The key to making push notifications engaging (rather than alienating) lies in them being personalized, relevant, and timely—all three of which are particularly easy to achieve when targeting a user based on their physical location.
Why Use Geolocation Targeting?
Guaranteed Relevancy. Location-based marketing is well known for its effectiveness in driving solid and tangible results. Because the messaging is in the context of a user’s real-time location, it’s almost guaranteed to be relevant and add instant value.
Perfectly Timed. The combination of the perfect time and place means location targeting achieves higher-than-average engagement and click-through rates.
Maximize Engagement. Whether you’re delivering a personalized message to users near your store or a discount offer to those visiting your competitors, adding location data to your other targeting criteria is a sure way to maximize user engagement and retention.
Creative Location-Based Campaigns
With the benefits clear, here are some use cases and examples from top brands you can use for inspiration when building your push messaging strategy.
Drive More Revenue
Uber heavily relies on location-based push notifications to drive ride revenue. It creates geofences around airports, hotels, stadiums, and other physical locations to notify users of driver availability.
In this example, when a user enters the arrivals terminal at LAX, Uber sends a push notification to let them know there are Uber drivers in the vicinity to drive them to their destination.
Because Uber is not available in every city or country, this notification also informs the user that Uber operates in that location if they need a ride during their stay.
Increase Foot Traffic
American Eagle teamed up with Shopkick to offer nearby users “kicks” (in-app currency) for visiting a store. Once in the store, the user received another notification to earn further kicks by entering the fitting room, encouraging its users to browse and try on clothes.
This example shows a real digital overlay on physical retail as the brand continues the dialog with the user after they enter the store via the app—an innovative use of location-based marketing designed to delight the customer.
Target Competitor Locations
Burger King excelled with its “Whopper Detour” campaign, which delivered an irresistible offer of a one-cent Whopper. The catch? The user could only avail of the promotion in the app when they were within 600 feet of Burger King’s biggest rival, McDonald’s.
Upon entering the geofence, the deal unlocked in the app for the user to claim. Once ordered, the app redirected the user, steering them away from McDonald’s to the nearest BK outlet to collect their practically free Whopper.
The campaign resulted in over one million app downloads, and ranking soared from ninth to first place in the App Store.
Build Brand Loyalty
Personalized content helps consumers relate to a brand instantly—something Starbucks knows only too well. The successful coffeehouse chain uses personalized push notifications to drive footfall into its stores and build emotional connections with customers.
When users enter a geofence close to a Starbucks cafe, they receive a promotional offer tailored to their preferences and past order history.
In this example, Starbucks offers the user a discount on the drink they usually order to entice them when they are in the vicinity of a store.
Solve a Location-Based Pain Point
Airport security (TSA) causes pain to many passengers, with beauty products often the first to be confiscated. Beauty and cosmetics brand Sephora cleverly uses this fact to its advantage with its airport push campaigns.
It uses geofencing to send this appropriate location-triggered push notification when users proceed through airport security:
The timing, relevancy, and lighthearted tone of this message perfectly resonate with users’ present environment, behavior, and real-time needs.
Final Thoughts
Location-based push notifications are amazingly efficient at delivering perfect–time/perfect–place messages to users.
If they’re not already part of your marketing strategy, the examples above should help convince you of the growth potential they offer mobile-first brands.
At Swrve, we show you how to leverage your users’ location to deliver relevant content for better engagement at physical touchpoints. Then, use the in-depth analytics from your campaigns to measure their impact, realize ROI, and better understand your users while they are on the move.
Read about building relevance with location-based campaigns, or book a quick demo to start supercharging your app engagement with our location-based solutions.
