Boost Your Business Profits with Geofencing Like These 8 Giants

As a business owner, you’ve got to constantly come up with new ways to make money.

This statement holds true for every company throughout all industries. Just because your business model is sustainable right now, it doesn’t mean that it will be in the years to come.

You need to stay educated on industry trends and learn about new forms of technology to help your business grow.

One of the ways that you can make more money for your business is through geofencing. Have you heard of this? Are you familiar with how it works?

For those of you with a mobile application, you definitely need to be using geofencing.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If you’re not sure how something works or how to apply it to your company, your best bet is to follow the lead of those who succeeded before you.

I’m going to show you some examples of well-known companies that use geofencing to improve their business model and turn a hefty profit.

For those of you that don’t know what geofencing is, I’ll also explain the basic concepts of how it works. That way you’ll be able to use this guide as a reference for when you apply geofencing to your business and mobile application.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is geofencing?

Geofencing uses location services to help you make marketing tactics more relevant to your customers.

Essentially, it’s a GPS tracking system that creates a barrier around a specified area, which you get to define.

Here’s a pretty basic animation to show you a visual representation of how it works.

The example above is for a restaurant, which is represented by the blue location icon in the center of the picture.

This company set their geofenced area to the blocks surrounding their restaurant. When someone enters the specified area, they’ll receive an alert as a push notification or SMS notification.

In this case, the restaurant is promoting their happy hour specials.

This is one of the best ways that you can use geofencing to grow your business. However, there are other ways that you can use this technology to save money as well.

For example, if your company has drivers out on the road, you can use geofencing to make sure that your employees aren’t leaving their designated route area while they’re out on the road.

It keeps them accountable for doing their job without wasting time on your payroll.

How businesses are using geofencing

As I just said, there are lots of different ways to use geofencing.

Depending on your company and industry, you’ll find that some methods are better than others.

Rather than continuing with broad examples, I want to show you how successful businesses are using geofencing right now. These specific cases will help give you a better understanding of how versatile this technology is.

Some of you may be able to mimic these methods exactly if you’re in a similar industry. But even if you’re not, you’ll still be able to apply the basic concepts.

As a whole, geofencing improves the click-through rates by more than double your industry averages.

Take the lead from these businesses and find a way to apply their strategy to your own company and mobile application.

Company	Geofencing Application	Customer Benefit
Honeywell	Thermostat control based on room occupancy	Energy savings and comfort
Uber	Ride availability and notifications	Convenience and timely service
Walgreens	Notifications near store locations	Promotional offers and easy access

Honeywell

Honeywell has a thermostat that uses geofencing to improve their products and enhances the customer experience. Here’s how it works.

The system uses geofencing technology to set a barrier around specific rooms in the house. Using the signal, it can tell if someone is in the room or not.

Based on this information, the heat or air conditioning turns on or off automatically to help save power.

As a result, the Honeywell equipment is optimized to run efficiently and last for a long time. But the customer gets even more benefits.

For starters, they know that the temperature in the rooms they’re in will always be comfortable. But even better, they’ll save money on their utilities since the system regulates itself.

This use of geofencing is an absolute homerun for Honeywell.

As I said before, geofencing is great for businesses with mobile applications. Well, Honeywell uses a mobile app as well so that these same customers can control all of the settings from their mobile devices.

Customers can manually turn on or turn off their system, even if they aren’t home.

Ultimately, this use of geofencing adds value to the customer, which is why Honeywell is able to sell them at a premium price to make more money.

Uber

Uber’s entire business model wouldn’t survive without GPS tracking and location services.

When a user opens up the app to request a ride, they use geofencing around their specified area to show how many cars are available and an estimated wait time for when a driver can arrive.

But Uber takes geofencing one step further. If you agree to have your location services turned on when you’re not using the app, Uber knows where you all at all times.

So if you enter one of their geofenced areas, they’ll send you a push notification as a way to drive more sales.

Here’s an example of this strategy being used at an airport in San Francisco.

It’s a genius strategy. Uber knows that anyone arriving at the airport, obviously, needs to leave the airport to get to their destination.

While some people may think to use Uber automatically, not everyone would have this thought.

Some people may just try to find a cab driver outside. Others may call a friend or family member for a ride. Travelers can even contact a hotel to try and arrange a shuttle service.

But Uber doesn’t want people with their app to do any of those things. They want to make as much money as possible, so they send this notification.

Meeting a driver at the airport can be hectic and confusing. But Uber even provides specific instructions on where customers can meet their drivers.

All of this makes the user experience that much better. It was all made possible because of geofencing.

Walgreens

Walgreens uses geofencing technology as a way to promote customer retention and establish brand loyalty.

They use this method to appeal to their loyal customers. If a customer enters a geofenced area that’s close to Walgreens store location, they’ll receive a notification.

This is great for customers who may need something, but don’t realize that a Walgreens is nearby. Here’s an example of what that notification looks like.

I’m willing to bet that the majority of people who have this app, don’t have it on their homepage. It’s probably not something that they open up every day.

So this notification is perfect because now the user just needs to swipe on the notification and the app will automatically open. They won’t have to go digging through their phone to find it.

Once the app opens, they’ll be logged in to their personal customer profile.

Now users will see promotional offers based on their purchase history. The whole concept of combining personalization with geofencing is a great strategy and it’s why Walgreens has been so successful with customer retention and brand loyalty.

You can apply this same idea to your company’s mobile app as well to maintain loyal customers and provide them with promotional offers that are timely and personalized.

BMW

BMW is an industry leader in the automobile industry. Their brand is known for luxury, performance, and excellent customer service.

That’s why their vehicles come with such a premium price tag. BMW also uses geofencing to enhance their customer service.

Cars with BMW Trackstar monitor the position of the vehicle. Once a customer activates their service, the position of their car is tracked and pinpointed every 20 seconds.

Customers can use their mobile application to track the location of their car if it’s parked in a garage or somewhere on the city streets. That way they never have to worry about forgetting

Company	Geofencing Strategy	Outcome
Taco Bell	Push notifications when customers drive by a location, reminding them to order via the app.	6% increase in sales; average order amount from the app was 20% higher than in-store orders.
JetBlue	Push notifications with digital boarding passes and in-flight entertainment options when customers arrive at the airport.	Enhanced customer experience by making travel arrangements more convenient.