What’s beacon technology and how to best use them

Beacon technology has been around for some years, and has been growing exponentially ever since its origin. Originally used by retailers to attract customers within a certain range of their store, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon transmits signals to compatible mobile devices (phones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.) to trigger an incentive to prospective customers. As the market for beacons is expanding, more marketers have become interested in the various applications of beacons, how to best use these devices, and what substitutes are there. The beacon can assist marketers in building and optimizing their strategies. In beacon theory, a successful marketing strategy involves breaking down the barrier between physical and digital, as well as taking advantage of physical location and proximity. Beacons can assist your business in multiple ways. The five described below will give you a head start:

1. Present added value

As a retailer, only notifying customers of new products does not stimulate sales. A retailer using beacon technology must create an incentive for nearby customers to visit their store the moment they receive a notification. By offering instant rewards, coupons, or other short term discounts, customers have an incentive to visit a store right away. The goal is to increase customers’ impulse purchases. Also, by giving information to customers that are already in the store, like product location or the length of the checkout line, customer satisfaction is increased.

2. Staff assistance

Create customer satisfaction by assisting your staff. The staff can use the data, such as location and purchasing history, retrieved from a beacon’s connection with customer’s devices to better serve customers.

3. Customer’s feedback

Customer’s opinions are of great value to any company. By sending surveys to customers who’ve recently made a purchase, you gain access to incredibly accurate and valuable feedback that can help improve your customer service.

4. Mandatory authorization

Privacy is a luxury. Before sending unwanted messages to consumers, beacon technology are obligated to ask a consumer if he or she would like to receive notifications from a nearby store. Customers want the convenience of mobile assisted shopping, but do not want to be intimidated.

5. More options to beacon technology

Besides instant messaging to nearby customers, there’s more to beacon technology. The gathered information can also be used for later advertisement or other purposes. However, this is easier said than done, which will be explained in the next paragraph.

Clearly, beacons can be very useful for your business. However, they do have some challenges to be conquered. First, they are facing some privacy concerns. Because of this, retailers must allow apps to locate and notify a mobile user when using a beacon. If a consumer is annoyed by notifications, it must be very easy for him or her to opt out, and not be bothered again. For a company, this is a huge risk, and it is of great importance to think before acting. Second, beacons only have the ability to transmit signals. A beacon cannot solely receive and collect information. To accomplish this, a beacon needs a receiving device that collects this data for them, like smartphones or computers.

With that being said, the market for beacon technology is still strong. There are no real competitors to the standard beacon (including iBeacons). However, there are complements to the technology. One of these complementary technologies is Eddystone, designed by Google. This is an addition to standard beacons, as its format is open source and cross platform, making it suitable for any device or software. Also, it has the ability to communicate privately with select individuals, instead of broadcasting (which can lead to impersonalized messaging). This technology can assist travellers finding their luggage in airports, or allow patrons to wait in an electronic queue, instead of a physical one. This is where the future of beacon technology is expected to lie as well.