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BEACON TECHNOLOGY AND MOBILE MARKETING

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in Blog, Mobile App Development, Software & App Sales, Uncategorized

If you live in a first-world country, chances are that most of your daily activity takes place indoors. Consequently, it might not be possible to use GPS to get accurate locational information. Beacons are a low-cost piece of hardware powered by Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Their main purpose is to provide an inexpensive way how to accurately target individual smartphone or tablet users and send messages or prompts directly to their devices.

Even though they are still in their infancy, ABI Research estimates suggest 3.9 million BLE beacons shipped globally in 2015. That’s because retailers, manufacturers, hotels, educational institutions, and governments see how transformative they could be for logistics, customer engagement, and information transmission.

Companies like Zebra are leading the way with innovative products like MPACT.  Zebra’s marketing site states “MPact is the only indoor locationing platform to unify Wi-Fi and Bluetooth® Smart technology, improving locationing accuracy, while allowing you to connect to the most possible customers and capture more analytics and insight. Service is re-defined through impactful interactions with customers via the one device they almost always have in hand – their mobile phone. The result? Instant visibility into where customers are in your facility – and the ability to automatically take the best action to best serve each customer at any time during their visit.”

According to ZDNet, the largest retail deployment of beacons to date was carried out by drug store chain Rite Aid. The company recently announced a distribution of proximity beacons in each of its 4,500 U.S. stores.

Statistics from Swirl, Mobile Presence Management and Marketing Platform, explain why: Relevant mobile offers delivered to smartphones while shopping in a store would significantly influence likelihood to make a purchase for 72% of consumers. What’s more, 80% of consumers would welcome the option to use a mobile app while shopping in a store if that app delivered relevant sales and promotional notifications. That’s a staggering improvement when compared to traditional push notifications, which are opened only about 14 percent of the time, according to mobile advertising firm Beintoo.

As more retailers implement beacons to offer flash sales, provide customers with more product information, and speed up the checkout process, we can expect a dramatic rise in the rate of their adoption. A report from BI Intelligence says that “US in-store retail sales influenced by beacon-triggered messages will see a nearly tenfold increase between 2015 and 2016, from $4.1 billion to $44.4 billion.”

Mobile marketers and developers will have to learn new tricks to fully capitalize on the wealth of opportunities that the beacon technology presents.

5 Places the ‘Internet of Things’ Is Changing

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in Technology trends

Technology is everywhere. More than just our phones, tablets, and computers are being created equipped with incredible features all spurned from the technological advances of recent years. As Internet functionalities have made its way into more and more devices, it becomes harder to pass a day without using some sort of smart feature.

What Is the Internet of Things?

The Internet of things is a term for the growing trend of putting the Internet into non-computer/phone objects. In other words, it is the act of literally connecting the Internet to things. A good example of an Internet of things device is the Apple Watch. It is a form of wearable technology, which falls under this category.

5 Places Being Changed by the Internet of Things
Here are five day-to-day places that are already greatly influenced by the Internet of things.
  1. Smart Houses
In today’s environment, even houses have to have a high IQ. As technology grows, homes are getting smarter and smarter. Technology for homes has created many incredible devices that can be monitored and run from a smart phone.

There are many examples of smart house features, with more being added all of the time.
  • Lights can be turned on and off and dimmed from a phone with smart light bulbs.
  • Temperature can be controlled through phones or computerized monitors to ensure it is the desired temperature at the right times.
  • Security features are added to many homes so that it can be remotely monitored at any given time.
  • Doors are being equipped with keyless entry that senses a smart phone when it is near.
  1. Customer Management
The Harvard Business Review wrote an article that shows just how much the Internet of things has changed customer management. Take Disney’s MyMagic+ as an example. With this service, Disney can track guests through a bracelet that lets them schedule their day. Then, with the tracked information, Disney can tell them a place to take a rest if they are ahead of schedule or what they might want to skip if they are running late. It also allows the guests to enter their hotel rooms with the bracelet.

This is just one example out of many that shows just how this phenomenon has entered the customer management market.    
  1. Wearable Technology
Some of the most well-known advances in the ‘Internet of things’ arena is wearable technology. From the Apple Watch to Fitbits to Jawbones, everybody seems to have some sort of wearable technology to show off.

These tech gadgets allow you to monitor physical activity, see how much you are sleeping, and stay connected to the digital world around you.

On top of all of that, even pets can get in on the action. Devices such as smart collars allow owners to track the whereabouts of pets from a phone or computer.
  1. Cars and Other Modes of Transportation
After wearable technology, cars and other forms of transportation are probably the next widely known type of technologically advanced devices. Standard car features now include traffic-equipped GPS devices, built-in Bluetooth capability, cameras, monitors, and alarms. And those are just the standard features.

New cars on the market today can tell you when you are starting to drift in another lane; stop you before you run into something; tell you if anything is behind you; and make it easier to connect hands-free to social networks. There are also cars that make it easy to track if it has been lost or stolen.
  1. Health Care
Even health care is being effected by the Internet of things. Set aside all of the technology being used in doctor’s offices and hospitals, let’s just look at personal health care options.
  • You can monitor and check your temperature and blood pressure through devices that you can connect to your phone.
  • You can find doctors and book appointments when you need to do so.
  • You can check your symptoms and be connected to doctors in real time in order to have consultations.
It has never been easier to check and monitor your health without needing to go to the doctor.

Change Is Everywhere

As the Internet of things grows and prospers, more and more of our day-to-day activities will be centered around these objects.