Benefits of Beacons in Proximity Communication:

When we think beacons, the immediate association is frictionless Payments. Beacons can be installed anywhere inside a retail store or a shopping center. Employing proximity technology, they transmit Bluetooth signal and establish a one-way connection with mobile devices within their operational range.

Once beacons connect with shoppers' devices (smartphones or wearables), they can awaken mobile apps or even activate digital wall displays to tempt the device owners with information tailored to their interests and preferences—all after welcoming them to an outlet as if they were long-standing customers.

Beacons are so small that they can be placed right amid displayed merchandise. This is important because apart from personalizing the shopping experience, beacons can detect consumers’ locations and direct them to displays which may be of interest.

Due to increasing competition and emergence of brands day in and day out, it is becoming hard for marketers to reach potential customers. Mobile apps, chatbots, Artificial Intelligence, AR, and VR are playing a vital role to make the difference. However, one such technology is not utilized up to the potential. We are talking about Bluetooth Low Energy also known as Proximity Beacons.

First, it is important to define what Bluetooth Low Energy is so that you may have little idea.

What is Bluetooth Low Energy?

Bluetooth Low Energy was released in 2011 as an alternative to Bluetooth Classic. It is a power-conserving variant of Bluetooth personal area network technology, designed for use by interconnected machines and appliances.

In simple words, it is an intelligent, battery friendly version of the classic Bluetooth Wireless Technology. Bluetooth Low Energy

Features:

1. Short wake up and connection times
2. Very low power consumption
3. Works efficiently with the number of communication nodes with minimum latency requirements
4. Robustness equals to classic Bluetooth
5. Good smartphone and tablet support

Interesting Statistics about Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

• Bluetooth beacons are expected to reach a 133% compound annual growth rate between 2016 and 2021 in personal tracking, retail, and advertising
• Directory’s report found that 75% of U.S. retailers have already added beacons to their marketing mix
• The future plans for beacon technology integration are trailing in popularity behind online basket comparison (42%), in-store Wi-Fi (54.3%), scan-and-go (59.3%) in-store bookmarking (62.8%)
• About 60% of shoppers open and engage with beacon triggered content or push notifications. Of which, about 30% shoppers redeem a beacon offer
• Globally, it’s estimated that 570 million Android and Apple smartphones are compatible with Bluetooth low energy (BLE), the signal used by beacons to trigger smartphone apps. This is one-third of the smartphone-installed base

Retail Marketing and Bluetooth Beacons

Approaching target audience takes every drop of sweat and marketers can realize how hard it is. As far BLE beacon adopters, retailers are the first one to adopt it. For instance, bricks and mortar store that is equipped with beacon can send special promotions to customers on special occasions such as Easter or Christmas as soon as they enter the store.

The beacons are not limited to retail, but also adopted largely by airports, schools, sports, trade shows and museums. The core purpose is to engage people and learn more about the customers. Beacons are utilized by health sector to improve patient care while enterprises use beacons for logistics. Many retailers and merchandisers are opting for Bluetooth Low Energy Solutions in order to reap benefits as much as they can.

Without further ado, let’s unveil the endless opportunities lying in front of retailers and marketers.

Enhance Merchandise through Deep Analytics

As discussed above, BLE beacons offer retailers with infinite opportunities in order to collect useful data. The data can help the retailers to know about how many customers visited their store, which particular section was the busiest of all, busiest day and hours of the week and so much more. The above data can be utilized to make improvements in a particular section of the retail store and enhance products and services. Micro Location can be used to gain information about traffic patterns in the store.

Moreover, Bluetooth beacons can be deployed to attract customers, retain them and encourage more purchases. In addition, it can be used to compare various merchandise offerings by changing the position of items displayed in the store. Merchants on their e-commerce system can apply the same to optimize their website so that it matches the overall customer behavior.

Customer Engagement on the Next Level

Beacons can take the customer engagement to the next level. For instance, the appropriate information allows customers to offer product information through videos at the right time. The information is shown to them based on their location in the store. The BLE can prove to be a revolutionary technology in order to understand customer behavior and tailoring the information accordingly.

If you want to leverage beacons rightly for customer engagement, here are some key factors to remember:

1. Send a tailored and relevant message to the customer through app push notification
2. Customize beacon triggered messages centered on individual app behaviors and preferences
3. Track response to those messages in order to know the consumer’s interest and preferences
4. Look at the impact of beacon technology on today’s consumer
5. “79 percent of all shoppers who received a push notification on their smartphone in the past six months made at least one purchase as a result of this event”.
6. “80 percent said they would use a mobile app/beacon system while shopping if this tool delivered relevant sales and promotional notifications”
7. 62 percent noted that they would use this technology more often if it provided them with content that was relevant to their interests and current location.

Customer Reward System

Retailers can use beacons Bluetooth network to integrate reward system for customers. It will help customers to earn points or rewards through scanning or just by entering the store. The rewards can then be exchanged for coupons. It will help retailers to understand how the offline and online behavior of customers differs.

For instance, Marriott International, a hotel chain recently deployed two new features namely LocalPerks and FlashPerks. It links the social media activity on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to loyalty points. Beacons deployed on the premises and other areas push out offers specific to the hotel. FlashPerks turns reward points into a virtual currency that can be used to purchase deals.

Authorize Sales Associate

Retailers can integrate device to device BLE Services to let customers contact sales rep from within the app if they face any problem. Nowadays, stores are empowering sales representatives to have full information about every customer.

It includes everything from shopping preferences to purchase history and location to social profiles, allowing them to know about special days such as anniversaries or birthdays. It will help retailers to establish a deep connection with customers and make them realize that they care about every customer that enters the store.

“In a recent research by eBay, up to 85% of retailers miss this kind of information from potential customers because their customers enter and leave it anonymously”.

Amalgamation of Offline and Online Shopping

Nowadays, most of the retail stores offer features like “click to collect” and “reserve in store”. It helps the online shoppers to pre-book the item they want in a store nearby and collect it instead of waiting for the item being shipped to their doorstep. It is clear that most of the consumers like to save time by shopping online but paying for shipping might hurt them.

The accuracy offered by beacons along with data from advertisers and manufacturers will make the shopping experience less annoying and more pleasing and engaging. Instead of throwing floods of notifications, the beacon-triggered notification uses contextual signals to them when it matters the most.

As a successful retailer, you need to harness the power of technology and Bluetooth Low Energy should be on top of the list. By deploying Bluetooth beacons, you can dive deep into useful data and beat your competitors by utilizing the data efficiently.