If you’re a retailer, you know the importance of marketing your business digitally. You also know that your ability to effectively market to a consumer is what wins it for you. But, have you considered location-based marketing through geospatial data?
In this article, we are going to go over what geospatial data is, the benefits of utilizing geospatial data, and examples of retailers who use GIS for location-based marketing.
First, let’s define geospatial data. What is it?
What is Geospatial Data?
Geospatial data is the use of technology, such as GPS, to create and store digital maps that help retailers better understand their customers. This information can be used to geotarget based on location and demographic information allowing marketers to create better-customized marketing campaigns in the long run.
The main use case for geospatial data is to segment audiences based on proximity to a location, but that’s not all it can do. Geospatial data can help you understand who your customers are, where they live, and how they spend their time outside of work hours — which can help you create marketing campaigns that drive results.
Now that we went over the basics of what geospatial data is, we are know going to discuss some of its benefits as it relates to marketing.
3 Benefits (and Examples) of Geospatial Data for Marketing
Did you know that 95% of executives across the globe believe that geospatial data is critical for achieving business success? Well, it’s true! Geospatial data is one factor that can really send your business over the edge allowing you to make better data-driven decisions for your overall business. This includes digital marketing as well.
Still on the fence about marrying the concept of GIS and marketing together? Here are three benefits of GIS marketing and examples of some of the top-name retailers who use GIS to improve their marketing efforts.
Brings More Foot Traffic to Stores
Geospatial data is used to understand where shoppers are, where they’re going, and what they’re doing as they move around both inside and outside their stores. Retailers can then use this information to create tailored marketing campaigns that draw in more customers to their stores. In addition to this, geospatial data can also be used to keep customers in your stores longer.
Example: Sephora is Able to Better Segment Customers with Geospatial Data
Beauty retailer Sephora uses geospatial data to send its rewards members a pop-up notification anytime that a customer is in close proximity to one of its stores. The pop-up will generally have a marketing offer to come in for a “free mini makeover” making it almost too enticing to pass up — especially if they are already in the area.
Once they are in the store, app users can visit the app to get personalized recommendations and to view reviews and product features in the easy-to-use platform.
Better Targeted Advertising
Geospatial data allows your marketing teams to create better, targeted advertising campaigns that’ll drive your bottom line.
For instance, let’s say you have a flower shop. You would want to pinpoint important location information of what neighborhood your ideal customer may live in and work in to ensure that any advertisement you launch online is shown to those specific groups of people.
Through the power of geospatial data, incorporating target market data, you’ll be able to set more precise targeting parameters in your digital advertisements.
Example: Under Armour Uses Location-Based Marketing through App
An example of a company that uses geospatial data for digital marketing is Under Armour. Under Armour uses GIS through its Map my Fitness app to give its users better-targeted advertising. From tracking the type of activities you do to knowing geographically where you’re located, the Under Armour fitness trackers are pretty robust in their tracking features allowing the company to market its users more effectively.
How does this look in action?
If you use the Map my Fitness app to track your runs, you may start to get more advertisements for Under Armour running shoes. If you actively use the app in a location with a colder climate, you may start to see more advertisements for the Under Armour base layer. The list goes on. Through the app, the company is able to up-sell and cross-sell seamlessly without coming off as too “salesy”.
Enhanced Personalized Messaging
Personalized messaging has been proven to have significantly higher engagement rates than non-personalized messages. In fact, 90% of consumers find personalized marketing more appealing than the latter.
Geospatial data allows your teams to send out personalized messaging based on where your customers are located and what they’re doing at any given moment. Pretty neat right? Let’s take a look at how Ritual creates personalized messaging by using geospatial data.
Example: Ritual Ordering Food App utilizes Personalized Messaging with GIS
Ritual food ordering app is known to connect users with restaurants in the area based on historical purchasing habits. (It’s similar to DoorDash or Uber Eats.)
Ritual does a great job when it comes to personalization. The company will send personalized notifications to its users with food recommendations based on both area and taste preferences. These simple but powerful pop-up notifications make the customer more likely to open the app and place an order. They may not exactly purchase from the restaurant you suggest, but it gets them curious (and hungry) to find the right food place to make an order at.
Transform Your Digital Marketing Efforts with Geospatial Data
All in all, geospatial data is everywhere. It’s one of the most important elements for marketers and advertisers to understand if they want to accurately target their audience.
As a recap, geospatial data can:
- Bring more foot traffic to your store
- Help you create better-targeted ads
- Enable you to send out more personalized messaging
As more and more location-based data becomes available to retailers, it has become even more important now than ever before for retailers to use that data to their advantage. If not, you are missing out on the opportunity to improve your reach to those who need to see your message the most: potential customers.
James is the head of marketing at Tamoco
