定位技术带来的15种全新营销方式

定位技术是营销界的下一个热词。

随着各品牌纷纷意识到依托全球定位系统（GPS）的增强现实技术（例如Pokémon Go）的力量，他们就开始寻找接触顾客的新方法。了解顾客位于哪里，又在关注什么，对他们而言意义重大，而这项技术使得这种想法成为了可能。

CrowdOptic的业务拓展副总裁吉姆•科瓦奇表示：“顾客的设备发送的特定GPS坐标，让每个广告商都能知道他们的位置。”这是一家增强现实技术公司，与欧莱雅（L’Oreal）、索尼（Sony）和IMG都建立了合作关系。

随着定位功能风靡营销和广告界，有哪些趋势值得关注？科瓦奇与我进行了探讨。以下15种趋势需要留意。

1. 增强现实活动

大获成功的Pokémon Go正是利用了这种增强现实技术。它依靠定位，使用技术生成的精灵球改变了物理现实。利用同样的技术，广告商可以围绕品牌或产品营造虚拟体验。

科瓦奇表示：“欧莱雅很早就开始举办增强现实活动，我们会在2017年看到更多。”利用CrowdOptic技术，欧莱雅举办了虚拟艺术展览。借助先进的定位技术，参展游客可以用移动设备观看银幕上展示的艺术作品，仿佛它们就在自己眼前。

2. 增强广告

增强现实技术可以跨越广告的限制，在特殊活动上播放广告时增强观看者的体验。科瓦奇表示，增强现实广告“在用户观看时‘栩栩如生’，能比之前的静态广告提供更多信息。”

3. 焦点聚集

广告商一直在努力搞清哪些广告能吸引人们的关注，为什么，以及吸引了哪类消费者。对此，焦点聚集可以提供前所未有的详细信息。利用移动设备或可穿戴技术收集的高级定位数据，营销商可以获得消费者物理位置以外的许多其他信息。焦点聚集可以显示出消费者在关注哪里。

焦点聚集意义重大，因为它能让活动策划方在未来量身打造专门满足消费者喜好的活动。

4. 预测分析将改变根据地点的推送广告

尽管根据地点来推送广告不是什么新鲜事物，不过人工智能和预测分析将会把推送信息的个性化提高到一个新的层次。

利用人工智能增加企业生产力的技术公司Grok的首席执行官塔伦•刚瓦尼表示：“营销商可以向任何拥有智能手机的用户及时提供与情境相关的推送。预测分析算法可以预计用户的位置，在用户离家前进行推送，或是根据他们的路线进行每周推送。”

同样的算法还可以根据用户的购买趋势进行推送，例如，跑步应用可以用人工智能分析消费者的位置历史，如果他们可能要前往崎岖不平的地区，就能推送厂商赞助的登山鞋广告。关于行为模式的信息可以让广告商预测消费者的位置，并根据路线提供有意义的产品。

5. 消费者的观看新体验

CrowdOptic的技术可以让用户在现场活动中获得多种视角。例如，人们可以通过观看设备，在运动赛事中选择不同的观看点，并获得那里的视角，从而以之前不可能实现的方式控制自己的观赏体验。

这会促使观众返回场馆，为自己购买高度个性化的超大屏幕。

6. 在电子商务中使用定位将增加实体店人流

实体零售商正努力在电子商务的威胁下保持竞争力，而使用定位功能可以促使步行游客来到实体店面。

专注于线上到线下技术的公司ShareRails的创始人和首席执行官约瑟夫•奈曼表示：“目前，实体店存货和网店存货之间没有什么联系。把实体店的商品清单放到网上，消费者就能用谷歌（Google）轻松找到他们想在店内购买的产品，随后根据指引来到拥有对应商品的当地店铺。”

7. 根据地点对接网红

迄今为止，许多网络红人的大规模营销都是全国性的，这让当地零售商很难通过这种相对新颖的营销方式获得预期的收益。

利用定位技术，广告商可以无缝对接当地的网红，从而与这些社交媒体红人合作吸引当地受众。

8. 无线电信标变得更加普遍

无线电信标是零售店内的小型感应器，通过追踪人流量等指标，它们能给商店提供消费者购物的详细情况。

零售店可以利用信标更好地掌握某个时刻消费者的位置，从而让广告商及时向顾客推送消息和广告，并获取关于消费者行为的宝贵数据。

9. 活动营销得到改善

任何经历过活动营销的人，都会告诉你让人们参加活动比看起来要难得多。

预计会有越来越多的商家使用定位技术，配合定向Facebook广告等手段，在消费者附近有特别活动时提醒他们，并提供优惠来吸引他们参加。

10. 促进销量的限时当地营销

未来将会看到商家使用限时营销吸引消费者。当地公司会提供短时间内有效的特别优惠，这种情况会在明年出现得更加频繁。

11. 利用无人机进行趋势追踪

CrowdOptic已经与其他机构合作，通过与政府的试点项目，利用无人机关注人群的聚集点，从而掌握潮流。这项技术还可以用于研究消费者在大片区域内的移动和购物轨迹，从而更好地管理空间，并向他们投放特定广告。

12. 促进数据收集

各大品牌很早以前就意识到消费者的购物数据在营销上的各种用途，不过顾客并不总会轻易透露隐私。利用特别折扣、会员特权以及定位数据，公司可以更容易地获得当地顾客的数据。我们可以把它看作大多数杂货店提供的顾客回馈卡的升级版，其中满是诱人的数据。

13. 立刻登录

我们已经知道，登录是一项很有用的营销工具。但是消费者不愿意这么做，因为这让他们在购物之前要多一项步骤。

越来越多的本地公司和分公司开始在应用内部植入立刻登录功能，从而获得了顾客消费习惯的宝贵数据。

14. 地理栅栏

地理栅栏可以让公司划定广告投放的区域。例如，消费者可能会在一家店排队付款的时候阅读一篇文章，并看到一则隔壁店针对投放的广告，因为他们位于隔壁店的地理栅栏区域内。这类广告能获得明显的收益，也很容易实现。

15. 基于天气的定位广告

各品牌可以使用天气数据，根据顾客经历的天气，推广一些特别的产品和服务。“晴天？为什么不进来喝杯冰茶消消暑，买点防晒霜和遮阳帽”或“下雪了吗？我们这里卖轮胎防滑链。”

自从广告可以印刷以来，商家就希望能尽可能亲自、快速地接触消费者。利用上文提到的工具，各公司将着力打造前所未有的个性化即时顾客体验。你的公司准备好了吗。(财富中文网)

译者：严匡正

Geolocation is the next buzzword in marketing.

As brands discover the power of GPS-fueled augmented reality (think Pokémon Go), they’re finding new ways to reach customers. For them, it’s meaningful not only to know not only where a consumer is, but also where that consumer’s attention is, and technology is making that possible.

"Every advertiser has an understanding of where consumers are located through their devices translated as specific GPS coordinates,” says Jim Kovach, vice president of business development at CrowdOptic, an augmented reality technology firm that has worked with L’Oreal, Sony and IMG.

Kovach sat down with me to talk about trends to watch as geolocation sweeps marketing and advertising. Here are 15 trends to watch.

1. Augmented reality events

Augmented reality, the technology behind the wildly successful Pokémon Go game, relies on geolocation to manipulate physical reality with tech-discoverable easter eggs. Using the same technology, advertisers can craft virtual experiences around a brand or product.

“L’Oreal was an early adopter of augmented reality events, and we’re going to see more of this in 2017,” Kovach says. Using CrowdOptic technology, L’Oreal created a virtual art exhibit. Thanks to advanced geolocation technology, exhibit attendees used their mobile devices to uncover works of art that appeared onscreen, as if they were physically present.

2. Augmented advertising

Pushing the limits of advertising, augmented reality technology can be used to enhance a viewer’s experience when an ad comes into view at a particular event. Kovach says that an augmented reality ad “can instantly ‘come alive’ in the user's view, giving them more information than previously possible with static advertisements.”

3. Focal clustering

Advertisers are vying to know which ads are attracting attention, why, and the types of consumers they draw. Focal clustering can provide that information in more detail than ever before. Marketers, using advanced geolocation data captured by mobile devices or wearable technology, can identify so much more than the physical location of the consumer. Focal clustering illuminates where the consumer is looking.

Focal clustering is meaningful because it allows event planners, for instance, to tailor events specifically to consumer desires in future visits.

4. Location-based offers will transform with predictive analysis

While location-based offers are nothing new, artificial intelligence and predictive analysis will take offer personalization to another level.

“Marketers can provide just-in-time, context aware offers to anyone with a smartphone,” says Tarun Gangwani, CEO of Grok, a tech company that leverages artificial intelligence to increase business productivity. “Predictive analytics algorithms can be used to forecast a user’s location, sending an offer before a user leaves the house, or during the week based on their routine.”

These same algorithms can be used to send offers based on overall trends of a user — a running application can use AI to analyze a customer’s location history to suggest a sponsored offer for hiking boots if they tend to visit areas with rough terrain. Information about behavioral patterns will allow advertisers to forecast a consumer’s location and serve meaningful deals based on routine.

5. New viewing experiences for the consumer

CrowdOptic’s technology also allows users to gain multiple perspectives at live events. People can, for example, aim their viewing device at a different vantage point at a sporting event, and receive that location's perspective, allowing them to control their viewing experience in ways never before possible.

This gives audiences an incentive to return to the venue and, have their own highly-personalized Jumbotron at their fingertips.

6. Using geolocation in e-commerce will drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores

Physical retailers are vying to stay competitive amidst the threat of e-commerce, and using

geolocation can help drive foot traffic to brick-and-mortar storefronts.

“Right now, there’s a disconnect between physical retail inventory and digital retail inventory,” says Joseph Nejman, founder and CEO of ShareRails, a firm specializing in online to offline technology. “By making the inventory of physical retail locations available online, shoppers can conduct a simple Google search to find merchandise they’re likely to purchase in-store, and then be directed to the local retailers that have their items in stock.”

7. Digital influencers will be activated based on location

To date, most large-scale influencer marketing efforts have happened on a national level, which makes it difficult for local retailers to reap the word-of-mouth benefits offered by the relatively new marketing discipline.

Using geolocation will allow advertisers to seamlessly activate local influencers, enabling them to align with social media personalities that are likely to inspire action in local audiences.

8. Beacons will become commonplace

Beacons, which are small sensors placed throughout retail locations, can provide outlets with a detailed picture of how customers shop by tracking to tracking things such as foot traffic.

Retailers can use beacons to better understand precisely where a customer is located within the store at any given moment, enabling advertisers to push timely messages and offers to customers and providing invaluable data about that customer’s behavior.

9. Event marketing will improve

Anyone with experience in event marketing will tell you that getting people to attend events is much harder than it looks.

Expect to see more businesses using geolocation, such as with targeted Facebook ads, informing customers when nearby locations are having special events, and offering deals to get them through the doors.

10. Time-limit local marketing to drive sales

Expect to see business attract local customers through time-limit marketing. Local companies providing special coupons that are only available for a small window of time will become increasingly frequent in the next year.

11. Drone-based trend monitoring

In tandem with other organizations, CrowdOptic has already used its technology for understanding trends in crowd focus in drones through experimental work with the government. That technology can also be applied to see how customers move and shop in large areas to better manage space and to target specific types of ads to them.

12. Incentivizing data collection

Brands have long-since recognized how useful customer shopping data can be in all aspects of marketing, but customers will not always give privacy away easily. Using special deals and membership perks in conjunction with geolocation data will allow companies to more easily collect data from customers locally. Think of it as the updated version of those customer rewards cards most grocery stores have, filled with juicy metadata.

13. Instant check-in

We've already established that check-ins are an extremely useful marketing tool. But customers are reluctant to do so, because it adds an extra step to their experience.

More and more local businesses and business branches will begin incorporating instant check-in to their in-app purchasing experience, gaining valuable data on customer spending habits.

14. Geofencing

Geofencing creates a zone around a business for advertisement targeting. For example, a customer can be reading an article on their phone in the check-out line at a business, and see a specifically-targeted ad for the business next door, because they are within their Geofenced zone. The rewards for this type of advertising are clear, and easy to set up.

15. Weather-based geolocation advertising

Brands will use weather data to advertise specific products and services to customers based on the weather they're experiencing: “Sunny day? Why not come in and cool off with an iced tea, or come to our store for sunscreen and a hat” or “Snowy outside? We're offering a deal on tire

chains.”

Since advertisements began printing, businesses have sought to reach customers as personally and immediately as possible. With tools like the ones outlined above, companies will make the customer experience more individualized and instant than ever before. Is your company ready?