Is Your Business GPS Ready?
A little more than a year ago, Dunkin’ Donuts made a deal with TomTom navigation to have their logo show up on the navigation systems instead of the normal fork and knife icon. Its a subtle start, and I’m sure its effective. Garmin also implemented GPS navigation marketing that gave 45,000 special offers to users for an annual fee of $50. Something tells me they might have bombed fallen short with this strategy. After all, how price conscious are people who buy top of the line GPS systems? How about turning this strategy the other way around?
I use Verizon’s VZ Navigator on my phone almost religiously, and it costs roughly $10/month. I assume most people who read blogs are also aware of how GPS navigation systems work and their common features. A feature I use often is category search. For example, if I want to find the nearest café, I can search restaurants -> cafés, and it will list the nearest café. To track how often I search in a category should be an easy piece of programming. Recognized search trends can be databased by Verizon.
With the information of a user’s GPS search preferences, Verizon’s software can create a personal profile and display businesses within their proximity that the GPS users are most likely to use. For instance, a business person is going to see a client and, along their route, in a section on the GPS, advertisement banners show up when the potential customer is within a certain proximity. The person becomes interested, and, by clicking on a picture of a business offer, they receive the quickest directions to that place, phone number included.
Navigation systems can become completely free, paid for by advertisers. The businesses pay Verizon to have their ad appear. A pay scale based on location, relevance to profile, and size of the proximity, would determine the cost of the advertisement. Businesses benefit because their targeted consumers receive an advertisement during critical marketing situations, capitalizing on the consumers location. Consumers benefit because the free navigation allowing them to receive information specific to their lifestyle is available. No longer will GPS systems be simply a navigation tool but a perfect link between consumers and businesses.
Do you think your business is GPS ready?
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March 6, 2008 at 10:36 am
[...] digitial pictures by default? The same argument applies for embedded RFID chips in your skin, location-aware marketing, and web ...