Ever wonder how you can accurately target your shoppers on the street? Or what’s driving the convergence between the digital and physical world to enhance shopper’s in-store experiences? Or perhaps how location and content can be layered to deliver those ideal highly personalized ads? Wonder no more. Over the next couple weeks, we will be answering these questions in this blog series dedicated to shopper marketers which will serve as a platform for marketers to gain insights to equip them with the right information and tips.

Retailers can get a pretty good understanding of consumers once they’ve made it into the store. Through point-of-sales data, for instance, they can find out which items their shoppers seem to love, how many products consumers buy at once, and how loyal their customers really are. They can also make sure they’re reaching these shoppers by putting promotions in the right place.

But there’s a lot that happens before shoppers step through a retailer’s door. How can brands make sure they understand consumers well before the in-store visit? And how can this information help bring them inside?

Identify Your Perfect Match

First, advertisers will need to identify their ideal audiences, which is why Blis created a solution based on location and contextual data—and that starts long before shoppers reach the cash register. Brands can identify the right people by using location data, building comprehensive consumer profiles based on real-world behaviors, not just online activity.

For example, if a brand is interested in targeting parents with young children (a core demographic for CPGs), they should start by understanding their daily routines. For instance, location data can tell a brand that, Monday through Friday, a certain consumer drops off the kids at school, goes to the gym, then swings by the grocery store before going home. Similarly, a coffee brand can build their audience segment of “coffee drinkers” by classifying anyone who signs into Starbucks’ Wi-Fi as a potential customer.

Tell Them to Swing By

Once a retailer knows the kind of people they’d like to meet in person, how do they get them to come visit?

Blis’ proximity-based targeting tool enables advertisers to reach out to their ideal audiences when they are nearby. For instance, a food brand can send a useful reminder to a father to pick up something for dinner while he’s at the gym, knowing his next stop is usually the grocery store. A coffee shop, on the other hand, can use it to target their coffee-drinking audience when they come within a certain distance. The creative might indicate the nearest place to get a midday caffeine pick-me-up, enticing an individual to come in store.

Reaching out to consumers on the street will do more than serve as friendly suggestions for consumers on the move. Targeting relevant audiences when they are nearby will lead to greater in-store traffic and, ultimately, increased sales, as Blis did for Bang & Olufsen, using Proximity, Connect and Path products. Retailers who want to build strong relationships with consumers and boost their ROI can’t simply woo consumers in store. And they’ll need to start well before consumers step inside.

Tune in next week to find out the secrets to putting the spark back into brick and mortar shopping.