Proximity marketing software needs to be able to fulfill your digital marketing goals while also providing back-end features that meet modern expectations. Brands who simply commit to any proximity marketing software without evaluating it first may be stuck with a frustrating system or worse.
To help prevent unnecessary headaches when adopting your chosen proximity marketing software, look for the following qualities:
Easy Integration
Proximity marketing is usually just one facet of an overarching digital marketing strategy. Your software must be able to integrate with these other elements to create a consistent multichannel experience.
Additionally, digital POS systems, content management systems and aspects like loyalty programs should all be able to communicate somehow with the proximity marketing software so that it can fit within a total solutions package rather than being some sort of awkward appendage.
Find a proximity marketing software system that can either fit in with some of the most popular POS and CMS systems on the market, or better yet find one that can provide these functions and integrate them within a robust, all-in-one product.
Also ensure that it can accommodate the most common mobile OSs that customers will be using. Namely: iOS and Android.
Flexibility and Scalability
Your proximity marketing software should be able to configure a large variety of triggers and actions in order to fulfill your marketing aims. Consider all of the possible uses you would want out of your proximity marketing campaign and decide if the program can enable these uses.
Look for a large list of possible events that can lead to unique uses for the product. Also look for resources that are provided with the API so that you can potentially custom-code an action when one cannot be found to suit a specific need.
You will also want a product that can scale with your digital marketing program’s evolving activities. Proximity marketing software that can integrate with social media, accommodate a large in-store beacon network and even trigger actions in digital signage displays all adds potential for future uses that extract more value from the software.
Secure
Customers will be concerned about their privacy, and your brand will want to know that your beacons and other devices are protected from hacking. Look for authentication protocols like oAuth2 and https so that you can assure both your customers and yourselves that nothing bad will happen to the related data.
Constant updates are also a practical quality to look for. Not only do these updates provide cutting-edge features and new best practice as they emerge, they also anticipate vulnerabilities and reinforce these backdoors with regular security-related updates. For this reason, SaaS products are preferred to other products, since SaaS will always release state-of-the-art features for as long as you are a customer.
Analytics Potential
Your marketing department will need to determine how effective your campaign is and whether modifications were an improvement or a step back. Digital marketing is next to useless if you cannot measure and evaluate the relevant KPIs.
Look for a program that can import data that enables beacons to track time spent in store, street traffic conversion rates and other such metrics so that you can seek out the highest possible ROI and sales lift.
Digital Social Retail’s digital convergence platform actually fulfills all of these criteria with the added benefit that proximity marketing is integrated with loyalty, social media and other channels to offer a true all-in-one digital marketing solution. Visit our product page to discover more about how we aim to fulfill nearly any objective your proximity marketing campaign seeks.
