This is a guest post by Tomasz Rupik, Co-Founder of Bleesk
At Bleesk we work with various companies that take advantage of proximity marketing, whether they are large shopping malls, retail chains, or digital agencies. We spend hours talking to them and there is always one recurring question: how can I create a campaign that will engage my customers and convert? Like with any other type of marketing, there is no single answer, but rather a combination of techniques that together create a synergy effect and produce a successful campaign.
1. Data is key
Marketing is all about making a personal connection with your customers. Your goal is to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time.
The key to a personalized proximity campaign that impacts your customer’s behavior is data about the people you want to reach. Before releasing a campaign consider who are the people that will most likely enjoy your message. How old are they? Are they women or men? What are their interests? Once you study your customers, it will be far easier to plan and create an engaging campaign.
Make sure you don’t err on this one. Imagine a woman in her 40s walking through a large shopping mall and being bombarded with campaigns about video games for kids. The result is easy to predict, she won’t like it.
That is where your proximity solution provider should come to help. At Bleesk we enable your customers to voluntarily share data about their age, gender, or even information like their name or interests. Most of them are keen to share some personal data because they want a more valuable and better targeted offers with personal approach.
2. Make it personal
One of the most important things you should consider is to include a personal greeting. “Sarah, great to see you again! Check out new shoe collection” will make Sarah instantly interested. Personal notifications significantly increase the open rate of notifications and lead to more sales.
We also enable customers to set their preferences regarding the type of campaigns they would like to be notified about. They can choose one or many categories: Food & Drink, Shopping & Services, Sports & Entertainment, Health & Beauty, Events & Information, and Real Estate. Thanks to this information, every marketer immediately knows what are the most interesting things to their customers and can adjust the campaign to their needs. Customers, on the other hand, receive only offers that match their interests.
3. Go viral
Delivering a proximity-based message is a great opening but the campaign doesn’t have to end the moment your customer exits your shop. Making the campaign viral and reaching more people is a natural next step to think about. Social media is a powerful equalizer because any company can get recognized regardless of their brand awareness or marketing budget. This is the goal for every marketer. Bleesk social sharing feature enables you and your customers to share every campaign through Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or any other social network available on their mobile phone.
4. Reward loyal customers
Returning customers spend 67% more than new ones and rewarding their loyalty goes a long way to retain them. When choosing your proximity platform provider make sure that Loyalty Campaigns are included as one of the features. Bleesk provides three types of loyalty campaigns: you can reward your customers with coupons for making a purchase, visiting a store, or collecting a certain amount of points.
5. If you want to engage people, pay attention to details
The most engaging campaigns deliver great experience by providing contextual information, entertainment or incentives to customers that are at a certain location or close to an object. Each campaign can be different so it is essential to customize its look and feel to fit into the overall marketing strategy. Using high resolution images and graphics or even adding a video or music often makes sense to capture customer’s attention. Also, campaigns that have at least one call to action button help significantly increase attention span and convert.
6. Engaging =/= Overwhelming
Too often the first question a marketer asks is How do I send a push notification to every customer? If your campaign strategy is only based on push notifications, it will fail as nobody wants to be interrupted too often. People will turn off or even uninstall the app. Avoid using too many notifications. One is usually enough if it delivers real value to customers. Once they experience the benefits, they don’t need notifications. Beacons are designed for context and this is what you should focus on. Don’t overwhelm your customers with notifications.
Tomasz Rupik, Co-Founder of Bleesk
About Bleesk
Bleesk is a leading proximity platform provider that helps marketers and brands use the power of beacons and contextual campaigns. Bleesk consists of a mobile app for iOS and Android, a CMS that allows to create, manage, and analyze proximity campaigns, and collect data about customers’ behavior, SDK and API. For more information, visit Bleesk’s website, blog or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news.