Always consider whether or not you would want to receive your messages as a hypothetical user, and think about the value your program provides. If you do that, they’ll opt out of your messaging altogether or, worse, uninstall your app. It is not about bombarding users with messages wherever they go. Now that we’ve answered the question of exactly “ What is Geofencing“, let’s take in other considerations. If you’re not generating the attention you want, expand a bit. Instead, if your business has a lot of competition, it’s best to focus on your own backyard. It’s clear that businesses can set the radius of their main location’s geofence to whatever size they wish, but how big is too big? Well, a citywide radius obviously won’t help much-it lacks the location-based relevance that makes geofencing a great engagement tool. What is the ideal size for a geofenced area? If you’re creative, geofencing can serve as a phenomenal sales and customer retention tool. Retail stores could alert users to deals when they’re nearby the local mall. A wedding planner could set up a geofenced push notification around bridal stores and bakeries, offering helpful shopping tips or highlighting the best deals for users. Coffee shops could trigger geofenced push notifications when users are downtown and in need of some pre-work caffeine. For example, real estate agencies can send push notifications to possible buyers when they come near open houses, and bands can send messages to fans when they walk by a concert venue the band will be performing at soon.īut there’s no real limit on location. But there’s plenty of opportunity for creativity beyond that. Many businesses use geofencing to simply send special offers to customers when they walk or drive near a business’s location. Users hear about offers or announcements when they’re in the area and able to act on them.
This timely, relevant mobile messaging is great for customer engagement. Push notifications are one of the best available app features with the most potential for return on investment-and geofencing takes push notifications even further. When one of your app users enters or exits a geofenced area, a targeted push notification is sent directly to their device.
Say you decide to build an app for your small business with an online app builder.
#Geo fences app how to#
Maybe you’ve even sent a geofenced push notification yourself, but you still have some questions about how the technology works and, more importantly, how to make push notifications work for your business. What is a Geofence?īy now, you’ve probably heard of geofencing, or the establishing of a virtual fence around a predefined geographic area. Article was originally published March 18, 2014.