Monday, May 25, 2015

The Beacon Marketing Playbook by Swirl: How to Use Beacons Efficiently

Swirl is a company specialized in mobile marketing. It has recently hit the headlines as Twitter invested in the company, in an effort to develop its mobile marketing activities.

They have published a White book you may download here, where it gives some tips on how to use Ibeacons. Ibeacons is for sure one of the most hyped word in retailing right now and the potential is great. Now I like the advices and the detail they give on how Ibeacons work.

How to use Ibeacons? What for?
This is one of the key to an Ibeacon implementation success. Ibeacons could be very intrusive, and the added value must be clear to shoppers. Moreover, depending on your business modell, your store concept, you may use more one or another technique. To me, there are two main visions of Ibeacons

Increase sales figures via couponing
  • Increase overall purchase rate 
  • Increase average basket size
  • Increase department-specific traffic
  • Increase category purchase rates
  • Cross-sell products/services 
  • Drive repeat store traffic 
  • Increase sell-through of specific products
Enhance the customer experience
  • Increase mobile engagement
  • Increase brand loyalty
  • Enhance shopping experience & customer satisfaction
  • Introduce new products/categories behaviors. 
Experiment
There is no need to launch a beacon initiative throughout a whole store. There are very little examples of mass success, and it is important to test on a small scale to benefit from the experience. 


Always Think About The Customers
Beacons can be very intrusive. This is the weakness and the reason why geolocalization mobile marketing techniques have never emerged in the past. Therefore, you need to be cautious about how your shoppers perceive your usage of the technology.
  1. Be transparent
  2. Be relevant
  3. Create value for shoppers

Educate Customers About Beacons And Your Shopping Experience
Beacons are not meant to be designed for geeks. There success will be effective if the most of people can use it. Therefore, it is important to explain how your beacons work, and the added value it creates. Don't hesitate to give examples in your store, and explain to the salesforce how to educate customers about it.