Few in-store technologies have taken the retail world by storm the way beacons have. According to Proxbook’s Report, the percentage of retail brands leveraging beacons has seen a steady rise from 68% in Q4 2015 to 74% in Q4 2016. At the same time, the percentage of malls leveraging beacons has grown from 62% in Q4 2015 to 68% in Q4 2016.
This clearly points towards the rising demand for contextually relevant consumer experiences in the retail world. According to a Juniper Research report, retailers are forecasted to deliver 1.6 billion coupons a year by 2020. Not surprising given that, 51% consumers said that they are interested in receiving location-based, in-store mobile coupons from brands.
Adding on to that, by removing the need for brands to have an app in place to interact with their consumers using beacons, Google’s Eddystone has driven more and more brands to jump on to the beacon bandwagon. According to the Proxbook Q4 2016 Report, the number of proximity companies supporting Eddystone has increased by 17%, from 38% in Q4 2015 to 56% in Q4 2016.
Inspite of all this hype and buzz around beacons, many retailers even today are not very sure about how to go about running an Eddystone beacon pilot. Keeping this in mind, my company recently announced a new ebook – Eddystone 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Eddystone Beacon Pilots – that is aimed at helping retailers jumpstart their Eddystone pilot from scratch in no time. Meanwhile, if you are a retailer who has been looking to do the same, here’s a small checklist to help you out:
1. Identify the goal of your campaign
First and foremost you need to zero down on the what your Eddystone campaign is aimed at. Are you looking to attract nearby customers to visit the store? Or are you looking to gather retail analytics such as customer response rate? This will help you choose areas that are optimal for beacon deployment in your store. For example, if you are looking to collect consumer feedback via customer satisfaction surveys, then you need to deploy beacons only at the checkout.
2. Place an order for beacons
This is totally dependent on the size of the store that you plan to deploy beacons at. For example, a store of 500 sq ft will need a minimum of 3 beacons deployed in-store while stores of 2500 sq ft will need to a minimum of 12 to 15 beacons deployed in-store to interact with customers.
3. Choose the kind of notifications to send
Next, you need to decide on the kind of beacon-enabled notification that should be triggered on the consumer’s device. You could choose to send any of the following via Eddystone beacons:
(1) Customer satisfaction survey form
(2) Custom URL that directs them to your YouTube or Facebook page
(3) Lead generation form that helps you collect their valuable details
(4) Content cards to push relevant and exciting information or offers
Once you zero down on the kind of notifications that you wish to send, you can simply change the URL of the Eddystone beacon to one of them in just a few clicks.
4. Set up a beacon test venue
Now you need to set up the store for pilot by firmly mounting the Eddystone beacons at the points of interest, ideally over 3m high.
5. Test if the beacons trigger appropriate actions
Part of setting up the store for your Eddystone pilot also revolves around testing the beacons. First and foremost, you need to check if the beacons trigger the actions assigned to them. Next, you need to check if the beacons are consistent in triggering the action on different smartphones.
6. Test if the data collected at the back-end represents actual customer interactions
This will help you gain consumer insights that could be used to you advantage. For example, what kind of messages resonated well with your audience? Did your users view the Youtube videos shared by you? Or did they fill up a form providing their details in return for a bumper prize draw? What are the hotspots at your store? These insights can help you optimize your Eddystone campaigns going ahead.
Looking to kickstart your Eddystone Beacon Pilot? Check out my company’s new ebook – Eddystone 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Eddystone Beacon Pilots. Right from answering some of the common FAQs around Eddystone, to the latest examples on Eddystone campaigns, this ebook will set you up for success.