Technology is constantly revolutionizing and new systems are being implemented to improve our user experience. The iBeacons or Beacon are the terms used by Apple to refer to a new technology that are small devices which use Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate with smartphones. The Beacons technology is the next trend in businesses for many reasons that we will analyze below, but first, we must know exactly what they are and how they work to understand more about the use we can give and that benefits our business.
What Is Beacon Technology?
The Beacons are a new location-based technology. It is distinguished by its low cost and easy acquisition. If you have the latest Smartphone, you probably already have this Bluetooth beacons in the palm of your hand. In order for your phone to be able to intercept these signals, it is necessary to have an application that will react to the data sent from the beacons.
Among its benefits, is the low consumption that represents in a matter of battery. Even a simple button cell battery could give you a long life of up to two years. In addition, it has a signal range of about 40 meters. In simple words, it is a current technology that does not require much investment to function properly.
Thanks to the features of Beacons technology, companies can communicate with mobile devices wirelessly, either to send messages or collect information. This is the main reason why businesses are interested in this new technology. The Beacons represent a great opportunity for stores to connect with their customers and understand them better. This way, they will be able to know data like the time they stay in a store and send messages according to their location.
It is very useful if you have a physical store since you can inform your customers of special and personalized promotions. Apple is one of the giants that use beacon technology. The iBeacons work with their mobile devices every time someone passes near any of their physical stores. Consumers have a level of control over the notifications that they receive through these beacons, something very important to respect their privacy.
The company can analyze the influx of customers within a store and monitor the influence of their push notifications on their online sales.
Benefits Of Beacon Technology For Businesses
We already know how they work within a physical store, but now we must discover what are the benefits of beacon technology for businesses, especially electronic commerce if we are talking about a virtual store. First, we must understand that beacon technology solutions cut that gap between the physical and the digital. It is not necessary that the user enters a room to receive notification and can always review the offer later because there is a virtual site that you can enter from your home or office. Also, this technology can be installed around the city so that outdoor advertising is more interactive with users. In this way, we can analyze the advantages they represent for our business:
Send Important Offers For Consumers Effortlessly
We are not going to fill out notifications to our clients. We have to choose the most relevant offers and this is how beacons are transformed into a trend that we will see in e-commerce. The physical discount coupons that we deliver to our customers disappear and we focus on personalized offers that can be found in notices on the street or at strategic points in the city.
Capture The Customer’s Attention
Beacon technology is an example of AI – Artificial Intelligence i.e. now, we can enjoy more information about the behavior of our customers. Thus, we can offer products that really interest them and capture their attention. This will generate engagement. In addition, we will know the effectiveness of the campaigns we carry out, the number of visits we receive and the number of purchases made thanks to beacon alerts.
Expand Our Database
One difficulty that presents itself to any company is the segmentation of our consumers. With the beacons, we will have more information to better organize ourselves and further detail the profile of our clients according to their preferences. Definitely, it will be a tool that we can use for our benefit.
Much Simpler Loyalty Campaigns
If we place ourselves on the consumer’s side, we know that a personalized treatment captures our attention. So we do not make a purchase, we know that a store cares about us and knows our tastes so we will receive offers that really are of our interest. Eventually, we will buy from it if the offer is good. This, added to the shopping experience we have, will serve to build loyalty and even recommend other people about the attention we receive from this store.
In the same way, you can make campaigns as points programs to encourage new users to make purchases in our electronic commerce.
Connectivity With Social Networks
We can not ignore social networks. A large part of the population navigates these sites and they share all kinds of stories. Beacons help online stores integrate with social networks to conduct campaigns that encourage interaction with users, either to receive special discounts or to participate in raffles.
Greater Reach
Generally, e-commerce uses online advertising to make itself known. This is a good method, but it limits you greatly to the fact that the user is connected and surfing the internet. With beacons, this is no longer necessary because we can communicate with our customers at any time. And it is not intrusive advertising that bothers the client since he himself can configure the application to receive the notifications that he wants.