What is Geofencing Technology: A Primer on Its Applications and Pricing
Combining the functionalities of existing surveillance tech and marketing automation tools, Geofencing technology helps large indoor and outdoor areas with a holistic platform for streamlining cohesive sections of their business operations. Geofencing tech works well with a facility app, notifying the venue managers each time a device enters or exits that area.
Based on Geolocation tech, RFID, Wi-Fi, GPS, etc., are used to identify user locations and communicate with them. Based on the configuration of geofence within the facility, visitors will be triggered with notifications (messages), alerts, location-based ads, etc.
Primarily, this can gather data on a number of visitors entering and leaving the facility, and monitor employees on board with their logged in details as well.
How Geofencing Works?
Geofence acts as a virtual perimeter for any facility to provide an additional layer of security.
- Establishing a virtual boundary with GPS or RFID- enabled software within the specified location or facility is a must.
- With the help of the administrators of the app, notifications will be sent to devices while they enter or exit the venue and vice versa.
- All of this takes place with the help of the code that is extracted with the app when the location is enabled within the devices.
However, geofencing is not confined to mobile apps alone, they can be used for open-air events via drones that are unmanned.
What Does Geofencing Do to Your Facility?
In most of the developed countries, geofencing has been working well and is completely changing the shape of mobile marketing.
Proximity Mobile Marketing
Proximity Marketing through Geofencing helps visitors in large facilities by providing them information about special offers within the facility. Once entered the territory that is within the fence of the app, the visitors will be receiving messages, ads, and notifications regarding discounts.
In most facilities, the size of the fenced area is not confined to a small part of the area instead the entire facility is covered. However, there is always the liberty to choose the area depending on the requirement, which could be one mile or hundreds of miles.
Personalized Offers and Discounts
Today’s business heads are at a juncture where they have no control over customers’ choices, as they can on any given day unsubscribe or uninstall any app or service if they do not see personalized content in it. A generic sounding ad or pop-up might only motivate them more to disassociate with the app/service.
Personalized content in the form of ads and discounts will more likely sound relevant to the users and adds value to the brand as well. This strategy might get the customers to the store so as to check what’s in for them in that store.
Location-based Advertising
Geofencing in large facilities will help you to meet the customers where they are, this technically means the “near me” searches are relevant. Based on the previous visits of the customers, the demographics and psychographics are recorded and used while channelizing “near me”.
Super-Charge Your Facility with Geofencing
The best and foremost part of geofencing is that it will generate analytics of customers and employees onboard on any given point of time. This means the business heads have the opportunity to understand their customers individually.
Metrics like:
- number of times a customer visited your store,
- his/her response,
- their association with the store in the form of purchases.
This gives the retailers to split their strategy based on the interactions of each customer irrespective of the facility.
Importance of Geofencing Alerts
Having spoken much about the aura of technology in this digital era in this blog post, the safety of our loved ones is still a haunting and unlikely question for all of us. What if the same technology can protect us by sending emergency alerts?
Alarm, a smart home security provider in the US uses geofencing technology and allows its users to detect the phones of their kids once they go beyond the fence of their maps.
Many driving apps have come up in the USA that can intimate the parents of the kids while they take the car. The parents set the area initially and if the teens go out of that area then instantly the parents will be notified via push message.
Hence, geofencing is already protecting children, kids, and teens from going out of the reach of their parents.
Tentative Cost of Geofencing Technology
As per the global market of geofencing technology, the pricing begins from $1,000 per month to upwards of $20,000 per month. However, there are many factors that come into play while preparing a cost sheet for geofencing. Factors such as the venue/facility/platform, tools used, number and size of geofences, etc. will decide the final pricing.
The Future of Geofencing
According to MarketsandMarkets, the geofencing industry is expected to grow over 27 percent by 2022 due to the technological advancements. The ability to gather spatial data about the visitors onboard and also the increasing amount of applications in various industries is a plus-point of geofencing one cannot deny.
About the Author
Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.
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