Current and Future of Location Based Marketing

            Location based marketing is just another useful tool for businesses to utilize that exists because of emerging technology. It would have been the dream for advertisers decades ago to have access to the information of the where abouts of their potential customers. Now, with all of the services and tools that are experimenting with location based services, it made the tracking of consumers possible. The one thing about location based service is that people might shy away from the option to ‘actively check in’ into the service, without a huge incentive for them to do so, it’s useless to simply ask people to turn on the location option. What does seem to contribute to the success of location based marketing more is the act of passive check ins. Passive check ins include when people tag themselves in a location on a picture or video they post to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc.

            Looking at current trends, it is a must to invest in location based marketing as it has a promising future. According to statistics, nearly a third of the world’s population will own a smartphone in 2017. Plus, 80 percent of all social media is happening through a mobile device, and social media platforms are the easiest ways to encourages users to geotag their content.

Above all, mobile commerce continues to become more prevalent for companies. B2C businesses are serving localized ads to nearby customers, localized ads can raise the conversion rates threes times more than regular ads. Author Aaron Strout lists the four important areas that are key to grasping the value of location based marketing currently:

1.     Sensors: Technology such as Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, sensors allow near-field communications between a user and their smart device. This allows the ability to wake up in-store apps. Both Samsung and Apple has included NFC chips in the past two generations their smartphones.

2.     Geo-Fences: These are fences that use GPS, Wifi, electromagnetic fields or RFID technologies for companies to trigger and collect data when the user enters them. This technology needs to be paired with a mobile app with location service turned on or by a geo tagged post on a social media platform.

3.     Context: The right context is crucial to location based marketing. To market to the customer, knowing where they come from and where they are going is a must. So, it is critical to map functionality to location, since with location based marketing the experience the customer is getting is happening in real time.

4.     Ad tech: $100 billion is expected to be spent on mobile advertising this year, it’s clear that marketers understand its’ importance. There is great leverage for retailers to adopt location based ads besides social and in app.

              So what does the future hold for location based marketing? As we have concluded it’s significant to the future of advertising. Strout suggests in the article that more and more sensors existing in smartphones and now fitness bracelets will increase context for marketers. Secondly, augmented reality; even though as of now, more augmented reality apps are entertainment based, there is a huge opportunity in this field for location based marketing. Strout envisions every major retailer to use smart bots and augmented reality to create personal shoppers or concierges for the customers. In conclusion, there’s much room to grow in the department of location based marketing. It would be valuable for retailers to keep in mind. 

Rose Yin, Yauheni B. 

Source of article: http://marketingland.com/location-based-marketing-going-195732

A Trend of Mobile Banking

A trend of making banking less personal is gaining popularity.

Bank branches keep on decreasing in number but their customers do not really care.

A recent survey has shown that modern banks are quite better in improving customers’ mobile experiences than real life experiences and physical locations. (Hayes 2015)

Clients’ preferences appear to be quite interesting. People are one third more likely to be satisfied with a mobile transaction than a visit to a bank branch.

Clients who often use physical bank locations are three times more likely to change their bank.

Survey has also shown that you are 2,3 times more likely to get annoyed by a bank visit than by a mobile transaction.

These numbers where obtained by Bain financial services practice survey which investigated 114,696 cases in banks across the world.

CNBC / Tetra Images / Getty Images

Gerard du Toit, a Bain partner who is in charge of the company’s retail banking sector, stated: ”Mobile is definitely taking off in terms of usage, but it's also a consistently better experience”.

"The younger generation is a little earlier in adopting, but the older generation is right behind them in terms of driving adoptions as well.”

Bain is convinced that key success goals of mobile  banking are:

• "extraordinary design discipline”
• "radical simplification”
• communication "anytime, anywhere chat and video calls”
• fast development and upgrading new and existing features
• "personalization… so that only relevant information is displayed to the user”
• "organizational agility" which connects departments and developers.

The industry research group CEB Tower has predicted that investment in mobile banking will increase by over 14.5 percent a year, creating an estimated $2.9 billion of capital investment by 2017. (Cox 2015)

Investopedia

Mobile banking is rapidly expanding. On the other hand, people still matter. Making banking totally impersonal does not seem real. A big amount of bank customers still prefer visiting their local branches and discussing their financial issues face-to-face with their managers.

Individualised customer service will still matter in the nearest future. 

But do bank branches require investments?

Are you going to visit banks more often if they improve?

As a representative of a younger generation, I would take a side of mobile banking. What about you?

References:

Cox J. (2015), For the future of banking, it's all about the apps, CNBC, Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/25/for-the-future-of-banking-its-all-about-the-apps.html.

Hayes A. (2015), The Future Of Mobile Banking (JPM, BAC), Investopedia, Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032015/future-mobile-banking.asp.

Hanna Hotsyk & Dorian Vincileoni 

Are online guidelines all you need?

The last couple of years "Guidelines for successful social media marketing" has popped up on the Internet. Along with the guidelines more and more companies and private people have started businesses online.  If you just dream about starting a company online is it important to choose what market you want to target and use a specific strategy for the market. According to Arbetsmarknadsnytt three e-commerce companies / day goes out of business. This is a clear proof of that the competition online is super high. Arbetsmarknadsnytts' research shows that it's often people without experience that goes out of business within just a couple of months. We have no proof but maybe a lot of people read one of all these guides online and thinks it is an easy way of making money. What they don't take into account is that the guides are very general and often assume some kind of basic knowledge within marketing.

There are several problems with those guides. Firstly, they only tell you what do, but not HOW to do it. For example, Promote your account. I may sound easy, but how do you actually successfully promote your account? Already here a lot of people fail. Secondly, the guides don't make any difference if you are doing B2C or B2B. There is a big difference in how to use social media depending on your target market.  Thirdly, the guides don't tell you how to actually make money.

We have chosen to only discuss the second problem a bit deeper and try to identify some differences between B2C and B2B before purchase that are important to understanding in order to increase your chances of success.

According to Sara Öhman (digital marketing consultant), there are several factors that are different, even though you talk to humans in both markets. B2B and B2C aren't looking and affected by the same things. B2C customers shop more with emotions and are easier to influence. For example, B2C often value products that align with their lifestyle and are fashionable. In comparison to B2B, where they are looking for a supplier they can trust and provide a product they actually need. Purchases are based on logical facts not emotions. This is very important to consider when you market your products on social media/ the Internet.

When you have succeeded to attract potential customers to your website, you have to be aware that the conversion works differently between the two segments. We earlier mention B2B looks for trustworthy suppliers. That is why you have to argue well for your products/services and base it on logic if you manage this the purchase if often made physically according to Öhman. Which puts a pressure on you as the supplier to provide the opportunity for it and in other words it takes longer to convert  B2B. On the other hand, B2C are faster and easier to convert since they most likely make purchase both digital and online (Öhman 2015). Furthermore, the way you market your products don't need to be well-argued but based on your customer's emotions. You need to know your customers in order to market based on their emotions.

At last, you need to know what channels to use in order to reach and attract your potential customers. In this category the both markets are similar. You will need your own website and newsletter. However, you need to put a lot of work into your website (you can find information about that on several sites, one example is www.hubspot.com). The newsletters differ slightly, B2C need to be more personalised compared to B2B where you can have more automated. Furthermore, it is important to have ambassadors within both markets. But there is a difference in whom you use, in B2B your customers often are used while in B2C influencers such as bloggers and celebrities are your ambassadors. This difference can be explained since B2B looks for trust and logical and there for would trust you if others have used your product and are satisfied. While B2C as mentioned before purchase product that aligns with their emotions and what's fashionable, celebrities can influence them. 

No matter what market you choose, you can't rely on the online guidelines in how to be a pro if you want to succeed!

It’s up to you if you want to give it a try. Good luck!

Amanda Holst and Ingvild Larsen

Why webinar is an outstanding digital marketing tool ?

Digital marketing is a practice that has established itself as fundamental in most business marketing strategies. Many tools have emerged for its implementation. The webinar is one of those tools that called our attention. The webinar is an online conference, animated by a company on a theme to attract potential customers, who subscribe to it free of charge and can attend the live or the replay. The audience has the opportunity to interact and exchange with organizer through through an instant chat interface. Therefore, marketers can offer their audience a collaborative digital experience, through a simple and attractive format, at very attractive prices.

Cost Efficient

Some companies have specialized in the organization of webinars (Frenchweb, GotoMeeting, Webikeo for example) and some offer their services to companies wishing to offer this experience to their clients ... for free! If not, other webinar suppliers may require a fee, but in return they offer more flexible features and technical support to avoid encountering bugs and other problems that may arise during the online conference. To reduce this cost, marketers can involve partners in their webinar and in return split the fee. As for the audience, it does not have to travel and therefore avoids transport costs while taking part in this interactive digital experience.

Interactive Experience

Indeed, the audience can participate in the online conference by asking their questions instantly and interacting with the speakers in the form of a sidebar comment box. This allows the speakers to best adapt their speech to their audience and to demonstrate the virtues of their product or service in an optimal way. The webinar is therefore an effective digital marketing tool to convince and show their credibility. Marketers can include videos and conquer their audience (the use of video increases the product or service understanding by 74%), who are generally interested in the theme covered by the company as they subscribed on their own to the webinar. Most of the time, the webinar is leading to physical "one-to-one" meetings with the most interested participants.

Prospects Lead Generation

Webinar enables the audience to have visual image of the speaker’s company, which raises brand awareness and increase the customer base. This tool enables marketers to target prospects on a large scale as subscriptions to the webinar are free, opened and unlimited. Speakers can position themselves as leaders in their domain linked to the webinar theme, discuss their audience pain points and then expose the utility of their products to a large audience. The more engaging the webinar is, the more participants could turn as brand ambassadors and spread the word on the speaker’s products to their network.

In conclusion, the webinar is emerging as an important marketing lever; it is an interesting tool to legitimize the image of the company, acquire leads and retain customers through an interactive, inexpensive experience. Some call the webinar the new "eldorado" of marketing. In the United States, 82% of B2B companies have already set up this practice, in France only 10% to 15% of companies have used this tool, a percentage that will undoubtedly increase.

Sources :

https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/webinars-great-online-marketing-tool/

https://www.appvizer.fr/magazine/marketing/generation-de-leads/webikeo/le-webinar-nouvel-eldorado-du-marketing-1470140060

https://www.appvizer.fr/magazine/marketing/generation-de-leads/webikeo/le-webinar-nouvel-eldorado-du-marketing-1470140060