Geo-Fencing: How Retailers Are Leveraging This Technology

If you’ve used any of the major daily-deal sites like Groupon [2]or LivingSocial [3], then you’ve probably experimented with the instant deals they offer. These work by pinpointing the user’s location and offering up local deals from merchants in that same area.

Geo-fences are the digital perimeters that are used in this location-based marketing. When a user enters within the geo-fence, merchant and marketers are then able to market deals to that user directly. Steve King of Small Business Labs [4] thinks geo-fencing is going to become a big deal in the next few years.

His reasons for this predicted growth are:

• Smartphone usage [5] has become mainstream
• Geo-fencing technology has matured and dropped in price
• Location-based ad targeting is getting more sophisticated and accurate
• Consumers are more accepting of geo-targeted advertising

For retailers, geo-fencing and location-based marketing could prove to be a more effective means of reaching new consumers and incentivizing these customers to buy now.

This shift to location-based deals is yet another example of how mobile computing is changing everything about our lives — including the way businesses advertise.

For more on geo-fencing, read King’s full post on Small Biz Labs [4]. And for more great content from around the web, check out BizTech's 50 Must-Read IT Blogs [6].