You are here because you want to know about beacon marketing. In this detailed article, we will cover different aspects of beacon marketing such as its history, different challenges, how it works and much more.
Beacon technology is really popular among marketers since its arrival. According to a prediction of Global Market Insights that the beacon technology will surpass about $25 billion by 2024. So it is pretty safe to say that beacon technology has a lot of potential and capable to grow in the coming years.
This article will help you to understand beacon marketing, what are its current state and the future of beacon marketing. Moreover, how can you meet your business goals with beacon marketing?
What is Beacon Marketing?
Beacons are basically wireless transmitters used to send signals by using low-energy Bluetooth technology to nearby smart devices. So beacon is installed on different locations that emit Bluetooth singles known as BLE. After proper setup, mobile devices will be able to pick up the BLE signals and beacon devices will send push notification to the smartphones directly.
So beacon marketing provides companies an interesting and unique way to interact with their customers. It is interesting that 50% of the top 100 brands of the world are already using beacons in their stores. Different studies show that the number will further increase to 60 million in 2019.
A brief history of beacon marketing
Now you are familiar with the beacon technology. Now let’s have a look at the brief history of this technology.
Apple launched iBeacon as a part of iOS 7 at WWDC 2013. Apple installed beacon marketing tools in its 254 shops in the USA and started providing notifications about different products in-store.
In 2014, Macy’s installed 4000+ beacon devices across the shops. Moreover, Aruba Networks also implemented indoor navigation by utilizing beacons.
In 2015, the most downloading apps such as Facebook and Shazam started integrating beacons to enhance their functionality. In the same year, Google announced a competitor to Apple’s iBeacon that was Eddystone.
In 2016, the user needed to download apps to avail of the functionality of beacon that stopped the popularity of beacon. However, Google took a step and modified beacons technology such that users no longer needed to download any app, resulting in resurrection in popularity.
After the rise of beacon technology, Bluetooth states that beacon technology will become the base of the internet of things. Google piolets Beacon Project.
Different types of beacons
There are different types of beacons available in the market such as GeoBeacon, Ultrasounds, and Wi-Fi aware. However, the most prominent types of beacons are iBeacon, Eddystone and AltBeacon. Let’s take a glimpse of some famous beacons:
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iBeacon from Apple
It was the first beacon launched by Apple in December 2013. It is compatible with both iOS and Android. It uses low energy Bluetooth vicinity detecting technology for the transmission of a universally unique identifier commonly known as UUID. The UUID consists of a string having 24 numbers which are used to communicate with an installed app.
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Eddystone from Google
Google launched this beacon in 2015. It is compatible with both Android and iOS as well. This beacon is cable to transmit three frame types. Google facilitates different businesses to manage their beacons by utilizing the Proximity Beacon Application Programming Interface.
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AltBeacon from Radius Networks
Radius Networks launched this beacon in 2014. It is compatible with different cell phones ‘ operating systems. Moreover, it is an open-source beacon that has created an open market for different beacon applications.
Common Beacon Marketing Challenges
The retailer was the first sector that adopted beacons and deploys it in-store marketing. With the passage of time, various marketers such as banks, casinos, and restaurants had embraced iBeacon technology. However, many brands are still facing different problems to integrate beacons to their mobile strategy. So it is really important for marketers to implement beacon marketing strategically.
Here are the most common beacon marketing challenges with their possible solutions
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Poor user experience on Beacon-enabled apps
Oho conducted a survey with 35 of the most leading beacon CMS and hardware providers. Most companies were concerned about the poor user experience.
Beacon marketing is all about sending push notifications. So most users receive irrelevant push notifications that become a headache for the users, resulting in uninstallation of apps. These irrelevant push notifications were a basic reason for dropping in app usage.
The same report shows that consumers have positive behavior when they receive well-time and contextually relevant push notifications.
Solution:
The possible solution is to set a management platform like Beaconstac that facilitates you to set threshold time for a message before triggering via an app. The users should receive a push notification when they spend a specific time at a particular section. Beacons should track users to collect data including dwell time and particular location in the store. When data indicates that there are higher chances for the users of buying, beacons should send push notification at that time. You can set threshold time at one minute in the Beaconstac dashboard.
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Beacon deployment challenges
It is another issue to decide how many beacons are needed for installation at a specific location to reduce interference. Therefore, the brand will have to make this decision before moving ahead. So it is really a daunting task for marketers.
Solution:
SmartFocus, an omnichannel marketer, provides a new type of beacon. Virtual beacons are AC-powered multi-frequency beacons that are really powerful as compared to standard battery-powered beacons.
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Specification wars
There is a war of specification between two giant companies Google and Apple. Both companies develop different specifications so there are high chances that iBeacons will work only with iOS products and others will work only with Android devices. This will create problems because businesses will have to purchase, deploy and managed beacons for each platform.
Solution:
The best and neutral solution is to develop a single app that needs to be compatible with both iOS and Android devices.
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Limited beacon range
Some businesses require beacon to broadcast over a large area for collecting different information. You can increase the beacon range by increasing the broadcasting power. Unfortunately, if you increase the broadcasting power of beacons, they become less energy efficient, resulting in battery drain faster.
Solution:
You can use a beacon to overcome this problem. MOKO Technology introduces this solution. It is a company that has specialization in location-based mobile technology.
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Beacon management
Beacons are not that expensive on their own. However, it is really a daunting task to manage a fleet of beacons. The management process becomes a headache if you have to deploy beacons in your all stores, across different cities or even countries.
Solution:
Different platforms are available to assist you in beacon management. These platforms facilitate you to check battery status, ping time and other monitoring features as well.
The beacon advertising use cases in different retail industries
There is so much happing in the world of beacons. It is really important to know which campaigns have been implemented. Let’s have a look at beacons implemented businesses:
Cooking recommendation from Allrecipes:
Allrecipes installed beacons at the grocery stores of Marc in Ohio. These beacons suggest different recipes to the customers when they are interested in the specific items. The mobile view of the Allrecipes goes about 26M to 35.9M in every month by utilizing beacons marketing.
Bars and restaurants:
Martini is an Italian alcohol brand that has developed a Smart Cube. This cube helps bar owners in efficiently crowd management and provides its visitors the unforgettable experience.
iBeacon technology has been used to make the smart cube. When the glass becomes empty, the smart cube sends a Bluetooth text message to the bartender with the exact location. So bartender can easily refill the visitor’s glass without leaving their seats.
What should be considered before investing in beacon marketing?
Beacon marketing is the most useful strategy to attract customers. You should invest in beacons marketing because there are giant companies behind the beacons. Moreover, Global Market Insight predicted that beacon technology will surpass almost $24 billion by 2024. It means beacon marketing has a bright future ahead.
Here are some other benefits of proximity beacon marketing:
- Accuracy: you can have detailed location data with beacons as compared to Wi-Fi or GPS tracking. The range of Wi-Fi is about 46 meters but beacons have 450 meters range.
- Deeper customer insights: Data collected by beacon provides advantageous information. For example, the retailer can check which items were sold together on the same shopping trip and see peak checkout times. Moreover, a retailer can analyze what time of the day or week, shoppers download and use in-store coupons.
- Improve customer engagement: Most of the beacons transmitted messages are opened and have relevant product information for the customers. So it really influences customers and helps them to make the best decision during the decision for purchasing is being made.
- Advanced personalization: Beacon advertising facilitates retailers to extend different personalized offers based on the customer’s exact location within the store. This really improves the customer experience.
- Satisfied retailers: Beacons facilitate you to understand the shopping behavior of the customer. You can understand the movement of the customers and the way how they select items by analyzing the data obtained by beacons. According to some retailers, beacons increase the customer’s engagement in stores because they receive more relevant offers.
- Beacons are effective: Customers make a purchase after obtaining different useful offers triggered by beacons. So beacons are the most engaging way for customer’s help, so you should invest in beacons marketing.
Why beacon marketing has become a trend?
Beacon marketing is a better strategy as compared to traditional marketing. If you understand that beacon marketing is superior to traditional marketing, it will be clear why it has become a trend. In this section, we will describe why beacon marketing has become a trend.
In the previous section, we have described the detailed benefits of beacon marketing. So due to those benefits, most retailers have adopted this technology. Let’s have a look at the priority of beacon marketing over traditional marketing:
Why proximity beacon marketing is better than traditional marketing?
There are 5 reasons that give beacons priority over traditional marketing, and obviously the most important reason is cost-effective.
Many businesses struggle to figure out which type of marketing strategy they should adopt because that don’t have enough budget. They should choose beacon marketing because it is cost-effective, provides a personalized experience, leveraging mobile culture, insightful analytics and real-time results as compared to traditional marketing.
Moreover, it is cost-effective than traditional marketing. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on advertisements in newspaper ads, TB, telemarketing and TV. Conventional mediums don’t provide a substantial matrix to comprehend the effectiveness of the campaigns. For example, you are totally blank about the total number of people who have seen your ad. So beacon marketing is far superior as compared to traditional marketing. In beacon marketing, you need to invest once.
How to start using beacon marketing?
Now you are familiar with the complete working of beacon marketing. What are the advantages of beacon marketing? How to get started with beacon marketing?
For getting started, you need to purchase beacons from a trustworthy platform. MOKO Smart is the most remarkable and trustworthy site where you can purchase a variety of beacons that meet your requirements.
Eddystone is the most popular Google beacon. So we will talk about Eddystone’s beacon. Follow these steps to get started with beacons:
- Get some beacons for beacon marketing: First and foremost, you need to get different beacon hardware. For example, you can purchase accent systems, beacon inside and blue up.
- Configure your beacons: After selecting suitable beacons, you need to set the power levels, broadcast interval and frame type for provision. For data advertising, you can use Eddystone-EID or Eddystone-UID frame types.
- Register your beacons with Google: Register your beacon ownership with the Google beacon Registry. You can utilize the Beacon Tools app for registration. Moreover, you can utilize the Proximity Beacon API for beacon registration.
Popular Beacons offered by MOKO Smart
There are several reasons to choose MOKO Smart for beacon marketing. For example, MOKO Smart facilitates you to customize beacons according to your needs.
There are different types of beacons already available in MOKO. Here are some most useful Bluetooth beacons.
H1 – Keychain beacon
- Portable with keychain
- Waterproof
- Compatible with Eddystone and iBeacon
- Motion Sensors available
- Cover 60m distance
- 16 Month Batter life
M1 – Ultra ThinBeacon
- Motion Sensors available
- Compatible with Eddystone and iBeacon
- 16 months of battery life
- Cover 30m distance
Besides these beacons, Credit Card Beacon, Location Beacon, and Wristband Beacons are also available that offer amazing functionalities. If you want to start beacon marketing, MOKO Smart is the most powerful name in the beacons world.
