Hospitality

Using Geo-fencing and Beaconing Technology to Increase Revenues

Written by Prem Khatri Posted by Carolina

Prem Khatri

When it comes to marketing the basic function is to use available vehicles of communication to facilitate a business’s growth by strengthening relationships and communicating the values of a product or service. New forms of communication, blending location-based services with mobile devices, are evolving the landscape of traditional marketing mediums.Location-based marketing, including geo-fencing and beaconing, is transforming casino CRM by creating a mode to deliver well-timed, purposeful marketing messages to consumers. A blog published by Cisco titled Explosive Growth in Mobility and Location-based Marketing reports that this year’s spend on mobile marketing was $10.15 billion with almost half being location-based. As smart phone use increases to a predicted 93% in 2018 from 65% in 2013 in North America, this market is only expected to expand. The increase in devices, data, and engagement capabilities is resulting in rapid growth in the mobile marketing sector, and represents viable business opportunities for software providers to get involved.

Geo-fencing is a technology that enables contextual marketing to users within a certain external boundary. A geographical perimeter or “fence” is established around a disclosed radius of an establishment with an area that can be as large or as small as the marketer would like. When the virtual barrier is crossed marketing content is delivered to the user via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), push notifications, text Short Message Service (SMS), and / or e-mail.

Casino’s revenue is primarily driven by loyal customers and nearly all casinos have a rewards program. Casinos can use geo-fencing services as a direct connection monetization strategy to bring in their loyal customers. Creating contextual messages and delivering them through text messaging, email, and / or push notifications to promote rewards loyal customers have earned will maximize the loyalty program the casino offers. Data is recorded on user locations when they enter the barrier, and the information can be used for other marketing tactics such as billboards.

While geo fencing is mainly concerned with externally creating a demand and bringing consumers in, it is supplemented with on-site location-based services called beaconing. Beacons are used in micro-location geo-fencing. This is the technology behind on-site proximity marketing. Indoor hardware prompts communication to a user’s device regarding on-site marketing efforts. Beaconing hardware uses Bluetooth to send information to a device when a customer is in close proximity to the beacon.

Proximity marketing can be used in a variety of ways to enhance a casino’s communication with its patrons. When a beacon is triggered content including greetings, promotions, advertisings, images, videos, and links can be sent at an instance to any smart device equipped with a specific application. Upon triggering a beacon patrons can get instant way finding and digital signage content to help them navigate through the casino floor and find a specific section. As the players navigate through the casino floor real time updates will be pushed to the phone from another beacon updating their location and giving them insights into the new area of the casino. As the players move through the casino the beacons record the movement and generate player profiles depending on their actions and particular games they play. This can be integrated with closed loop loyalty cards to determine VIP status of patrons. If a VIP player enters the casino beacons can transmit accurate player profiles with pictures and player history to the nearest employee to ensure that customer satisfaction is attained with service from a casinos employee. All of this important information is then backed up in a central CRM database.

Location-based services can be integrated with any existing application. When developing a location aware application for geo-fencing it is imperative that the users’ location be identified. Through specific programing the application must determine the GPS location of the user by way of geocoordinates. Integrating a location API allows users to define their targeted invisible boundaries via a simple and navigable User Interface (UI) integrated with Google Maps API. It will be important that providers offer users an easy way to set up, modify or delete a geo fence. Creating boundaries in real time and giving them full customization of enter and exit context will be key. When programing the app the appropriate language needs to be implemented to make sure that the application runs in the background. This will be key to enable location services while the application is not inherently open. Implementing a test location software for QA will be beneficial. Giving users that ability to test the application and specific notifications will be a huge selling point.

Although location based services are primarily used for customer relationship management, it is only part of the equation. What is going to separate a software from the competition is how well geo-fencing and beaconing can be tied back and integrated to business intelligence modules. Integrating data mining and report generation applications that portray accurate information about behavior, demographics, and user movements are important information to casinos. Casinos can gain insight into travel patterns internally and externally of single or groups of people over time. Using geo-fencing insights is helpful to manipulate ad spend from lower performing locations to better, more desirable locations to increase effectiveness.. The business intelligence insights are important to casinos who can use this data to bring in more patrons and maximize the casino floor to create more revenue through gambling.

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