Beacons: Get to The Point
Contents
1. Beacons Get to Tne Point You may be hearing the buzz about beacons in the retail world iBeacons PayPal Beacons and so on While the excitement around beacons is clear it can be difficult to understand what beacons really are what they can do for you and why you should care In this first installment of Trepoint s whitepaper series Get to The Point we ll explore those questions Ce ooo ooooooo oooooooooooo ooo o ooooooo ooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo The Point Beacons have the potential to deliver the ultimate digital in store shopping experience that will benefit consumers manufactures and retailers alike If you want to create a competitive marketing advantage get started with your beacon experimentation now or play catch up after your competitors have cracked the code Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action What s a beacon In short a beacon is a small physical device that talks through short range signals with other beacon devices While it s not always the case we can generally think of multiple beacon devices in a retail environment exchanging signals with a shopper s mobile smartphone which is acting as another beacon device These beacons can exchange text images and most importantly location information with each other within a range of say 7O meters or so Click here to read more How does beacon t2. intelligently and find what they are looking for more efficiently From the retailer s perspective beacons will helo you to better learn the behavioral patterns of shoppers that are affected by outside forces such as weather and adjust your sales practices accordingly Leveraging Big Data and Behavioral Targeting at Retail There was a time when the individual retail store owners knew your name and your preferences Independent retailers still see this as a key competitive advantage over the larger franchises and superstores This is one place where beacons may level the playing field Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action Retailers have amassed large quantities of data i e Big Data from all sorts of sources one of which is loyalty cards Loyalty cards help retailers track past purchases but up until the introduction of beacons this data was limited to the check out aisle By enabling beacons to unlock the data associated with loyalty cards there s an entirely new field that suddenly opens up Behavioral Targeting at Retail Beacons allow for a new level of in store shopping experience All of the amazing progress that has taken shape over the last decade in web based behavioral targeting can now be applied to the retail experience The loyalty card holds the key because with the past buying history retailers and manufacturers can predictively model what that shopper is likely to want to buy With
3. is an open protocol What s interesting is that Apple has built the iBeacon technology into its iOS7 operating system that controls iPhones iPads and other devices and users can enable iBeacon with a single click This means that If you install iBeacon compatible beacon devices in your stores you will be able to communicate with your customers on their Apple devices Apple has enabled the device side technology but leaves the iBeacon compatible hardware to third parties Expect to see a wide variety of iIBeacon compatible hardware on the market soon Estimote is one early player and they re currently selling 3 packs of their beacons for 99 Check out their site www Estimote com for videos of a few sample usage scenarios A beacon like Estimote can be programmed to send offers images product information or social media posts to customers as they reach different locations in or near your retail environment But what happens to this information when it reaches the customer s phone Currently there is no central iPhone app to interact with retail beacons That means you need to provide your own app If you have a mobile app already you can add functionality to gt Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action interact with your in store beacons If not you ll need to create an app or hire someone ahem Trepoint to create one for you The iBeacon technology is now built into all iOS7 devices but witho
4. 6 mlb at the balloark aop about how Major League Baseball has partnered with Apple to launch an iBeacon based program to create location based interactions with baseball fans through their existing At the Balloark app Their initial demo with the New York Mets at Citi Field uses beacons to help with ticketed entry helps fans find their seats displays historical information and videos when fans are at certain locations of interest helos fans gt Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action Geek Corner OK so some of you don t believe in gnomes and pixie dust and want to know how this all works Existing location based marketing and payment solutions especially in Europe have taken advantage of Near Field Communication or NFC This technology allows devices to communicate when in very close proximity which is why many systems require users to bump their phones While better than nothing this requirement has never been ideal Meanwhile technologies like GPS have allowed rough estimates of a person s location but not at a granularity that can be useful in a retail environment The key to beacons is a technology called Bluetooth Low Energy BLE which simply allows a mobile device to tap into Bluetooth networking at lower energy levels and diminished cost Low energy means that communicating with beacons won t drain your customer s smartphone batteries very much BLE became part of the Bl
5. acquired that maps real time automobile traffic patterns using data visualization but for the in store shopper marketing experience Think about what it would mean to have access to your customers shopping patterns each and every time they enter your store What kinds of insights could you glean from knowing how long your customers hover in an aisle or over a particular product line before they walk away or place an item in their shopping basket It s as if you just added Google Analytics to your physical store Its the real life equivalent of analyzing page views and click throughs Mapping Individual SKUs to the Precise Shelf at an Individual Retail Location Perhaps one of the simpler but infinitely useful ways to use beacons would be to map individual SKUs According to Statistic Brain depending on the size of the grocery store there are between 15 000 and 60 000 individual product SKUs This makes finding a particular product increasingly difficult and some would argue frustrating for shoppers By mapping all of these products to their exact shelf location shoppers can use their mobile phones more effectively to zero in on the products that they want to add to their shopping cart As the efficiency of the in store shopping experience increases customers may actually shop more often feeling that they can truly get in and get out within the short window of time that they have to get what they need At a minimum it will feel like the sho
6. each successful prediction and each purchase the ability to present the right offers to the right shoppers at the right time increases Developing an Amazon com like Shopping Experience in Physical Retail One of the greatest features of Amazon is its ability to tell you that Customers who bought this product also bought these products It makes you ask yourself Hmmm should consider this product too Amazon com has crushed the cross sell and up sell online by simply opening up their data and sharing it with buyers as they complete their buyer journey Without digital support in store retailers were limited to their static end aisle and other displays With beacons however retailers can alert loyalty card shoppers who are the ideal prospects based on past purchase behavior Beacons can also alert customers using their mobile phone to search for a particular product that customers who purchased that product also bought something else that they might enjoy Of course it will take some time to perfect the model but the possibilities are there Smarter shopping experiences will likely result in happier customers which in turn will result in repeat visits and increased purchase behavior Augmented Reality Experiences Especially with Google Glass Lots of testing has happened around augmented reality From Audi s App turning your car into a robust user manual to Haagen Dazs enhancing their ice cream experience with a virtual vio
7. echnology work IF you care how that happens specifically you can have a look at the Geek Corner below Otherwise feel free to shout Damn it Jim I m a marketer not a scientist and just assume that it uses gnomes and pixie dust Ok So what You ve heard about stuff like this before but it s always been theoretical Like Conan O Brien used to do with his In the Year 2000 sketches marketers have built elaborate what if stories about all of the cool ways you will interact with your shoppers just as Soon as someone gets the technology together Some of them even make it sound as though you can do this today but they never quite get around to telling you how All of that has just changed Two important Beacon products have just emerged with many more to come Us PayPal More about these two offerings in a moment but first let s talk about why you should care Whether you re a retailer or a manufacturer you want better in store access to your customers You want information on where they go in the store and what they do there coupled with purchase history and behavioral data You also want to be able to push out relevant offers and information to them at the right time and in the right location in Cor near the store easily and automatically Plus when they re ready to buy something you want simple and efficient mobile payment solutions that get them out the door and on their way gt Trepoint whi
8. lin concerto The technology is there and those who Nave seen it are blown away The unfortunate part is that it s still considered fringe and hasn t broken through to mainstream markets as it was expected to However as augmented reality matures manufacturers will find more common ground where they can enhance the in store shopping experience with this technology Beacons can help play a role by alerting customers passing by that there s something really amazing that they should check out This has the potential of making in store marketing experiences go viral As consumers are surprised and delighted by augmented reality they are likely to tell their online communities This positive buzz will helo encourage more of a shopper s community to go to the physical store where they had that experience gt Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action While it may take time for society to accept the always on always available aspect of tools like Google Glass there are some very interesting implications that go above and beyond the discussion around mobile devices It s worth saying that Google Glass has the potential to be a completely seamless in store augmented reality experience Shoppers enhanced with Google Glass can leverage beacons to see things that others don t and potentially have a lot more fun during their retail shopping experience In the year 2014 OK so what about right now Yo
9. making broader geo fencing all but impossible You re lucky if you can get a signal at the outer perimeters of the store Beacons however solve this problem Beacons will transmit up to about 7O meters inside of a retail environment making the ability to geo fence on a much narrower focused outreach more practical This allows for clear signals within the store as well as the ability to more accurately identify where shoppers are and where they spend time and to assist them in locating products see Mapping Individual SKUs to the Precise Shelf at an Individual Retail Location below Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action Providing Analytics Throughout the Store At their most basic level think of beacons as a physical manifestation of the pixel tags you use on your website to monitor traffic unique visitors click through and conversion rates Until beacons if you wanted anything more than purchase data you needed to hire a third party like Envirosell to conduct a physical audit This involved video cameras and a team of researchers who would document traffic patterns hover zones and how shoppers engaged with everything from displays to personnel While a beacon may not entirely replace the need for this service it has the capability to orovide ongoing real time learning which should be more valuable than a single snapshot Think of your own personal version of Waze the company Google recently
10. ou strategy This also provides a great feedback loop for the manufacturer and retail partner Ultimately once we get past the test and learn phase retailers will set digital clean store policies that ensure manufactures follow the retailer s specific guidelines when deploying beacons as part of their in store merchandising Even then beacons are sure to enhance the in store shopping experience Creating a Personalized Shopping Experience on Mobile Devices All of this leads to the evolution of the in store shopping experience Loyalty cards may help retailers track buying behavior and tie back to coupons to encourage different behavior but they currently do little to enhance the repeat buying experience while shopping Once beacons are rolled out shoppers begin to recognize the important differences between typical one to many marketing and a more personalized experience Personalization starts with a better understanding of what your customer is shopping for As the majority of paper Cand mental shopping lists finally migrate to the mobile phone beacons can begin to assist with the in store shopping experience From helping to find individual items to better understanding general needs the in store experience will begin to feel more personal and less overwhelming While the physical retail store can t bend its aisles the way a website reorders display content the idea is the same Beacons will helo consumers shop more
11. pper has instant access to information they need to buy what they wanted before entering the store Enhanced POS Displays Using a Beacon Embedded into the POS Materials Until retailers develop a digital clean store policy it isn t difficult to envision manufacturers leveraging beacons as part of their POS strategy QR codes struggled because they required an app download that was cumbersome at best and could be particularly frustrating when the lack of a cellular signal prevented the shopper from ultimately viewing the video or downloading the coupon But with a beacon the ability to connect is as simple as turning on your phone s ability to receive the signal see Geek Corner Trepoint whitepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action for details It doesn t rely on cellular signals and so there s an immediate improvement in the in store digital experience While embedding video screens as part of your POS is cost prohibitive a beacon is not All you need are some simple instructions to helo shoppers identify that they can interact with your product offering through their mobile device What s more the shopper interaction can take on many different forms from distributing a mobile coupon to watching a video to engaging with the brand right there at the point of purchase Beacons unlock a manufacturer s ability to bring their POS to life and migrate from a talk at you approach to an engage with y
12. tepaper Series How Challenger Brands Move into Action To the extent that it means better information better deals and easier check out your customers want all of this too The only thing that s been preventing it is the lack of the right technologies As we mentioned above those technologies are now here The Vision The vision of all of this is a retail environment in which the retailer and the manufacturers can better interact with the customers in real time creating a win win win scenario This will ultimately manifest itself in several ways Including Geo Fencing in store shopping experiences Providing analytics throughout the store Mapping individual SKUs to the precise shelf at an individual retail location POS materials Creating a personalized shopping experience on mobile devices Leveraging Big Data and Behavioral Targeting at retail Developing an Amazon com like shopping experience in physical Enhanced POS displays using a beacon embedded into the 5 Q retail stores Augmented Reality experiences especially with Google Glass ed Geo Fencing In Store Shopping Experiences While much discussion has taken place regarding the ability to geo target customers on their mobile devices in physical retail environments there have been many challenges to making this a reality Concrete and other dense physical blockers reduce and in some cases entirely eliminate a shopper s mobile signal
13. u don t want to know what you might do you want to get your hands on some beacons and start playing around right First you might be interested in PayPal Beacon For now PayPal s product appears to mostly address the payment issue In America most stores and customers are still stuck on an outdated check out model Wait in line get to the register and hand cash or credit to the Philosophy major working the register In Europe this has been replaced in many cases with mobile phone based payment systems but these still require the customer to tap their phone to something at a physical register this technology is called NFC and its gnomes and pixie dust aren t as good as the ones that beacons use PayPal Beacon provides an easier way to accomplish mobile payments The beacon itself is a small USB drive and it connects wirelessly with a PayPal app on the customer s phone Cin this case any smartphone will do The phone app has the customer s payment information built in so they can be on their merry way without touching cash or a card PayPal hints at other marketing applications such as pushing offers but the initial offering seems focused on improving the mobile payment process This is not quite available to you yet at the time we re writing this but PayPal is beginning to pilot with select retailers The second item of interest is Apple s iBeacon Where PayPal s offering is a closed system with a device and an app Apple s
14. uetooth standard in 2010 with Bluetooth Core Specification 4 0 A beacon uses BLE to transmit a Universally Unique Identifier that can be converted to a physical location or trigger a specific device action The iBeacon API allows iOS programmers to create event handlers that respond to these UUIDs Ce RERRERRRRERRERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRERRRRRRE As Trepoint ChallengeUs trepoint com 646 867 2252 New York Kansas City San Francisco 98 Cutter Mill Road Suite 479 N 3111 Wyandotte Suite 204 530 Howard Street Great Neck New York 11021 3036 Kansas City Missouri 64111 San Francisco California 94105
15. ut your custom app to answer those beacons the phone will just ignore them This will probably change of course Apple Google and other players will likely launch centralized mobile marketing apps that aggregate location based marketing deals for savvy shoppers using the built in iBeacon interface And what about shopper data Again the beacon devices are collecting information about shopper s movements in the store and interactions with beacons but you ll need software to aggregate and make use of that data With the right Big Data driven software solutions you can start to create some very smart solutions today that push the right offers and information to the right shoppers at the right time Until such solutions become standardized you ll need to work with cutting edge technology providers enter Trepoint plug right here to create solutions that make sense for your business While the beacon technology is being explored primarily by retailers applications for manufacturers are not only feasible but are just as exciting Imagine customized in store displays and product packaging with built in beacons broadcasting special offers and product information to interested customers This would not only solve the usability issues of QR codes but could be used to start the interaction with the consumer before they even reach the oroduct in the store You really can do much of this today Mashable reported recently htto mashable com 2013 09 2
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