As the number of people who purchase goods online nears 2 billion, global e-commerce sales have never been higher. According to Statista, e-commerce sales worldwide are likely to grow from $2.29 trillion in 2017 to $4.48 trillion in 2021.
While this is excellent news for online stores, brick-and-mortar retailers continue to struggle, quickly turning into expensive showrooms for Amazon and other big players in the field. But there is a growing number of retailers that are implementing a relatively simple yet extremely effective technological solution to stand up to online competition and convince consumers that brick-and-mortar stores are still worth visiting.
This solution is known as Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons, or proximity/nearby beacons for short. Nearby beacons are already used by Macy’s, Target, CVS, Urban Outfitters, or Rite Aid, just to name a few large retailers that have embraced this promising technology that enables retailers to send signals to nearby devices, allowing for hyper-contextualized proximity marketing to users based on their location.
A Proximity Directory report has revealed that 75 percent of retailers in the United States have already used nearby beacons for marketing purposes, and some deployments of nearby beacons have led to 10,000 percent better results compared to typical mobile advertising programs.
Today, retailers large and small can effortlessly take advantage of nearby beacon technology and reap its numerous benefits thanks to user-friendly platforms such as the Google beacon platform, which enables retailers to manage their beacons remotely and integrate them with Google services.
What Are Google Nearby Beacons?
It wasn’t until Apple’s 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference that nearby beacons started generating buzz. At the conference, Apple introduced its iBeacon protocol, which is based on Bluetooth low energy proximity sensing and allows for the transmission of Bluetooth signals over short ranges.
Soon after, many third-party vendors have introduced iBeacon-compatible beacons, most of which are small, battery-powered wireless devices that constantly transmit the same Bluetooth signal to nearby apps and operating systems compatible with the iBeacon protocol.
Google joined the beacon revolution in 2015 with the introduction of its open standard called Eddystone, named after the Eddystone Lighthouse. “Today, we’re beginning to roll out a new set of features to help developers build apps using this technology. This includes a new open format for Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons to communicate with people’s devices, a way for you to add this meaningful data to your apps and to Google services, as well as a way to manage your fleet of beacons efficiently,” engineering director Chandu Thota and product manager Matthew Kulick wrote in the official announcement.
Unlike iBeacon, which works natively only on iOS devices and is controlled by Apple, Eddystone is cross-platform and open source. While iBeacon transmits only one type of data packet that doesn’t do anything useful without a specific mobile app, Eddystone can broadcast three different packets: a unique ID number (functionally identical to iBeacon), a URL address that tells the receiving device to open a web browser with the address, and sensor telemetry.
Anyone can easily start with the Google beacon platform by purchasing a beacon device from a number of beacon manufacturers who have partnered with Google to implement its open beacon standard. All Google nearby beacons can be managed from the Beacon Tools app for Android or iOS.
Why Use Google Nearby Beacons for Digital Marketing?
Proximity marketing with nearby beacons is expected to reach a 133 percent compound annual growth rate between 2016 and 2021 in personal tracking, retail, and advertising, according to ABI Research. By 2021, ABI Research expects the overall nearby beacon market to break 500 million units.
Among the main factors that drive the growth of the nearby beacon market is the fact that most shoppers who receive beacon-triggered content and offers on their mobile device when shopping are more likely to make a purchase during their store visit, as a 2014 consumer study conducted by beacon technology platform Swirl discovered.
“Proximity marketing has the power to transform the customer experience, increase brand affinity, and drive sales uplift. Early adopters are seeing remarkable results and generating highly valuable learnings that they are using to optimize future campaigns,” said Hilmi Ozguc, the founder and CEO of Swirl.
Proximity Marketing
Proximity marketing is perhaps the most obvious use of beacon technology. Nearby beacons enable retailers to trigger location-based notifications on customers’ phones, alerting them about hot deals or goods related to their current and previous purchases. The fact that nearby beacons make it possible to market to shoppers at the right time and in the right place makes proximity marketing significantly more effective than traditional digital advertising.
Personalized Shopping
Amazon and most other larger e-commerce stores have been enticing their customers with personal shopping recommendations based on their previous activity for many years now, and brick-and-mortar retailers can finally start offering similar shopping experiences. The interaction between a brick-and-mortar store and a customer can start from the moment the customer walks through the door with a personalized greeting message and continue with relevant product information or long-term customer loyalty programs with points, achievements, and games with attractive rewards.
Data Collection
Apart from increasing sales, nearby beacons also provide value by collecting relevant data about customers’ preferences and actions. They can track in which store sections customers spend the most time and which sections they visit the least, analyze what day of the week and time of day are customers most likely to make impulse purchases, or predict viral trends way before they reach their apex.
Conclusion
Thanks to the Google beacon platform, beacon technology has never been easier to implement. It allows brick-and-mortar retailers to deliver engaging and highly personalize shopping experiences that have the potential to rival the experiences provided by large e-commerce retailers such as Amazon. Besides engagement with proximity marketing, nearby beacons also create value by collecting customer data in a very precise and targeted fashion.