Imagine you could target potential customers with ads every time they walk or drive past your brick-and-mortar store, restaurant, or other establishment. You might encourage those customers to change their plans, enter your location, and purchase a product or service — even if they had no intention of doing so a few minutes earlier!
 
That’s the benefit of geofencing marketing. It lets you advertise your offerings to people in a specific physical location, such as your business’s neighborhood. 
 
You’re about to learn why this marketing method is such an incredible technology, why you should use it, and how to do geofencing ads properly!

So what is geofencing marketing?

Geofencing marketing (or geofencing advertising) is a type of mobile marketing that lets you advertise products and services to potential customers on their smartphones when they enter or leave a particular geographic area. That area might be the block that contains your business, the wider neighborhood, or the location of one of your competitors. The people you want to target with your offerings will receive a text message, email, push notification, or social media ad on their devices when they visit or exit this area. That could prompt them to learn more about your business and complete an action such as driving to your physical location. 
 
Say you have a store located downtown. A potential customer might receive a text message when driving in the neighborhood containing your store that tells them about a special promotion you have that day. That might encourage them to park their car, run to your location, and purchase a product! 
That should answer the question, “What is geofencing marketing?”

How do geofencing ads work?

Digital geofencing is a technology that uses GPS and RFID (radio-frequency identification). It lets you create a virtual geographic boundary (geofence) around a real-world location, such as a street, neighborhood, town, city, or even more specific area. Geofence ads use the principles of digital geofencing to enable complicated software to send a potential customer an advertisement when their GPS-enabled device enters or leaves this pre-determined location. 
Because GPS utilizes satellites that orbit the earth, geofencing ads allow for accurate pinpointing of a potential customer’s mobile device. That ensures your ads reach your target at the right place at the right time. 

How to do geofencing marketing

There are three steps involved in making geofencing marketing successful. You can complete these steps in the geofencing marketing platform of your choice.
 

Select centroid

A centroid is the center point of the real-world location you want to target. You can create a radius around this location in geofencing software, which allows you to send ads to potential customers when they enter or leave a specific area. 
 

Select isochrone

An isochrone is the amount of time it takes to walk or drive to your target location from another location. You can create an isochrone in geofencing software, which allows you to send ads to potential customers who can visit your target location within a pre-determined amount of time. For example, you can send ads to someone who is 1 mile from your store and can get there in 10 minutes using available transportation routes. 
 

Select building footprints

By selecting building footprints in geofencing software, you can target people who enter a specific physical location with your ads. For example, you can send a text message ad to someone as they walk through the doors of the shopping mall that contains your store. 

Benefits: Why use geofencing?

Here are some of the advantages of using geofencing marketing:
 
Increase sales at a specific location 
 

Boost brand awareness
 

Enhance engagement 
 

Target potential customers as they enter and leave a geofence
 

Divert footfall from a competitor’s physical location to your business
 

High chance potential customers will react to this marketing method because they are near your target location 
 

Another benefit of geofencing marketing is the ability to collect data about customers when they enter or leave a geofence. For example, you can learn how many customers who purchased a product from your physical store in the past drive past that location without ever purchasing anything again. Or you can determine how many people on your email list visit your business in the 24 hours after you email them a coupon code. 

The final word about geofencing marketing

Geofencing marketing is a revolutionary technology that lets you target potential customers as they enter or leave a real-world location, such as the street containing your physical store. You can increase sales, brand awareness, and engagement by implementing this marketing method into your business. For the best results, work with a digital marketing agency that can help you get more value from your geofencing campaign. 
 
Learn more answers to the question, “What is geofencing marketing?” when you contact Symphonic Digital!