Retailers find their sea legs with beacons for mobile engagement

Source    :MobilePaymentsToday
By        : Will Hernandez
Category  : Beacon in retails, Beacon Technology Nepal

"You read all these articles about whether beacons were more hype than substance and I think the truth of it is that there's a ton of substance in terms of what beacons can unlock from an advertising perspective," Jim Meckley, CMO of Mobiquity Networks, told Mobile Payments Today in an interview. "The trick is that it was much more complex to implement that than everyone initially gave it credit for."

Mobiquity Networks is a Garden City, New York-based mobile advertising network that helps brands and retailers connect with consumers who shop at malls nationwide. The company has partnerships with the three largest operators of U.S. malls: General Growth Properties; Simon Property Group; and Westfield Group.

Mobiquity Networks' pitch to retailers is different from shopkick's in that it has beacons present in common areas at malls. Retailers work with Mobiquity Networks to reach consumers in those common areas, either through their branded mobile app or via third-party apps such as Shopular.

But retailers face some potential shortcomings with this approach.

"The retailers that have any kind of scale with their apps you can probably count on one of your hands," he said. "It drops off quickly."

Meckley believes that third-party apps such as Shopular help to close that gap and he believes we'll see more of them in the future.

"The more diverse the range of mobile apps you have in your publishing network, the better targeting you'll receive," he said. "We'll get to a point where the retailer can be selective as to which [third-party] app publishers they want to use to get closer to that ideal target audience."

But how do brands and retailers measure success when they reach the ideal target audience? It varies.

"I don't know if anyone out there has proven the value proposition, so no one is a 100 percent sure,” Meckley said. “How do I compare this to other advertising methods?"

Mobiquity Networks can measure whether a notification can entice someone to enter a store even if they don't click on the offer. Meckley claims that this happens more often than not. The company is in the process of creating proprietary metrics to measure the success of the advertising campaigns it offers retailers.

Shopkick's Langsdorf said the company measures success with retailers by incremental store traffic and incremental sales. "We've been able to keep our existing partners and drive new ones, and they are seeing incremental sales," she said.

What's next?
Ultimately, the consumer determines how effective beacons can be for retailers.

As mentioned earlier, the consumer must have both Bluetooth and push notifications turned on. They must also find value in being pinged multiple times within one store.

"I think a lot of companies have struggled with [beacon deployments] because they haven't been upfront with consumers about the reasons to keep Bluetooth turned on and if consumers don't see the value of it, they'll see it as a nuisance," Langsdorf said.

Meckley believes the best approach for retailers is to show consumers how beacon technology enhances the shopping experience.

"I think we've been successful in nailing down these partnerships with the mall operators because the mall operator's primary objective is to improve the shopping experience," he said.

Meckley added that once retailers convey the proper message to consumers about this type of mobile engagement, the industry can stop discussing the shortcomings of beacon technology.

"We'll know this is successful when people stop talking about it," he said.

(Read More : mobilepaymentstoday.com/articles/retailers-find-their-sea-legs-with-beacons-for-mobile-engagement/)