If you own a business or are involved in sale, you may have heard about beanhỏ công nghệ. Perhaps you even received a Google beacon in the post as part of Project Beanhỏ, a program Google launched to lớn sover không tính phí beacons to businesses with the ayên of improving Smartphone visibility và experience.
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Beanhỏ công nghệ has come a long way since its debut by Apple in 2013 và is expected lớn keep on growing. This year, Global Market Insights predicted that the beabé công nghệ market is phối to surpass $25 billion by 2024. It’s safe lớn say the giải pháp công nghệ has a lot of potential & is expected to contribute to lớn the kinh doanh landscape in the coming years.
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But what vày you need to lớn know about beanhỏ công nghệ, exactly? How can it help you meet your business goals? I’ll tell you. Here, I will discuss what beabé công nghệ is, the history of beacons, và the benefits of the công nghệ for your kinh doanh strategy.
1. What Is Beacon Technology?
Beacons are small, wireless transmitters that use low-energy Công nghệ Bluetooth technology to lớn skết thúc signals to other smart devices nearby. They are one of the lademo developments in location giải pháp công nghệ & proximity kinh doanh. Put simply, they connect and transmit information lớn smart devices making location-based searching and interaction easier và more accurate.
2. How Do Beacons Work?
The beacon device itself is incredibly simple. Each device contains a CPU, radio, và batteries, và it works by repeatedly broadcasting out an identifier. This identifier is picked up by your device, usually a mobile, and marks out an important place in your environment.
The identifier is a quality ID number that your smartphone recognizes as unique lớn the beacon. Once connected, the beacon will carry out whatever function it has been programmed lớn perform. We will go into more detail later on some of the many functions beabé can carry out.
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3. Beanhỏ Technology: A Timeline
Now that we’re clear on what beacon giải pháp công nghệ is & how it works, let’s take a look at when beabé giải pháp công nghệ was first developed và how it has been adopted around the globe.
10th June 2013: Apple introduces iBeacon as part of iOS 7 at World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC 2013).
1st September – 10th November 2013: Tichảy installs 500 beacons in Manhattan phone booths for “maintenance purposes.”
6th December 2013: Apple installs beacons in all 254 of their US shops khổng lồ provide customers with in-store notifications about items, product review, and deals.
31st July 2014: Over 50 of the Top 100 US retailers test beacons in their shops.
12th August 2014: 3 UK stores trial beanhỏ công nghệ in their mannequins with the alặng of providing prices & links khổng lồ buying online lớn customers when they enter the beacon’s 50-meter range. Significantly, customers had to have an app downloaded lớn receive the beacon’s information. Customers were also tracked on how long they spent looking at an cửa nhà & their method of purchase in order for the retailers to lớn khung a more accurate and personalized marketing strategy.
29th September 2014: The single largest application of beacon giải pháp công nghệ in retail khổng lồ date occurs when Macy’s installs over 4,000 devices across their shops.
21st November 2014: Arubố Networks successfully implements “blue dot” indoor navigation using beacons. This offers a cheaper and lower maintenance alternative khổng lồ Wi-Fi for indoor navigation.
Early 2015: Some of the largest và most downloaded apps, including Facebook và Shazam, begin integrating beacons inlớn their functionality.
14th July 2015: Google launches Eddystone, a platform-agnostic competitor lớn Apple’s iBeanhỏ. Eddystone is designed to lớn provide location-based nội dung to lớn your smartphone. Being compatible across platforms, it aims to encourage developers khổng lồ work with beabé công nghệ.
14th April 2016: Google announces Eddystone-EID, which turns your phone, if connected khổng lồ a beacon, into an encrypted target – safeguarding users when connected.
Late 2016: With users needing khổng lồ download apps lớn receive proximity sale from beacons the popularity in retail begins to lớn stall. However, Google works on making it possible for people to use the feature without downloading any apps, resulting in a resurgence in popularity.
Aug 2017: Bluetooth states that beanhỏ công nghệ will become the foundation of the Internet of Things.
Late 2017 – Present: Google pilots Project Beacon.
Now, you are probably asking, what does this technology actually mean to lớn me a marketer or local business owner? This next section will cover the benefits of beacon technology & just how these could improve sầu your business.
4. What Are the Benefits of Beacon Technology?
The giải pháp công nghệ itself has lots of applications & potential. Some functions were available when the beacons were first introduced, và some have sầu become available as the giải pháp công nghệ has advanced.
Improved offline attribution with Google Ads
By connecting the signals of your beanhỏ to your Google Ads account, gain a lot of useful insight into your searcher’s offline activity & may even help you traông xã in store visits. This means that when you serve sầu your Google search ads, you may be able to lớn attribute the number of online users that walk into lớn the store.
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Businesses and marketers spover billions each year on their online advertising efforts; therefore, understanding your offline attribution is more important than ever. Traditionally, it has been a marketer’s nightmare lớn underst& how their online sale efforts are linked lớn offline attribution. However, by tracking key interaction points of users that have sầu clicked on your digital ads you can underst& how effective sầu your digital ads are at driving customers & sales lớn your store.
A typical example could go like this:
Step 1: User types in search terms “smart black shoes.”
Step 2: Your Google tìm kiếm ad appears.
Step 3: User clicks on the tìm kiếm ad, browses the product, then closes their phone.
Step 4: This user decides they want lớn try the shoes on before buying, so they walk inlớn your cửa hàng.
Step 5: When they enter the siêu thị, their phone picks up an identifier from your shop’s beanhỏ.
Step 6: The beanhỏ recognizes that this phone is the same one that clicked on your tìm kiếm ad and links this data with your Google Ads tài khoản as a “store visit.”
And voila, by installing a beabé in your cửa hàng, you have sầu dramatically improved your attribution modelling. By logging actual store visits from your tìm kiếm ads, this giải pháp công nghệ will help you understand the impact & effectiveness of your tìm kiếm ads. If you see they are driving lots of visits lớn your cửa hàng, you may want khổng lồ invest more in tìm kiếm.
However, if you find very few users are following up their initial interest with a store visit, then you might not see a large enough ROI from your tìm kiếm ads. By gathering as much data as possible on your marketing activity, you can better understvà what is working for you & what is not – and you can adapt your kinh doanh strategy accordingly.
TL;DR: Beacons don’t guarantee in store visit tracking, but can help improve sầu measurement if there are already enough chất lượng signals in place. We often struggle with clients who go out và buy a $200 beanhỏ and then get frustrated that they still don’t meet the criteria for tracking in store visits.
Out-of-store marketing
This was initially the biggest selling point of beacon giải pháp công nghệ when beacons were released in 2013. Even though out-of-store sale hasn’t taken off as much as people had expected, it nevertheless has plenty of potential for the right businesses & for marketers willing to lớn invest in it.
Any important information that you want your potential customers to lớn know can be transmitted directly khổng lồ any receptive sầu devices that are within the range of your beacon. This could be a simple alert khổng lồ notify the user that they are within range of your cửa hàng. Or, the alert could be something more complex, lượt thích sending messages related lớn discounts, loyalty programs, & competitions that you are running. The brands themselves can also push individual product discounts using your in-store beacons.
By using this location-based công nghệ, you can personalize your out-of-store sale, helping you monetize any potential foot traffic. With mobiles now an integral part of everyday life, proximity sale will only continue khổng lồ grow. Therefore, implementing it effectively it will add another dimension khổng lồ your digital strategy.
Advanced data gathering
The positional accuracy beacons can give sầu you is up for debate, but it is clear that this công nghệ Bluetooth không dây technology is an improvement on other proximity technologies lượt thích GPS và WiFi. With this greater accuracy, you can gather more reliable information on how & where your customers are moving throughout your shop.
You can use this data in tandem with your ecommerce stats to lớn adapt và improve sầu your sản phẩm listings & in-store layout. If you are finding that the majority of your customers are spending their time browsing your homeware section at the bachồng of your store, perhaps this area could be expanded or brought lớn the front. Ultimately this data could help you refine your customer journey, tailor future sale campaigns and boost your in-store conversions.
Google My Business listing improvement
Installing a beacon in your business will also help your Google My Business listing. The beabé itself can traông chồng popular visiting times for your company improving the accuracy shown in the GMB listing. Through Google’s Local Guides service you can garner more Review for your business. The beabé will also help you gather more information on check-in & request users khổng lồ upload photos of the venue.
An up-to-date and detailed GMB listing is essential for local SEO. Therefore, using a beanhỏ can help supercharge your data collection and ensure your Google My Business listing stands out from the rest.
Customer Benefits
We can see the benefits of beacon công nghệ for the marketer are clear, but we can’t forget about the consumers themselves. Beacons help improve the user experience by adding an additional layer of personalized interaction during the shopping experience. Targeted ads & offers from their favorite brands build trust, security, và familiarity. With consumers now having so much choice in the retail market both online & offline, building trust in your brand has never been more important. In a study by PWC this year, they found 35% of consumers ranked ‘trust in brand’ as aao ước their top three reasons for purchasing in retail.
5. The Future of Beacons in Marketing
The possibilities of beacon giải pháp công nghệ in proximity sale & location-based giải pháp công nghệ are numerous. As data gathering tools, beacons offer Google a chance to better underst& businesses that use their services, as well as the users themselves, in order to improve sầu their algorithm.
The logistics & transportation industry is one of the main benefactors of improved location-based giải pháp công nghệ. Công nghệ Bluetooth low-energy beacons can be used for more accurate asphối tracking, particularly indoors.
In addition to tracking objects themselves, beacons could be used to track people such as patients or doctors in hospitals during emergencies. The focus may have sầu initially been on the retail industry, but as the công nghệ matures, we can expect other sectors lớn follow in understanding how beacon technology can aid their day-to-day activities.
Final Thoughts on Beacon Technology: Stay Tuned
It is difficult to say how popular beabé technology will become; the technology is still relatively fresh off the block và has had its fair nội dung of setbacks. Upon their release there was a lot of hype and plenty of promise, yet beacons did not take off as many expected. However, with Google’s recent plans to make the platsize agnostic & easier for developers to lớn program, we can expect more companies khổng lồ adopt the giải pháp công nghệ. One enormous advantage beacons have is that they are relatively inexpensive sầu in comparison to lớn other technologies, so businesses large & small can adopt the công nghệ with very little risk.
Ultimately, beacons will help you better understvà your audience, supporting và complementing your other kinh doanh activities. The online-to-offline attribution modelling, user-focused proximity marketing potential, & Google My Business profile improvement the công nghệ can offer is something every marketer should know when considering using beacons.
About the author
Elliot Haines joined Hallam in 2017 as a Digital Marketing Executive sầu và is interested in developing a rounded skill mix in digital sale.
