Knowing who your potential customers are is the essential asset for any company.
In this digital age, the demographic data is out there waiting to be collected from social media, the internet and mobile devices. Geomarketing does just that! Geographic Information Software (GIS) is readily available to large and small businesses. This information is already being used by large companies allowing them to be precise in their targeting of potential customers.
What does geomarketing mean?
Geomarketing is a demographic marketing strategy using data from mobile, social media and web users’ positional data. Geolocation and/or geocoding software is used to collect information regarding customer location, region or country.
Analysis and especially mapping the data collected provides you with profiles of your customers, e.g. where they live, buying habits, distances travelled, etc. This information has the high potential of providing companies with a tool that allows you to track the customer path. You can then see potential clients within your targeted geographical area, thereby it allows these companies to deliver the right products, messages or promotional material to the right place at the right time.
How to use geomarketing?
Business intelligence is all about knowing your potential customers in depth and geomarketing modelling allows you to do just that. Getting to know your potential customers’ requirements means you could offer solutions that they had not even realized they needed! The explosion in digital transformation for the recent years has allowed companies to track potential customers through geocoding and/or geolocation.
By then using a decision support system to gather and analyze the information collected, you know:
- Their location
- Point of sale
- Or even they shopping habits
- You also have the ability of targeting a specific customer profile
- Define a catchment area
- Or marketing actions needed for whatever business development planned.
This could be anything from opening a new shop in a new location to the advertising online of cultural events! A good marketing manager and team will be able to use the information system and put into place systems that will define groups by segmentation thereby optimizing the geomarketing data. Be this local customers, those who use the internet or mobile devices as well as social media users.
Geomarketing development
As technology develops and mobile apps become more and more sophisticated with the use of GPS, Bluetooth and the very increasing use of social media, companies will have all the information at their fingertips. As the sophistication of data processing systems make advancements in identification and analytical variations progress, year on year there will be a new tool to enhance information compilation. Attending a marketing conference is the optimum place to see future developments in this field.
The collection of customer information by geographic and demographic information allows companies to assess the potential for targeting specific areas thereby identifying key opportunities in marketing strategy. By being more focused on the maximisation of sales and efficiency and reducing costs on wasteful promotional strategies the company are in a win win situation.
