Positioning marketing has always been the silent force behind today's large-scale advertising campaigns. With the increasingly fierce competition in the B2B and B2C spaces, more and more SMEs are beginning to notice that positioning marketing is a necessary sales method.
In order to compete for the elusive attention of consumers, marketing professionals are turning to location-based marketing techniques to maintain their advantage. After all, with the rapidly expanding role of social media and e-commerce in the overall situation, the risks are now greater, so innovative segmentation techniques are required.
The data shows that, shockingly, 82% of smartphone users will use their devices to search for "near me" when looking for something to buy. In addition, 90% of consumers chose the result at the top of the page.
At the same time, representatives of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and general merchandise (GM) retailers are optimistic about the benefits of location intelligence. A study by an authoritative organization in the retail industry shows that more than 80% of FMCG and General Motors retailers believe that geolocation analysis helps their business development and saves them time and money.
What is positioning marketing and what are the trends?
As the name suggests, positioning marketing relies heavily on geographic location data. By tracking and analyzing the behavior patterns of consumers in specific retail or business centers, marketing professionals can determine their motivations for purchasing products or using services.
Location technology can also help find "abnormal" or random events in consumers' daily lives. For example, when consumers stop on their way home, they may provide marketers with an opportunity to upsell products through in-app notifications. The product may not be what they needed at the time, but that does not mean that it cannot bring sales. It only shows why marketing professionals should not ignore positioning marketing when gathering valuable insights for their work.
Companies will rely more on beacons to provide customer service and improve facilities
Retailers should use beacons and geofencing tools to optimize layout and improve service quality. Measuring dwell time and foot traffic in specific locations or using heat map data via geofences and beacons can cause staffing or layout issues. This will enable companies to propose immediate solutions. The application of this location-based technology was unheard of a few years ago, but now they have become popular among marketers.
Marketers will invest more in proximity marketing to acquire customers and real-time participation
Nowadays, most people hardly look away from mobile devices. When they are shopping, eating, resting, doing housework or commuting, their eyes are fixed on the phone screen. According to a study, American adults spend an average of 3 hours and 35 minutes on mobile devices every day.
Marketers should view this as an opportunity to use near field communication (NFC), beacons, and augmented reality (AR) to provide discounts, personalized content, or promotions to nearby consumers. They can use videos or games to promote in-store promotions and keep customers in the well-known loop. The question is no longer why marketers must do these types of promotions because everyone else is doing it.
More brands will launch localized versions of mobile apps or websites
Making apps and websites available in regional and local languages is not a new thing, but over time, we will see more apps and websites adapt to multiple languages. Over the past five years, advertisements in various media and some local languages have grown steadily. The younger generation is increasingly eager to become citizens of the world, and tourism is becoming more and more popular, which is driving this shift. The democratization of jobs, rising incomes, and explosive growth in e-commerce are also factors driving these location-based marketing trends.
Local citation and review sites will continue to gain traction
Restaurants, travel catalogs, e-commerce, related lifestyle and social bookmarking sites, such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc., are still valuable to marketers because consumers make purchase decisions through user-generated reviews. Active users of these sites believe that these sites are more user-friendly and safer than social media platforms with questionable geotagging features such as Facebook and Foursquare.
In addition, all savvy marketers know that having a place on these sites is critical to their local strategy, not only can increase the attention on their site, but also increase the traffic to their actual location.
Promoting mobile payment will become a top priority
As geographic location becomes the focus of attention, companies should see it as an opportunity to establish partnerships with new mobile payment gateways or fintech providers in the first world and emerging economies.
Marketers can enhance their mobile payment services through geo-location and geo-fencing technology to guide consumers to the best locations. This method is very suitable for companies that want to attract new customers or even take away competitors' customers.
Consumers’ tastes and choices change with the times, and the way you interact with them should also change. Knowing where your customers come from is the key to the success of your marketing plan.
Pay close attention to emerging positioning marketing trends and keep up with the trend to avoid falling behind. In this process, be sure to use the IP Geolocation API, which allows you to obtain fine-grained data and run cost-effective and revenue-increasing activities.