How Proximity Marketing Can Amplify Your Business

When it comes to acquiring customers for your business, digital marketing channels such as Facebook, email or the web are great tools for creating awareness and converting customers across the Internet. By adding a location component to your marketing strategy, merchants can deliver a message that is timely, relevant and personal. This is called proximity marketing; the ability to engage and influence customer behavior on-premise or nearby to the business.

The concept of proximity marketing is not new. Businesses use billboards, street signs, side-walk placards, digital signage and more to convert nearby traffic and engage consumers at a business location and influence impulse purchases. The growth and use of mobile devices have made proximity WiFi marketing a powerful solution of choice, as consumers look to connect to free WiFi to access the Internet.

The Pilates Loft, a pilates studio and Mindbody Pilates software customer, has locations in Orlando, Florida and Arlington, Virginia. As a small Pilates studio in a busy section of Orlando, The Pilates Loft used a variety of digital marketing strategies to drive foot traffic. The Pilates Loft was also successful in converting walk-by-traffic to walk-in-traffic. On a daily basis, hundreds of potential customers walked by The Pilates Loft studio, and an equal amount hung out at a nearby coffee shop.

Using a proximity WiFi marketing solution, The Pilates Loft targeted these customers with a promotional message and also acquired their email addresses. They set up a WiFi Channel called @Free Membership WiFi and potential customers, taking advantage of open FREE WiFi, were presented with a special offer to join the studio when they logged into the free WiFi. Also, all captured information was placed in The Pilates Loft Mindbody database.

In the first three months, The Pilates Loft acquired 300 new prospects and had close to 20% of these prospects sign up or express an interest in the Free Membership trial.

When thinking about deploying a proximity WiFi marketing solution for your business, here are five important considerations:

Lower cost per acquisition/higher ROI

Proximity WiFi marketing solutions, like VivaSpot WiFi Marketing for Mindbody, start as low as $19/month with higher price tiers offering more functionality. A business that captures 300 emails per month using a proximity WiFi marketing solution has a cost per acquisition of 6.5 cents. The average cost-per-click of a Google Adword is $1.50. If you convert 25% of every Google Adword click to a lead, the average cost per acquisition from a Google Adword campaign would be $6.

Higher engagement/higher conversion

Leads captured through a proximity marketing solution are timely, relevant and personal. This leads to more permissive and warmer leads that have a higher chance to convert. Proximity WiFi marketing targets consumers at a more significant point of influence while they are in sight of potential services they might buy.

Automated/always on

A proximity WiFi marketing solution is always on. It is akin to a marketing autopilot that runs in the background and is continuously doing three things: capturing leads, promoting special offers and driving conversions. Now compare this with a standard digital marketing campaign that needs to be reset on a monthly basis and may involve timely content creation.

Analytics

One significant benefit of a proximity WiFi marketing solution is the ability to provide your business with valuable, timely consumer insights. It can collect foot traffic, both traffic outside and inside your business, as well as consumer feedback, shopping preferences, and other customer activity. This applies to both consumers nearby your business and even inside your business.

Marketing inside the wall

While acquiring new customers is always a primary focus for most businesses, increasing the wallet share from current customers is another area where a proximity WiFi marketing solution can benefit a business. You can target existing customers with completely different messages and marketing actions than messages aimed at potential customers. These messages can drive membership upgrades, sell 1:1 personalized class, acquire customer feedback, drive mobile app downloads and more.