How Your Brand Can Leverage Proximity Marketing

Innovations in technology are transforming retail marketing strategies. One of the most promising developments is proximity marketing, an approach that leverages location-aware technologies to drive return on investment and garner priceless consumer insights through the secure broadcast of rich media marketing messages.

However, it's important that retailers make sure their proximity marketing strategy respects consumer privacy. Consumers today are increasingly tech savvy, and they're hyperaware of how businesses track and use consumer data. This is especially true of marketing campaigns involving IP data tracking, where businesses can compile databases containing highly private and sensitive consumer information. Consumers are rightly wary of those practices, particularly in light of high-profile controversies in which consumer data was compromised or used in an unscrupulous manner.

Consumers and consumer protection agencies have also taken action to combat unwanted SMS messaging, setting the stage for more stringent guidelines designed to protect consumer privacy. World-renowned brands have settled lawsuits to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for engaging in unwanted SMS messaging. The damage to a company's brand can be just as costly.

Proximity marketing can be an excellent alternative because it's possible to deploy it in a way that respects consumer privacy and anonymity 100 percent while still delivering valuable metrics retailers can use to drive ROI. One technique is to establish a proximity marketing strategy based on the Bluetooth broadcasting standard at a retail location. This enables the system used to contact Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones that enter its limited range and broadcast a query asking mobile phone users if they'd like more information on a special offer.

Once consumers opt in, retailers can then transmit coupons or engage prospects with interactive marketing messages. The important thing is that whatever type of campaign is used, consumer anonymity is preserved in this scenario because no sensitive data is harvested from the phone, transmitted via broadcast, stored, analyzed or correlated. This is essential to building consumer trust. The only way to ensure that these rigorous privacy standards are upheld is to use a proximity marketing solution that makes privacy a key part of its design.

It's possible to transmit proximity marketing messages and receive consumer responses without collecting identifiers such as names and phone numbers. A well-designed Bluetooth-based proximity marketing device uses only hardware information associated with the mobile phone that's contacted.

Despite the safeguards, retailers can still develop incredibly valuable insights from a proximity marketing campaign that's designed around consumer privacy. Such a campaign facilitates the collection of audience interests and identification of trends on a broad scale. It also enables retailers to create highly specific messaging based on defined proximities within a larger location. For example, a supermarket could transmit offers on dairy products only when shoppers enter the dairy section of the store, thus taking advantage of the fact that consumers are far more likely to respond to offers when in close proximity to the item.

Using a strategy with built-in safeguards, retailers and advertisers can secure a treasure trove of consumer information to help them hone marketing messages and maximize ROI in real time. To take advantage of the many benefits proximity marketing has to offer, you need to understand how it works — for retailers and for consumers — and make sure consumer privacy is respected.

Alex Romanov is CEO of iSIGN Media, a multiplatform advertising solutions company.