WBR Insights and Future Stores launched a survey targeting senior management, directors, VPs, SVPs, and C-Suite retail leaders in operational, omnichannel, marketing, IT, CX, and analytics roles to determine their digital to in-store strategies. The survey findings highlight the effectiveness of location-based strategies but the lack of investment in localization efforts.
At Blis, we know that location-based strategies make a huge impact on businesses. It’s why we do what we do everyday. The research we did with WBR and Future Stores corroborates our sentiment with retailers reporting a greater lift in retail footfall and a higher customer conversion rate when using location-based strategies to target consumers with customized content at the right time.
One of our clients, Greg Lawville, AAA’s Director of Marketing Strategy & Advertising, agrees with this saying “because of location-based data, we have been able to re-allocate marketing dollars to locations based on traffic. Now, we can pinpoint exactly when a member is near one of our locations and deliver timely content/offers.”
As part of digital strategies for guiding visitors to physical stores, location-data assets are leveraged by the majority of retailers in one of four ways: re-targeting strategies, marketing automation, proximity tools like geofencing and beacon technology and in-market consumer targeting. Nearly half of retailers reported using location-based insights for real-time contextual targeting.
With the widespread talk of the impending death of retail and the dominance of ecommerce, it is more important than ever for retailers to improve their competitive edge in in-store retail to survive. Receiving promotions and recommendations when a consumer is near a store has a significant impact on changing customers’ perception of a retailer—even facilitating a last minute change at the checkout line (see our research from last quarter)! Retailers must continue to expand their digital marketing strategies into location allowing them to go beyond generalized understandings of consumer behavior and develop quality, right-time personalized experiences.
Retail isn’t dying. Strategies simply need to be adjusted.
One solution we have is to embrace a cost-per-visit (CPV) model. We strongly believe that CPV is the future of location-based advertising and therefore are pioneering campaigns where brands only pay for actual site visits. This level of transparency and performance based compensation model keeps agencies and technology companies honest and gives brands a high ROI.
To learn more about how companies like Costco and Columbia use and think about location strategies and how a deeper investment into location-based insights can benefit retailers, download Driving In Store Traffic and Purchases Through Digital Channels.
