What on earth is geo conquesting? Yes, we hear you so hopefully this article will make this exciting geo-marketing practice a little clearer and showcase how it could be utilized to drive your business forward and pull in more customers.
What is geo conquesting?
This is a fairly new idea in the mobile advertising sphere and utilizes location-based advertisements to direct potential customers to your business when they are close to your competitors.
Geo-conquesting originated from advancements in mobile technology, becoming popular as location-based services gained traction. Initially, businesses only utilised basic geofencing for promotions. With improved GPS accuracy and smartphone prevalence, more sophisticated geo-conquesting emerged, allowing precise targeting of potential customers based on proximity to competitors.
These developments transformed marketing strategies, offering brands opportunities to engage with consumers in real-time and sway purchase decisions while shopping.
For example, if you are an independent coffee shop, you could introduce geo conquesting to your marketing plans by targeting users who are at nearby big chains like Starbucks or Costa with ads about the great menu items you offer, cheaper coffee, fantastic loyalty scheme or the importance of supporting small, local, independent businesses.
The whole idea of geo conquesting is based on the thought that a customer is already on the market to buy a certain product or service, hence why they are shopping at or nearby to a certain retailer, so if you can serve them a compelling, exciting ad, there’s every chance that you could sway their thinking and see them head towards your bricks and mortar store or website.
Ethical Considerations in Geo-Conquesting
While geo-conquesting can effectively increase foot traffic and sales, businesses must carefully address ethical considerations. Respect for customer privacy is highly important. Ensuring compliance with data protection laws, like GDPR, is necessary when gathering and using location data.
Transparency with customers about data usage and obtaining consent before sending location-based ads can foster trust and mitigate privacy concerns, which is key for maintaining a positive brand image.
Businesses should also consider user-friendly communication about privacy practices. Simple explanations about how data is collected and used, available on websites or apps, help demystify these processes.
By addressing potential customer concerns in an open manner, companies can encourage user participation in geo-conquesting initiatives without infringing on personal boundaries.
How could it help your business?
How often do you get your smartphone out of your pocket or handbag and browse the internet every day? Quite a lot right? With the average Brit checking their phone 28 times a day, so at least once an hour, targeting customers based on exactly where they are at that particular moment they get their phone out could bring a great return.
There are two key benefits to your business when it comes to geo conquesting:
Increased brand awareness
The first key benefit is the increased awareness your brand will get amongst customers already looking for the product or service you provide when they are close to one of your competitors. If you’re a newly formed business looking to get a foothold in the market and recognised ahead of those more established businesses, this could be a great way of getting yourself noticed.
Make the most of negatives of competitors
We never like a negative experience when shopping for a product or service from a business, however, if that does happen, geo conquesting can allow you to make the most of the situation and get those customers who are having a bad experience elsewhere on your side.
Going back to the coffee shop analogy we mentioned earlier, consumers hate waiting around in queues to get their morning coffee or lunch break sandwich, particularly if we are in a rush to get into work or back for a meeting. Using geo conquesting, you could target customers waiting around in that queue, as they’ll undoubtedly have their phone out as they wait, detailing how there is no delay at your coffee shop around the corner and they can be in and out again in no time at all.
Now it might seem a fairly cheeky marketing tactic, but it does bring results, as some big brands have found out in the past.
How geo-fencing and geo conquesting must align
Geo-fencing is a more commonly used marketing tactic and sees you serve customers ads within a virtual perimeter based on your actual location. When it comes to selecting the area for your geo conquesting campaign, you need to decide how large or small an area to target, as this is very important.
You don’t want to spread the net too wide and waste money serving your ads to customers outside of your competitor’s location, but then you don’t want to make the target area too small so you are only serving ads to a very small selection of potential customers.
Setting up a geo conquesting campaign
Although geo conquesting might seem like a scary term that will be difficult to actually implement, in truth it is fairly straightforward to get up and running.
Both Google Adwords and Facebook allow you to use such targeted advertising. In Google Adwords, this is set up with ‘Radius Targeting’ which can be found in the location settings, whilst Facebook enables you to do this via the ‘Drop Pin’ function found in the Audience settings.
The two platforms have a minimum target radius of one kilometre, which means you can target everyone who is within that target area and are close to your competitor’s setting, as well as people who live in the vicinity, work or pass through it.
Whilst those who live, work or pass through the target area aren’t necessarily going to be customers of your competitor, we all do tend to use the businesses that we see on a daily basis whether it’s seen out of the window of a flat or office, or as you walk past every day to get to a bus stop, pub or train station.
Once you’ve set up the location targeting, creating the ads is much like any other paid advertising campaign. The difference comes in the messages you put across in the adverts. Whilst you might normally just promote your brand or a particular product or service in a generic ad, you need to think more creatively with your geo conquesting ads.
Making the ads highlight what it is that you offer that the competitor they are close by to doesn’t or promote a reason why they should shift their loyalty from the competitor they have used in the area before to you are two good angles to follow.
You could even offer some form of incentive to encourage them to walk straight past the business where they were initially heading for and visit you instead; everyone loves a good deal and the thought of getting something extra for doing very little.
This is a new and exciting marketing tactic but can be used to great effect to effectively poach customers directly from your competitor’s location. By targeting customers where they shop, and in locations where they are likely to get their phone out and browse the internet, you can engage with them and improve traffic and revenue through your front door or website.
Integrating Geo-Conquesting with Other Marketing Strategies
Geo-conquesting works best when integrated into a broader marketing strategy. Combining it with social media initiatives can enhance reach, as targeted ads can prompt immediate engagement online.
Developing loyalty programmes can further persuade customers to switch from competitors by rewarding them for frequent purchases. This synergy not only strengthens promotional efforts but also ensures that consumers consider your brand first when making purchase decisions.
Technological Requirements for Geo-Conquesting
Implementing an effective geo-conquesting campaign requires specific technological tools. Businesses should use reliable app platforms capable of handling precise location-based services, such as geo-fencing applications integrated with CRM systems, to track customer interactions.
Data analytics software can provide insights into campaign performance, helping refine targeting strategies and enhance customer engagement through timely and personalised offers.
Geo-conquesting and mobile apps
The great thing about geo-conquesting is that it can be utilized via the very latest mobile app technology too. If your business has a progressive web app, you can use this tactic to pull in customers from nearby locations too through push notifications.
A great example of a company effectively using geo-conquesting push notifications was the Guatemalan based department store Meat Pack. They targeted customers shopping in nearby branded shoe stores, such as Nike and Adidas, with fantastic discounts on the same branded trainers in their store. They sent push notifications to each shopper in the vicinity, however the offer they provided had a countdown timer on it to encourage the shopper to make a quick decision and leave the branded store for the Meat Pack department store instead.
This is a new and exciting marketing tactic but can be used to great effect to effectively poach customers directly from your competitor’s location. By targeting customers where they shop, and in locations where they are likely to get their phone out and browse the internet, you can engage with them and improve traffic and revenue through your front door or website.
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