Bezos, CEO of Amazon, bought Whole Foods his largest acquisition to date.  Why?  Most likely to add to a huge distribution channel and jump into the grocery sector with both feet.  It that is the case, in a short period of time, he will change the face of retail grocery making easier and friendlier to the consumers while lowering costs.

The marketing model for the supermarket sector has remained the same for decades. The margin on food is low.  Supermarkets charge consumer good companies for shelf placement and end caps.  Near the register, near the deli, eye level, etc.  That’s where they make their money.  This is why in recent years, the size of the supermarkets has increased.  The larger the space the more marketing money they get.

This is also why all the new stores look the same as the old stores.  It’s the Olive Garden effect.

What’s wrong with this model?  It doesn’t take into account the customer experience and it’s incredibly inefficient.  If you’re under some illusion that Bezos isn’t aware of this limitation, you’re vastly underestimating the man who built Amazon.

“Sectors need to rethink how they interact with the consumer.  Mobile marketing is only one of the many changes coming.  Change now or you can be next Blockbuster.” Stated John Flynn, CEO of Copley Advertising.

What to do? At all costs, you must protect your 15-mile radius, where 90% of your customers live.  First, stop mailing coupons and putting them in newspapers.  Please. Second, create a geofence around each of your locations AND your competitor’s locations.   Tag all smartphones.  Put video ads in the tagged phones.  “Hi, I’m Sam from Star Market.  We have a new Coupon Club!  Pay $5 a month and get $10 worth of coupons!”  Device IDs will be captured from all devices that saw the ad (impressions). Users that clicked on the ad will have their IDs collected in our retargeting folder.  The user will then be taken to a landing page where we place a Facebook pixel that will capture their Facebook ID.  They will see the thirty-second commercial.  “Hi, Sam again. Join our Coupon Army for $10 a month and we will send $25 worth of coupons each month!  In fact, you can indicate which types of products you want and we will make sure that you receive coupons for those products if available!”  There is an email capture for additional information, but by this point, we already have the impressions, retargeting and Facebook IDs.

We drive customers to sign-up for the one-month program.  The supermarkets charge the consumer good company for the extra coupons, with $5 a month as profit.  After one month the shopper must sign up for an additional six months or $60 up front because they are guaranteed $120 worth of coupons.  You can now upsell them to the Gold Club, where they receive special offers only for Gold Club members (for only $10 per month extra, which is guaranteed in coupons with a one-year sign-up payment in advance).  The Platinium Club is where they will have a chance to win tickets to a Patriots game and a FREE Thanksgiving dinner (for another $10 per month paid in advance).  And the Super Platinium level gets all the benefits of the previous package and a chance to go to the Super Bowl and meet Tom Brady!!  The price is only an extra $75 per month or $900 up front.

So there you have it.  Up the ladder to $75 per month or $900 per customer per year paid up front.  Oh by the way since you are giving them in-store coupons the amount they spend in your stores will be much greater.  You are creating in-store promotions, engaging the consumer and receiving a tremendous amount of data.  All because you used mobile marketing and a $5 coupon.

With the impression folder, you take the IDs and run them through the Facebook converter.  The IDs run at a 30% conversion rate.  Now you have converted the impression mobile IDs to  Facebook IDs.  With the Facebook ID’s you can make a look-alike model using 1% of the US population.  This should give you about 2 million IDs. When you run a campaign you can drill down to your demographic even further.

Now you have a smart, almost zero cost way to engage your shopper and protect your 15-mile radius.  Jeff Bezos may be riding into town, but you will be reading to protect your base.

In our video, “How Staples Can Make Back to School Last All Year”, Copley Advertising lays out our plan to make engage back to school shoppers all year long.

First, Staples needs to geofence all stores during the back to school season. They can run video ads on tagged devices showing the top-selling (profitable) items. When a tagged device user clicks on the ad, they are taken to a landing page with an additional video ad featuring a chance to win a Staples “Spring Break on Campus” event. It will include an opportunity to sign up to receive free coupons throughout the school year, important tips on what students need to kick off their new year, how to get the most out of your academic experience and a Spring Break contest in which customer can enter to win with friends and host on campus: Staples Spring Break!

So, what have we accomplished? First, we tagged all in-store devices and if the user has seen an ad (impression), we download their ID to a Google Sheet. Second, if the tagged device user clicks on the ad, Copley Advertising places their ID in a retargeting program where the user will be served new creative immediately for up to 30 days after they leave the location; this helps ensure they didn’t forget certain (highest profit margin) items. If the device user signs up for the email program, Staples can send them newsletters with study tips, information about how working out affects your grades, advice for on-campus relationships, and more. This will help to make Staples a trusted agent with their audience. Then, when the occasional ad for a sale item is pushed it would no big deal. Oh… and don’t forget the big countdown to the Staples Spring Break! The winner will be able to win a large bash featuring Staple’s products on campus. The extensive video will be used to promote products featured at the event and a new landing page will be created, introducing people to ways they could be next year’s winner. Content, engagement, value, and trust time and time again. With a few small steps, you can easily keep clients engaged with your products and programs, all year long.

And remember the list of IDs that is captured when the tagged user views the impression (ads) during the back to school rush? Copley Advertising can create a look-alike model based on the demographic characteristics from the list, and increase the total pool to 2% of the US population. Then, we can drill down to store location, age, gender, interests and other demographic qualifiers. A/B testing of market areas, creative or products is only a click away.

Copley Advertising is a mobile marketing ad agency: we only do mobile. Any questions, please email [email protected].

Have a Clear Call to Action

Location based advertising feeds impulsive decisions.  Your geofencing ads should, therefore, have a clear call to action. Someone who enters your chosen geofence and sees your ad should, for instance, be prompted to utilize a discount coupon at your booth. It’s about getting the user to make a clear decision related to your brand in the moment.

Don’t Bombard Users

Geofencing is location based. However, avoiding the temptation to bombard potential customers with redundant messages is crucial. For instance, someone who has already entered the geofenced area shouldn’t constantly receive the same message every time he or she reenters the area.  Using routing algorithms to help people who have seen your ad find the fastest route to your booth is your safest bet.

Use the Data

A myriad of consumer behaviors is captured by geofencing. Some of this data includes: where consumers spend the most time at the trade show, the aspects of your booth that generate the most interest, and the amount of foot traffic you’re actually getting.  Using this data wisely helps you make informed decisions.

Trade shows are often expensive investments. Geofencing is one strategy that you can use to maximize your ROI at trade shows. Having a clear call to action, avoiding redundancy, and using the data you receive wisely can help you make the best use of your geofencing campaign. Copley Advertising has a team of geofencing experts who can help you create the best geofencing campaign for your next trade show appearance. Email us at [email protected]

If you compare mobile advertising to newspaper, radio and out of home advertising the better outlet is clearly mobile. The three traditional outlets depend on collecting a huge amount of impression and hoping that the client’s demographic is in the mix. With mobile offering geotargeting, targeting by day and time, demographic and behavior targeting and being cheaper, the argument that mobile is a better media outlet is solid.

Recently retail accounts have been pushing for in-store traffic reporting. Changing the KPI to CPV (cost per visit). Programs like TrafficDrive (Copley Advertising) along with programs from NinthDecimal, Push Spring and Simpli.fi have the capability to track tagged smartphones back to the retail location.

Copley Advertising’s TrafficDrive program is unique. Copley Advertising will geofence retailer’s location. Tag smartphones in the geofence. The user doesn’t have to click on the ad. Once the user sees the ad the phone is retagged. Copley Advertising transforms the retailer into a Conversion Center. When then retagged user enters the Conversion Center their ID is counted. Copley Advertising can create a report showing store traffic directly generated by the mobile campaign.

The power of mobile continues to grow and the demands by clients are helping mobile DSPs to create programs to meet expectations. The great news is that mobile will continue to rise and meet different benchmarks for different sectors.

The biggest news was that mobile revenue was over $1 billion by the end of Black Friday. That was a 33% increase from last year.  The most optimistic projections had revenue over $1 billion by the end of Cyber Monday.

PayPal reported that one-third of all payments on Black Friday were from smartphones.

Walmart reported that on Black Friday 70% of their online traffic was mobile. Target stated on Black Friday 60% of their online traffic was mobile.

On Thanksgiving, mobile revenue accounted for 40% of all sales and 57% of traffic. (MediaPost)

Amazon reported that mobile revenue on Thanksgiving topped last year’s Cyber Monday.

A very impressive week for mobile commerce.    Companies will continue to develop their mobile commerce platform.  Mobile’s advantage is the online buying cycle.  The consumer already uses mobile first to compare prices and check reviews.  Companies need to take advantage of those habits and help the consumers take the next step.  Consumers have always been ahead of companies in the demand for easy to use mobile commerce platforms. Companies need to catch up to smartphone users requests for the simple reason there is over $1 billion on the table.

No other influence was had more than 50% of responses. The closest was family and friends with 40%. 30% named TV as the LEAST effective and 20% saying radio was the LEAST effective.

In June of 2016 Points.com found that 50% of respondents wanted more relevant coupons and deals from retailers.

And a September 2016 survey of US millennial mother internet users by Roth Capital reveals that nearly 70% of them searched for or downloaded mobile coupons while on their smartphones and shopping. October research should dollar off coupons are the most popular.

Mobile users have welcomed and are now demanding that retailers geofence their locations and place coupons and discounts in their location. With mobile retargeting, after the customer leaves the store additional discounts and coupons can be delivered.  These offers can bring customers back to the retail location. Tracking methods can be used to see how many tagged users that opened up the coupon away from the retail location came back to the store.

Retailers using mobile geofencing to deliver discounts and coupons to the consumer in store will have an advantage over other retailers that are not geofencing. The consumer has signaled that they want more. If you are not using the tools of mobile geofencing to its fullest then you are losing business.

For more information and about setting up a mobile geofencing program that will deliver coupons and discounts to you customers in-store then tracking the tagged user and deliver additional offers to drive them back to the retail location click here.

First, it shows that mobile advertising agencies are getting smarter about how they use their data.  Data is the real currency of mobile marketing.  Increasing CTR and ROI are very important and drive business.  But collecting data that the client can use for a cross-platform online/offline campaign is almost as valuable as a sale.

A campaign can be set up where Macy’s geofences all their locations (lat-long).  Captures the ID of all smartphones in store.  Places ads in apps.  Then places IDs of users that clicked on the app in a retargeting folder.  This retargeting folder is key as a separate campaign can be run to the captured IDs only.  These users have already expressed an interested in the offer and are at least 2x more likely to act on a purchase then a user that has not clicked on the banner.

But with the data like the type that Urber Media provides, Macy’s can now run a campaign targeting all JC Penney locations and place Macy’s ads in mobile apps on smartphones in a JC Penney store.  Then collect all the IDs of smartphone users that clicked on the ad and place them in a separate retargeting folder.

Why JC Penny?  Because in a Urber Media study that compared other retailers JC Penny was the most likely retailer that Macy’s customers would shop.  In comparison, Macy’s customers were twice as likely to be at a JC Penny then a Kohl’s.

The ability to target smartphone users in a set location and drill down to demographic is important but we should not overlook that the data collected can be used for retargeting and making offline advertising more efficient and effective.

Retailers can tag the IDs of smartphone users within a five-mile radius of their locations and place a Pokemon Go “like” ads in mobile apps driving traffic to their locations.  They can drill down to demographic and behavioral qualifiers.  Increase in-store foot traffic is an important indicator for a successful mobile campaign.  Data from companies like Cuebiq is making tracking the holy grail of in-store traffic a lot easier and faster to track.

For consumer goods companies using the Pokemon Go like strategy of driving consumers to store locations that carry their product is a very effective plan.  With the increased ability to target by contextual, behavior and users individual selling habits, consumer goods companies have powerful marketing information on top of the ability to geo-target.

Pokemon Go has helped the mobile marketing movement go mainstream.  Retailers and consumer goods companies will now  realize that the capabilities of Pokemon Go have shown only a small part of what mobile marketing can do.