Contextual Messaging Services for Various Industries

Introduction

Online marketing has drastically expanded the capacity in which to reach consumers globally. But online marketing is no longer enough to gain the attention of the most competitive businesses. That's why contextual messaging is a powerful tool used to complement the marketer's toolbox.

What is contextual messaging?

Simply put, contextual messaging is the process of delivering highly personalized messages at the exact right time during a customer’s shopping journey. This is executed by marketers using location-based data and creating geofences around their own store or around popular areas such as nearby competitors. If you’re wondering what a geofence is, wonder no longer! Essentially a geofence is a virtual parameter that surrounds a location, whether it is your entire store or your store plus a competitor's store nearby. This virtual parameter "holds" pre-determined information that is waiting to be sent to shoppers' mobile phones as they pass through the geofence. This data packet generally holds information about a sale or promotion in-store but can also hold information such as the history of the store or some other useful knowledge. You can’t necessarily tell you are walking through a geofence but you may notice if you are served an advertisement for a store while waking by or through it, you may have walked through one.

How does contextual messaging help business?

Sending out personalized ads at integral points of the shopping journey can turn a window shopper into a buying customer. If your store is sending out ads for a recently announced sale and the shopper receives this notification as they are walking past, it is more likely that they are going to stop and check it out as opposed to seeing this offer at another time (such as at home on the couch). Location truly plays an important role in marketing effectiveness.

How does contextual messaging help consumers?

When a shopper receives an ad that is not personalized and during a time when they are not interested in shopping or receiving an offer, it often ends up being overlooked. On the other hand, if a shopper receives a message with an offer while they are in a store shopping this often delights them since it is useful and relevant. When a business tailors its ads even further by offering shoppers ads based on the proximity to their location but also based on their product interests it becomes a recipe for a successful sale. Since advertisements can become so personal, it opens up to possibility to offer a shopper what they want before they even know they want it. It allows for the discovery of new products that they may have not known existed. Creating a geofence reduces the work that a shopper has to go through to find a sale on items they want. Instantly, they can receive an offer that they can use right away. Contextual messaging can serve the needs of the shopper in a way that no other marketing technique can.

What are some ways contextual messaging can be personalized?

It is important to remember that you want your message to do these things: build value and engagement and create an experience. You can do this by creating a strategy of contextual messaging such as

• Crafting a smart call to action. You want your potential customer to take action whether it be visiting your website or taking the time to enter and check out your store.

• Ask them to rate their experience with your store. Providing a platform for feedback shows that your business listens and empathizes with its customers.

• Curate personalized offers. You know your customer's past purchase history, so why not offer them products they will see value in?

Wondering where to begin?

Coming up with an extensive marketing strategy takes time and effort to collect rich data and customer profiles. If you’re looking to obtain deeper insights on location data about your customers, Mapsted offers location-based solutions and contextual messaging services, including location analytics and location marketing that can help you build out the best contextual marketing plan ever. Mapsted technology allows you to look at location and customer patterns over time such as their dwell time in stores, the frequency of their visits, and even the exact amount of visitors your business gets on any given day. This information can be used to plan the location of a geofence and target customers in a data-driven way.

The power of location is valuable throughout the entire customer journey, giving us insights into geospatial data that tells us the type of products a person will buy based on their geographic location as well as the frequency of their store visits. Once you have a strong contextual messaging framework in place it becomes easier to target a demographic.

An Electronic and communication Engineer graduate from New York, Jason Davis working Technical Specialist. He has passion of writing technical blogs. He started following his passion from 2012.