For years, physical retailers yearned for the data afforded to their online counterparts.
With beacons, scores of data about in-store behaviour is now within reach. The downside? If they’re not careful, brands using beacons can come off as spammy or, even worse, creepy.
Steve Hegenderfer, director of developer programs at Bluetooth SIG, which provides the tech inside most beacons, believes the Bluetooth Low Energy technology that can send push notifications to enabled smartphones or tablets, can be a force for good. On Sunday, he spoke at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, about how marketers can “avoid the creepy” when using beacons.
Ahead of the talk, he chatted with Marketing about the importance of having clear policies in place, what turns consumers off, and why brands should use beacons to do more than send ads.
Here are five of his tips for using beacons without creeping customers out.
START WITH EDUCATION
Beacons are still new to most consumers. Explaining what they do in a way that’s easy to understand is key to making customers more comfortable.
Retailers using beacons need to “educate people and show them it’s really not that creepy,” Hegenderfer said. “There’s a lot of public misinformation about what a beacon is and what it can do.”
He uses radio as a metaphor. A beacon, he said, is like a radio station that’s constantly sending out a signal. If a consumer is using an app that can “hear” it (like a radio), they can receive messages from it.
EARN TRUST WITH CLEAR POLICIES
Be upfront about what your app does. If consumers know they may be sent in-app messages when they visit a physical store, they’re less likely to find it creepy when it happens. But Hegenderfer said it takes more than a lawyered opt-in document to truly earn trust.
He recommends presenting customers with a short guided tutorial as soon as they download an app. While consumers may flip through an agreement without reading it, he said they’re more likely to pay attention to (and understand) a tutorial.
OFFER MORE THAN ADS
Hegenderfer said the brands he speaks to that are successfully using beacons are using them to do more than send ads. While some consumers want to be sent coupons or offers when they visit a store in person, others will find it spammy and invasive.
He recommends using the messages to build loyalty and offer information. If, say, a consumer is in a shoe department, the store could send product info or an article about one of the shoe designers. Or, if a customer has been in one spot for a long period, the app could ask if they have any questions or the beacon could send a signal to the retailer’s software and they could send over a sales rep.
TEST OFTEN, TEST QUICKLY
In 2014, Hegenderfer said many of the biggest retailers in the U.S. started pilot testing beacons. As they launch full programs this year, he said he hopes they continue testing and editing how they use beacons based on customer response.
The good thing about beacons, he said, is that changes can be made quickly. “If something doesn’t work, update the app and get some other solution out there. Pilot often and learn from pilot periods rapidly,” he said.
GOOD OR BAD, THE POWER OF BEACONS IS IN THE HANDS OF MARKETERS
While Hegenderfer maintains beacons aren’t nefarious, he said marketers can use them to do creepy things – like taking information gleaned during a store visit and selling it along with with personal information from the app.
“They can allow marketers to do really cool things. They can also allow marketers to spam consumers every five seconds for different goods and services,” he said.
If brands do that, or break trust in another way, customers will be quick to cut off communication. “If consumers don’t trust marketers and what they’re doing with their data they can simply uninstall the app and boom, the [beacon] solution goes away,” he said.
