Location-Based Experiences

The proliferation of GPS-enabled smartphones and the advent of location-based mobile browsing has spawned a new breed of consumer that expects marketing to happen seamlessly, “in the moment” — whenever and wherever they are at. It’s a new HERE AND NOW consumer culture that blends the online and offline worlds, fueled by the demand for instant gratification, the desire for more meaningful brand interactions and shared experiences, and the expectation that technology should enable these.

In his article, Digitalization of Retail, Jeremy Lockhorn of Razorfish describes consumers’ new “non-linear shopping journey” using mobile and interactive digital media as “the connective tissue” that ties together a seamless, multi-channel brand experience. Brand organizations who adapt their marketing communications systems to deliver a location-based experience to consumers will reap the rewards of delivering highly targeted and more relevant messages: Higher response rates and marketing ROI.

But how? And what does “location-based” even mean?

A location-based approach means delivering marketing messages and media to consumers via digital channels based on: a) their current physical location, and; b) their presumed position along their path to fulfillment. It’s like leading a mouse with through a maze of breadcrumbs to the cheese. Each message is designed to prompt action that propels the consumer towards the next step in the purchase (or repeat purchase) cycle. Their location could be anywhere: At home on their PC; at the café with their iPad; on-the-go with their smartphone; or inside a brand environment, like a retail store, hotel, or sporting venue.

The Customer Journey

It all begins with examining the “customer journey”. It’s the series of real-life interactions or “experiences” an individual could or should have with a brand that moves them towards a destination (i.e. a purchase, a booking, an experience). Delivering a location-based brand experience requires not only mapping out the customer journey, but also tailoring each interaction to the customer’s needs or motivations based on their physical location at the time of each interaction.

In other words, location-based marketing creates experiences for consumers in the “here and now”. It delivers meaningful interactions when and where consumers want and need them, propelling them further towards an end goal (whatever that may be). It’s literally brand on-demand. And today’s consumer doesn’t just want and need it — they expect it.

The key: Deliver something of value to the consumer (the breadcrumb) at each step along their journey toward the goal (the cheese).

Applying Location-Based Marketing

Consider for a moment the unique customer journeys of…

• A retail shopper
• A new home buyer
• A tourist
• A sports fan, theatre-goer or event attendee
• A charitable donor

There are numerous opportunities for interaction along their respective journeys as they bounce between the online, mobile and offline world. Lockhorn describes one such journey in the aforementioned article. Jack Aaronson describes another retail journey in his article on social shopping.

Leading marketers are awakening to the fact that the systems and tools enabling location-based marketing actually exist and can be leveraged with a bit of effort and a lot of thought. Technologies and emerging media that are empowering location-based experiences include HTML5’s Geolocation API; GPS and real-time locating systems (such as RFID, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) coupled with mobile search; digital signage and interactive touch screens; mobile devices and smartphones such as the iPad and iPhone; and mobile tagging systems such as Microsoft Tag.

A passerby browses real estate listings through an interactive storefront window display.

Home buyers can scan a mobile tag with their smartphone to access product information to aid in their decision making.

One way to contrast traditional marketing vs. location-based marketing is through a “treasure map” vs. “radar” analogy.

Traditional Marketing: The Treasure Map

Traditional advertising and media is akin to a pirate’s treasure map. A billboard, TV or print ad  is like an ancient scroll of crude landmarks and runes with a prominent “x” marking the spot at which the treasure can be found… Except the map tends not to travel with the reader. So, the consumer must see or find the map, decipher the map, and desire the treasure enough to navigate the indicated path to the plunder (i.e. fulfillment). It’s obvious that, given today’s technology and media, this method has several deficiencies: Consumers must receive, understand, determine the relevance of — then act upon — a single message, ignoring all others until they reach fulfillment. We all know that, along the path, the consumer will encounter other messages (noise), distracting them from their quest and pulling them off course.

The traditional “treasure map” marketing model necessitates a single consumer follow a linear path that can’t be strayed from.

Location-Based Marketing: The Radar

Location-based marketing acts like a constant beacon, using (primarily) digital media to draw consumers towards a single destination (or multiple destinations) through a constant stream of messages and brand interactions. At each beep of the beacon, the consumer is delivered an experience relevant to their physical location and needs at the time of the interaction. Just as a ship would signal others nearby, so too can the consumer enroll others in these experiences through social networking and mobile technologies (read the example in Aaronson’s article). The advantage to this method is that consumers receive the same signal the entire journey, honing in until they reach the source, and can enlist the input of others to aid in their decision-making along their journey to fulfillment.

What does it all mean?

The implications of the “radar” approach are massive. Location-based experiences can — and will — transform the way consumers interact with brand organizations big and small. Not just consumer product brands, but destinations like cities, restaurants, retailers and realtors, sports teams, entertainment venues, theme parks, and even charities.

The tools to deliver location-based experiences exist today. They are strewn about and lay ready-and-waiting at the marketer’s fingertips. Who will be the first to assemble them into one toolbox? It’s already happening. And certainly we’ve only begun to imagine the potential that location-based experiences can unlock. Exciting times for marketers, to say the least.

Can an iPhone app prove to your customers that you care about each one of them individually? Let’s take a look at AT&T’s new iPhone application, Mark the Spot, to help us answer that question.

“AT&T Mark the Spot is an application that provides customers a means to provide feedback on network user experience to AT&T,” the applications description reads.

Admittedly, when I first found the app, my first thought flicked to the coverage issues that AT&T has allegedly been known for in some areas. After I downloaded the app and showed AT&T all the spots in a 30-mile radius of where I live that I’ve had problems, a strange feeling washed over me. It was a feeling of calmness and satisfaction. I had just been able to tell AT&T my problems. The fact that they came out with this app means that they must care about me as an individual. That being said, I don’t know if they will pay attention to my blips or if they all go to “File 13″ somewhere. At that moment however, I felt good about my mobile service provider.

This got me thinking about other brands and services that I’ve worked with here at Suitcase Interactive.  All of my prospects and clients started swirling in my head.  Then, I had an epiphany.  We as consumers spend millions of dollars every year buying the latest and greatest technology, and all we want is to know that companies are listening to us. Even Microsoft has picked up on trying to make customers feel like they are being heard with their “Windows 7 was my idea” campaign.

Combining this simple fact with the world’s most popular phone, and BAM! (Thanks to Emeril Lagasse for getting this key phrase stuck in my head!) You’ve got a customer experience that improves your relationship with customers. It gives users a chance to have fun using their iPhone and they are able to get the feeling that they matter.

Would I call myself a user experience expert? Probably not. Do I feel I have some great experience and insight into the matter that may help online marketers? Absolutely!

At Suitcase, we work with a diversity of brands. Retail brands, financial brands, telecom brands, travel and tourism brands…. And the list goes on. The experience of each brand needs to be vastly different and must deliver an experience appropriate to that brand. With that in mind, marketers must strive to establish clear and specific goals that can be used to measure the effectiveness or “success” of any digital communication or website. These benchmarks, often called “success events”, must look  beyond site traffic and unique visits to clearly identify a path or set of activities for users to accomplish that, in doing so, will have indicated a successful experience.

As experience professionals, when architecting an effective user experience, we must coach our clients to consider the many potential “success events” within the experience.  My first introduction to success events as a concept came from our partners at Omniture . They really hit home with their point that a website must have loftier goals for its performance beyond site traffic and visitors. Bringing users to the site should be only the first part of the process.  Of course in theory I agreed with this simple and straightforward point. But the way he was talking about it made something click for me. It opened my eyes and got me excited. What it meant was that, if we really focus on these success events, we can better measure the conversations users are having with our clients’ brands.

Here’s the thing: If we are clever enough to entice a visitor out of the vast crowds surfing the massive webosphere (which in itself is a huge challenge and a topic for an upcoming post) we must then guide that visitor to perform whatever specific task the brand wants them to complete. We must engage them in a conversation. So to start that conversation we could ask them to watch a company video, play with a cool widget, or the easy engagement to measure.. ask them to buy something.

As user experience professionals, we must realize that we’re not just designing a website or the pretty graphics that comprise a rich user interface. No. We’re architecting and designing a system of communication that persuades real people with real information needs to travel down a very specific path towards a measurable outcome. And at discrete points along that path, we’re dropping in specific activities for them to accomplish that can be used to measure where they are at in the conversation, and entice them to continue.

Whatever the case, lets measure the conversation they are having with your brand. When you know what your client is going to measure within the experience, then you can build your IA/UX (information Architecture and User Experience) around those “success events”. If its done any other way I feel the project will lack insight and the end result could be dry and boring and also there will be no clear measurement on how effective your end to end experience performed.