Tag: geolocation based marketing

Location based marketing survey shows resistance toward its use

| November 29, 2013

The research has indicated that geolocation technology may not be as warmly received as some anticipated.

A nonprofit global IT association, ISACA, has just released the outcomes of its location based marketing survey and has discovered that many consumers are uncomfortable with this type of communication as they are concerned about their privacy.

The study looked into the opinions of approximately 4,000 consumers in four different countries.

The research was conducted regarding the holiday shopping habits of consumers in the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, and India and their opinions on privacy and other issues such as location based marketing through the use of geolocation technology. The findings indicated that the feelings regarding the use of these techniques differ from one place to another.

The consumers in the United Kingdom and India had the greatest resistance to location based marketing techniques.

location based marketing researchIn those two countries, the respondents were the least likely to want to receive advertising and promotional messages from stores and brands through the geolocation technology on their smartphones. These included unrequested discount coupons, SMS messages about discount offers, and other communications that are sent automatically when a consumer walks near – or into – a store. In both the U.K. and India, 70 percent of consumers felt that they felt that this type of activity is invasive.

In all four of the participating countries, the data on the IT Risk/Reward Barometer indicated that consumers feel that receiving a text message from a business as they walk by the store is nearly as invasive as if they were to step into a store and a clerk would address them by name even if they had never met. In the U.K., 69 percent of the survey participants would have been happy to receive a mobile coupon in order to receive a bargain, but 47 percent of them would not be pleased if a shop assistant who was a stranger addressed them by name.

Among all of the countries, consumers were more receptive of receiving special discount codes through location based marketing than they were in receiving a text to inform them of special offers that may not feel are relevant to them.

Geolocation based marketing offers considerable mobile commerce potential

| November 21, 2013

ABI Research has released a projection that sensor fusion will present a tremendous opportunity.

According to the latest forecasts from ABI Research, there will be over one billion smartphones that are equipped with a geolocation based marketing friendly sensor fusion technology by the year 2016.

Sensor fusion uses multiple sensors to combine data to become more useful and comprehensive than the individual data.

Patrick Connolly, a senior analyst from ABI Research, explained that “Sensor fusion is vital in enabling a consistent location experience, RF mapping and the industry to scale rapidly. Unfortunately, it is not just a case of putting in a 9-axis sensor to achieve this. Highly complex algorithms are required to optimize sensor outputs, integrate with other location technologies and combine with machine learning and data-fusion algorithms.” This will be defining for geolocation based marketing.

Geolocation based marketing will become increasingly effective and will provide an enhanced consumer experience.

Geolocation and mobile commerce potentialConnolly went on to state that this technology will go far beyond BLE and Wi-Fi as the most important indoor geolocation based marketing technology based from handsets by the year 2017. At the moment, there is a definite trend in the direction of hybridization, as senor fusion, BLE, and Wi-Fi are showing themselves to be critical. By next year, hybrid location based marketing technology solutions will already have leapt ahead of individual indoor smartphone location tech.

He also pointed out that differentiation will be offered through LTE-direct, object recognition, and optical light technologies over the long term. Through this tech, retailers can use geolocation based marketing services to provide consumers with coupons and other attractive offers and discounts to shoppers based on where they are located within stores and shopping malls. Moreover, they can be used by enterprises for the tracking and management of assets.

As a whole, the market for geolocation based marketing and other uses of the technology is projected by ABI Research to be worth $ billion by the year 2018. It will be driven by the penetration of mobile technology and by vendors that offer venues such as warehouse retailers, stadiums, airports, and shopping malls products for bringing services and content directly to the devices of users based on where they are located.