Geolocation and AR in marketing
Marketing has been around since pretty long time. The moment when a first human realised that exchanging something he had for something he wanted to have was a good idea — marketing was born.
Of course, the early forms of marketing were very far from those we know today, but the general concept of presenting a product or a service in a way to make it appealing to the other party — is still the same.
Like anything else, marketing kept on evolving over the centuries. With new ways to travel and transport goods, competition began to increase. This, in turn, made it easier for consumers to access broader range of goods at lower prices, but in order to become more competitive, merchants had to find new ways to inform customers of their products.
The real challenge came with the arrival of mass media. It made it easier to reach more potential clients, but it also meant that it was now a lot more difficult to be noticed among the competition. Brand development and a proper consumer communication became essential in convincing the public to purchase a particular product over hundreds of other, similar ones.
With the arrival of internet, an entire new way of marketing came around. It was now possible to target potential clients a lot more precisely and directly. And with the arrival of mobile devices — both, the directness and precision of marketing, reached a whole new level.
Suddenly, in the matter of just few years, marketing became truly mobile, with more and more consumers carrying the marketing medium with them at all times.
It was now possible to reach clients in ways never before possible. It was possible to target clients entering a certain area, at a certain time with a lot more precision than ever before.
And so the location-based marketing was born.
Being able to target customers based on their location was a game-changer. It was a chance for the brick-and-mortar businesses to get back into the game. There was now a way for them to win back some of the clients lost to online shops.
With location-based marketing it was possible to reach those clients, who were near a physical location of the business. It was now possible to send them push notifications with discount codes, coupons etc. Unfortunately, there was a trade-off. It was quite expensive and it was usually only available on a “cost per impression” basis, so the cost was incurred regardless of conversion or lack there of. Additionally — businesses had to use outside advertising companies and pay them for setting everything up.
Fortunately, location-based marketing also evolved and like anything else — it became more accessible due to the emergence of new technologies.
Augmented Reality (AR) technology became the perfect solution to the issues troubling location-based marketing. AR allowed addition of an extra layer to the real world. Thanks to AR it became possible for anyone to see an entirely new level of information corresponding to the real world objects and locations.
The Geon Network was the first company to realise the potential of pairing geolocation and AR. Their idea was simple — Geon Network allowed anyone to create virtual beacons (called Geons) in real world locations. Those objects could then be filled with funds or with marketing materials: discount codes, vouchers etc.
What Geon Network did, was essentially giving the power of location-based marketing back to the businesses. They could now circumvent advertising companies and run campaigns on their own — paying only for those clients, who actually reached their exact location.
By downloading the free GeonApp (iOS & Android) anyone can become a part of the Geon Network and see the Geon beacons. Users can either use Geons to withdraw incentives from them in a process called geomining, or create new Geons to attract other users to certain, real-world locations.
Geon Network has found a way to connect geolocation with augmented reality and then squeeze them into a single, easy to use solution. Anyone can now utilise the power of geolocation and apply it to their marketing strategy. Not to mention that it can be largely done without any cost at all.
AR is a relatively new technology, but some of the huge players are investing in it heavily. Google was first to release their AR glasses, but Facebook, Apple and others are working on their own too. The AR market is expected to grow in value from just under $6 billion in 2018 to nearly $200 billion in 2025 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/897587/world-augmented-reality-market-value/).
As soon as companies like Apple or Facebook release their own AR wearables, we will see a massive increase in popularity of AR marketing.
The Geon Network lets us hop onto that train today — before it even leaves the platform.
