear vision in mind, but first we had to find the right fit. Therefore, one crucial step was testing beacons from various manufacturers. Because GoodBarber delivers native apps for both iOS and Android, our goal was to find beacons that would work perfectly on both platforms. Estimote turned out to be a good choice since Estimote Beacons support both Apple iBeacon and Google’s Eddystone. If you’re not a developer but want to create an app that will deliver a rich mobile experience, this post is for you. Let me show you how to use our DIY native app builder with Estimote beacons.
When we imagined GoodBarber, our goal was to enable people to build quality apps at 1% of the price offered by agencies. To achieve that, we first focused on design. Each app made with GoodBarber should look unique and no one should be able to tell whether it was made with an app builder.
Today, I’m very proud when I see our users publish their beautiful apps. The last example I have in mind when writing this post is the app of the City of Ajaccio Museum. Among their app’s features, there is a smart audioguide. Every painting in the museum is assigned to a beacon. When users get close to a painting, they can listen to the audioguide. Deploying the app was very fast and required few resources. Moreover, the museum’s team, with no IT department, can still update the app by themselves and make it evolve over time thanks to the GoodBarber technology.
Now, let’s see how to use Estimote Beacons with your GoodBarber app.
1. Install the iBeacons add-on in your GoodBarber backend
When you create your app with GoodBarber, you get access to a backend where you are going to configure your project and install add-ons from the add-on library. It’s in this library that you will find the iBeacons add-on. After adding it to your project, you will be be able to build a geo alert strategy for your app.
2. Provide your UUID
Estimote Beacons ship with the same default UUID. Identify the UUID of one of your beacons using the Estimote app and copy it. Then paste the UUID in your GoodBarber backend, under Users > GeoAlerts > iBeacons > Settings.
Note that with GoodBarber, it’s only possible to manage a set of beacons with the same UUID. Be sure to assign the same UUID to all the beacons that will be used with your GoodBarber app.
3. Register and organize your beacons
Now it’s time to register your beacons in the backend. Assign a name to each beacon and don’t forget to provide its major and its minor.
You can now create your notifications scenarios and use the right trigger to ignite the conversation with the app users.
4. Create Notifications and associate them to your beacons
The next step is to create the notifications that will be displayed when app users will be in reach of one of your beacons.
GoodBarber provides a comprehensive interface to do it. After you’ve entered your message, you’ll be able to:
- select the action upon opening the notification. It can be opening the app, opening a deep link inside the app, or an external link.
- choose the notification sound
- target recipient, based on several criteria like being a registered user of your app, belonging to a specific group of users, using a specific device or operating system, having the phone in a specific language, etc.
- define the rule to trigger the notification. Will it be upon entering the area covered by the beacon, upon exiting this region, or dwelling inside for a specific amount of time? You can also decide if the notification should appear within a specific time range.
- attach the notification to one of your beacons and define the range of the action zone
5. Review your settings
A table gives you an overview of all the messages you have created and the beacons associated with them. You can decide to turn a notification on or off. You can also check the stats associated with each notification. You will see how many times it has been displayed and clicked, so you can improve your message for better engagement.
6. Enjoy!
I hope you’ll be as excited as I was when I received my first Estimote Beacons. I configured a notification strategy very quickly and was able to run it after releasing an update to my app. If set up properly, beacon notifications are among the most useful you can use. If you are imaginative, you can increase your conversions with such a powerful tool.
Jerome Granados, CMO at GoodBarber