What is Geo Fencing

Geofencing software uses GPS and RFID technology to help businesses improve their field sales. This software sets up virtual boundaries around specific areas and sends alerts when a device enters or exits these zones. 

By establishing these virtual fences around specific locations, businesses can gather essential data about their sales team's movements, customer visits, and prospecting activities. Geofencing software provides real-time location tracking, improves the efficiency of sales routes, and boosts communication between sales representatives and their managers.

‍

Understanding the Components of Geo-Fencing

Geo-fencing technology relies on various tools and methodologies to effectively create and manage virtual boundaries around specified geographic areas. These components are integral to the functionality of geo-fencing systems, allowing them to serve diverse applications across multiple industries. 

1. GPS-Based Geo-Fencing: 

‍

This is the most common form, which uses the global positioning system to establish geofences that can vary in size from small areas around a building to expansive regions covering several miles. GPS is particularly effective for outdoor tracking and management, providing broad coverage.

‍

2. RFID-Based Geo-Fencing:

‍

Unlike GPS, RFID uses electromagnetic fields to identify and track tags attached to objects automatically. RFID geo fencing is highly effective for indoor tracking, such as within warehouses or retail stores, where GPS signals might be weak or unavailable.

Geofencing versus Geotargeting

Geotargeting and geofencing are closely related concepts but with distinct differences. Geotargeting targets users or devices based on their location, typically on desktops. In contrast, geofencing targets users or devices, usually smartphones, based on a defined virtual perimeter.

‍

How Geo-Fencing Improves Sales Efforts

‍

Geo-fencing involves creating a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area using GPS or RFID technology. This technology is particularly beneficial in field sales, enabling businesses to automate and refine their sales processes by targeting specific geographic areas.

Defining the Geo-fence Perimeter

In field sales, defining the perimeter is crucial. Sales managers can set boundaries around high-potential areas or specific regions where sales reps operate. This enables targeted marketing and the efficient management of sales territories.

Triggering Actions Specific to Sales

Geo-fencing is pivotal in automating key sales actions. For instance, when a sales rep enters a geo-fenced area around a prospective client’s location, the CRM system can prompt the rep with information about the client’s recent activity, potential needs, and personalized sales pitches. This ensures that interactions are relevant and timely, increasing the chances of closing deals.

Data Logging and Analysis for Strategic Sales Insights

Geo-fencing also supports comprehensive data analysis. By logging how sales reps interact within certain areas, managers gain insights into which territories are most lucrative, where reps are most active, and how effectively territories are being managed. This data is invaluable for strategic planning and optimizing sales processes.

‍

Where to Set Up Geofences

Geofencing marketing strategies can be implemented in a variety of locations. Here are some key ideas to consider when planning your strategy:

Places Associated with Your Products or Services

Identify locations where potential customers are likely to visit for reasons related to your product or service. For example, targeting competitor’s stores or non-competing businesses that your customers frequent can be effective. If you own a hair salon, you might target customers who visit nearby spas or nail salons.

Locations Frequented by Your Target Audience

Focus on places your target audience regularly visits, even if they aren't directly related to your products or services. For instance, if you are targeting mothers, setting up geofences around playgrounds can be a smart move.

Events Attended by Your Target Audience

Events are excellent opportunities to capture a large audience in a short amount of time. By geofencing events that appeal to your target market, you can boost conversions. For example, if you sell sports sneakers, target people attending sports events such as matches, tournaments, or races—both participants and spectators.

Places Where Your Products Are Sold

This is a straightforward option. Set up geofences around your physical store, retailers’ locations, or events where your products are being sold. This ensures you reach customers who are already in a buying mindset.

‍

Which Campaigns Can You Use Geofencing

Geofencing can enhance content personalization and customer experience, and it can also be integrated into your products. For example, Honeywell air conditioning units can automatically turn on when someone enters the geofenced area in a room. Geofencing is also a powerful tool for sales promotions. Here are a few examples of geotargeted sales promotions by promotion type:

Geotargeted Auto-Applied Promotion

A geotargeted auto-applied promotion offers a 10% discount to customers within a specific geofence, such as those attending a football match. This discount applies to purchases of sports clothing and shoes on the event day and is automatically applied when they shop online at your official e-store. This strategy boosts sales and enhances brand visibility during high-traffic events.

Geotargeted Discount Coupon Campaign

A geotargeted discount coupon campaign targets customers within a geofenced area by sending them a 20% off coupon via SMS when they are near your store during a weekend sale. The coupon can be redeemed in-store and encourages foot traffic by enticing nearby shoppers to take advantage of the limited-time offer.

Geotargeted Referral Campaign

A geotargeted referral campaign sends a thank-you email to customers as they leave your geofenced store area. The email includes a call to action for referrals, offering a $10 gift card for each successful referral. This method increases client acquisition efforts by not only identifying current clients but also rewarding them for bringing in new ones.  

Geotargeted Loyalty Program Campaign

A geotargeted loyalty program campaign sends a push notification to customers as they enter a geofenced area around your store, promoting your loyalty program. It offers an incentive, such as 200 bonus points for signing up on the same day. This approach increases loyalty program enrollments and encourages repeat visits, enhancing customer engagement and retention.

‍

Benefits of Geo-Fencing for Field Sales

Geo-fencing technology offers numerous advantages for field sales operations. It enables businesses to optimize their sales tactics and operational strategies effectively by precisely targeting geographic areas. By enhancing engagement, improving data collection, and ensuring efficient resource utilization, geo-fencing significantly boosts overall sales performance.

‍

Here's a detailed look at the benefits of implementing geo-fencing in field sales:

Enhanced Customer Engagement

Geo-fencing allows sales teams to engage with prospects and customers at precisely the moments they are most likely to make purchasing decisions. For example, when customers enter a geo-fenced area near a store during a promotion, they can receive real-time notifications about sales or special offers. This timely interaction boosts the effectiveness of marketing efforts, driving higher engagement rates and increasing sales conversions.

Improved Data Collection

With geo-fencing, companies can collect detailed data on sales reps' activities and customers' behaviors within specific geographic boundaries. This capability provides a deeper understanding of market dynamics and customer patterns, such as peak visit times and preferred locations, enabling data-driven decision-making to tailor marketing and sales strategies effectively.

Cost Efficiency

Focusing marketing and sales efforts on specific geographic areas via geo-fencing reduces wastage in resource allocation and maximizes the return on investment for sales activities. By targeting only those customers within a predetermined radius, businesses can ensure that their advertising and promotional efforts are directed at audiences with a higher likelihood of engagement.

Streamlined Operations

Geo-fencing automates critical operational tasks for field sales teams. Alerts and actions, such as sending task reminders or updating customer visit records, can be triggered automatically as sales reps enter or exit geo-fenced areas. This automation improves the management of daily sales activities, reduces administrative overhead, and allows sales reps to focus more on selling and less on paperwork.

Enhanced Security

Geo-fencing enhances the security of sales data and physical assets by providing real-time alerts whenever unauthorized movement occurs within or across geo-fenced boundaries. This feature is especially valuable for protecting high-value inventory or ensuring that sales resources, like vehicles or equipment, are only used within authorized areas, thereby preventing theft or misuse.

‍

Real-Time Tracking of Sales Teams

Geo-fencing provides an exceptional tool for real-time tracking of sales teams. This technology allows managers to monitor the exact locations of their field representatives in real-time using GPS or RFID technology, depending on the environmental context—outdoors or indoors, respectively. The immediacy of this data is pivotal in several ways. For one, it helps ensure accountability as managers can see whether team members are at the designated locations as expected. Moreover, real-time tracking enables a responsive approach to customer service and sales opportunities. Managers can quickly redirect team members to address immediate business needs or capitalize on unexpected opportunities within proximity, thus potentially increasing sales responsiveness and effectiveness.

‍

Optimizing Sales Territory Management

Integrating geo-fencing into sales territory management transforms the traditional approaches into a dynamic, data-driven strategy. By mapping out territories and setting up geo-fences around them, managers can allocate resources more efficiently and focus their efforts on the areas that offer the highest potential returns. This targeted approach prevents the dilution of sales efforts across overly broad areas and ensures that high-priority regions receive more attention and resources. It also enables companies to adjust territories based on real-time data and market conditions rather than relying solely on historical data. This flexibility enhances the overall efficiency of the sales process, allowing businesses to adapt quickly to new opportunities or shifts in market dynamics, ensuring that sales efforts are more concentrated and more effective.

Geo Location Analytics

Marketers can use geolocation analytics to track how potential customers move within geo-fenced areas, pinpoint peak visiting times, and study trends in customer behavior. These insights are crucial for determining how to engage customers more effectively and time marketing efforts for the best results. 

Targeted Marketing and Personalization

Geo-fencing enables highly targeted marketing and personalization strategies. By understanding where and when customers engage most frequently, businesses can create personalized marketing messages that resonate deeply with customer needs and preferences, significantly enhancing the effectiveness of promotional campaigns.

‍

3 Ways Geofencing Can Improve Sales

Geofencing, a virtual perimeter that allows users to see existing clients and leads on a map, simplifies targeting and selling to specific geographic areas for sales professionals with access to geo-location tools in their CRM. Here’s how geofencing can enhance sales efforts:

1. Get Precise Local Search Results

Geofencing allows you to create custom search results by drawing a virtual perimeter around a client, customer, lead, or geographic area you want to target. This helps localize your search and makes it easier to find nearby customers who can serve as references when talking to prospects. Additionally, you can identify local customers most relevant to your prospect, such as those in the same industry, with similar revenue sizes, or who have purchased the same product you’re proposing.

2. Quickly Target High-Value Leads

Geofencing helps you visualize high-value sales targets geographically, allowing you to sort local leads by relevant fields such as industry or revenue size. This makes it easier to prioritize which leads to call first, ensuring more effective and efficient sales efforts and helping you meet demanding sales quotas.

3. In-depth Analytics

Geofencing provides highly-targeted data and exact search criteria, equipping you with accurate and timely information to make critical decisions. All of this information is available in one view, including who is close, who is in your neighborhood, and who is more likely to make a purchase. This proactive approach increases your opportunity to drive revenue, enhancing sales reps’ productivity and results more quickly and easily than ever before.

‍

Geofencing Marketing Tactics

Geofencing offers innovative ways to engage potential customers based on their location. Here are some key strategies to leverage geofencing for achieving your business goals:

Location-Based Offers

Location-based offers involve sending discounts and promotions to prospects who are near your location, enticing them to make a purchase. These offers can include discounted pricing, new products, and giveaways.

For instance, if you own a restaurant near an airport, you could implement a geofencing campaign around that travel-heavy area to attract hungry, tired travelers looking for nearby food options. A promotion offering discounts on meals or a free appetizer could encourage them to choose your restaurant during their visit.

‍

Competitor Conquesting

Competitor conquesting involves setting up a geofence around a competitor’s location to attract their customers to your business. The key is to highlight what sets your business apart while subtly addressing your competitor’s weaknesses. You might offer lower prices, a larger inventory, or better customer service ratings.

This tactic is highly effective for large organizations with well-supported apps. However, smaller companies can also leverage it by working with an agency and allocating the necessary budget.

‍

Audience Nurturing

Geofencing can be an effective strategy for large businesses with popular apps to cultivate enduring client loyalty. Businesses may promote social media followers, reward program sign-ups, and more by implementing geofencing campaigns around their store locations. 

Customers who have just visited or are near the business are more likely to engage further, providing more opportunities for ongoing marketing efforts no matter where they are.

‍

How to Effectively Use Geofencing in Your Marketing Strategy

Geofencing isn't just for large enterprises; even small local businesses can benefit from it. Here are some effective ways to leverage geofencing marketing to boost brand awareness and enhance your business's credibility among local customers.

‍

Craft Targeted Ad Copy

To run a successful geofencing marketing campaign, your ad copy needs to resonate with your audience. Geofencing ads should capture the attention of your target market and encourage engagement. Ensure your ad copy is relevant and relatable to your audience to increase the likelihood of interaction.

‍

Choose the Right Locations for Geofences

Finding the ideal locations for your geofences is crucial for capturing qualified leads. Find out where your target market spends the most of their time before visiting your establishment by conducting market research. For example, Uber uses geofencing marketing around hotels and airports to target potential customers effectively.

‍

Keep Geofences Small

In addition to selecting the right locations, it's essential to determine the appropriate size for your geofences. Large geofences can result in longer travel times for customers to reach your business after seeing your ad. Ideally, your geofence should cover an area within a four- to five-minute walk from your business location. Smaller geofences increase the likelihood of successful lead acquisition by making it convenient for customers to take advantage of your offers.

‍

Avoid 24/7 Ad Targeting

Running ads around the clock is not effective, especially during late hours when people are asleep. Ensure your geofencing ads are shown during business hours when people are more likely to visit your store. Timing your ads correctly can significantly improve their performance and relevance.

‍

Include a Compelling CTA

A strong call to action (CTA) guides your audience on what to do next. Create clear and direct CTAs that specify the benefits of taking action. For instance, a CTA like "Visit the store for a flat 50% discount" clearly indicates the reward for visiting your business. In contrast, generic CTAs like "Download the App" or "Order Online" may not be as enticing.

‍

Implementing Geo-Fencing: Key Steps for Successful Integration in Business Operations

‍

Several critical steps must be considered to effectively implement geo-fencing in a business setting. Each step in developing a geo-fencing strategy is crucial for aligning with business objectives, choosing the right technologies, and achieving measurable outcomes. It ensures that the approach fits the company's needs and delivers clear benefits.

‍

Define Objectives

The first step in implementing geo-fencing is clearly articulating what the business aims to achieve with this technology.Objectives for using geo-fencing can differ greatly based on a business's particular needs. For example, some might use it to boost physical store visits, enhance the overall customer experience, or improve resource allocation. Each goal requires a tailored approach to ensure the geo-fencing strategy is effective and beneficial.

Setting clear objectives helps create a focused geo-fencing strategy that directly supports business goals. For example, suppose the objective is to increase store visits. In that case, the geo-fence can be set up to trigger mobile notifications when potential customers are in proximity, enticing them to visit with timely offers or promotions.

Choose the Right Technology

Selecting the right technology for geo-fencing is crucial and should align with your business objectives and environment. GPS-based geo-fencing is ideal for outdoor settings due to its comprehensive coverage and precision. In contrast, Wi-Fi or RFID solutions are better suited for indoor scenarios with less reliable GPS. Thriwin provides a single platform for managing calls and meetings, equipped with AI to generate insights that enhance sales strategy and performance. The software automates sales documentation and follow-ups, saving time on meeting notes and CRM updates to focus more on sales engagements. Additionally, Thriwin supports efficient communication and offers a cost-effective, usage-based pricing model that can lead to significant savings.

‍

Create Engaging Content

To engage users effectively, it is essential to develop compelling content that will be triggered within the geo-fenced area. This content could range from special offers and discounts to informative alerts and reminders.

The key is to make the content relevant and timely. For instance, a restaurant might send out lunch specials to people within a one-mile radius during the morning hours, capitalizing on the timing to maximize the impact of its message.

Analyze and Optimize

The final step in implementing geo-fencing is continuously analyzing the data collected and optimizing the strategy based on insights gained. This involves looking at how well the triggers are performing, which types of content yield the best engagement, and whether the geo-fencing efforts effectively contribute to the set objectives.

Regular analysis can reveal patterns, such as peak times for customer visits or areas with higher engagement levels, which can then be used to refine the geo-fencing strategy. For example, suppose data shows that certain promotions perform better at specific times of day or days of the week. In that case, the timing of notifications can be adjusted accordingly to increase effectiveness.

‍

By following these steps, businesses can ensure that their geo-fencing implementation is well-planned, technologically sound, and aligned with their strategic goals, leading to improved customer engagement and operational efficiency.

‍

Streamline Your Sales Force with Thriwin Geo-Fencing

‍

Adding geo-fencing to Thriwin's pay-per-use CRM reshapes field sales management for SMBs and startups. This integration streamlines tasks and sharpens marketing efforts with real-time location data, leading to more efficient sales.

Thriwin's CRM is built for adaptability. It smoothly works with geo-fencing to enable businesses to reach and interact with customers more effectively without significant initial costs. This approach is ideal for companies looking to grow by adapting customer interactions and enhancing efficiency.

Use Thriwin’s CRM and geo-fencing to enhance your field sales strategy, simplify operations, and support strategic growth while improving customer involvement and sales productivity.

‍

FAQs

‍

1. How does geo-fencing benefit sales management?

Geo-fencing can enhance sales management by enabling localized promotions, improving customer engagement, and optimizing sales territory management. It allows businesses to send targeted offers to customers based on their real-time location, which can increase the likelihood of impulse purchases and improve the efficiency of sales teams.

‍

2. Can geo-fencing be integrated with CRM systems?

Yes, geo-fencing can be integrated with CRM systems to automate processes and personalize marketing strategies based on location data. This integration helps businesses to efficiently manage customer relationships, tailor marketing efforts, and ultimately drive higher sales efficiency, especially useful in CRM platforms like Thriwin, which offers flexible solutions for SMBs and startups.

‍

3. How does geo-fencing help in optimizing sales team performance?

Geo-fencing enhances sales team performance by providing real-time location data and automated notifications. When sales representatives enter a geo-fenced area, they receive instant updates on nearby prospects, customer histories, and personalized sales strategies. Sales teams can maximize their time in the field because to this immediacy, which decreases downtime and boosts the effectiveness of their sales activities. Managers can also monitor the whereabouts and activities of their staff, which facilitates improved performance analysis and resource allocation. 

‍