The Blaze Digital series part 3: Draw your audiences in with proximity marketing

This post is sponsored by Blaze Digital.

We, modern marketers, are truly fortunate. Our communications and campaigns have prevalent reach courtesy of extensive connectivity and consumers’ widespread use of (multiple) connected devices.

This advancement in technology has also blessed us with an abundance in data matrices and analytical tools, aiding us to examine and refine our marketing approach for maximum returns. The past decade has seen exponential growth in digital marketing tools and methodologies that marketers can leverage on to build successful campaigns.

Blaze Digital itself is no stranger to digital marketing. In fact, beyond traditional marketing, it has successfully implemented unique marketing methods and engagements such as second screen and short surveys – without lacking campaign quality and diminishing results.

Now, Blaze Digital has once again implemented a marketing method, not quite new, but highly functional and to a resounding success – proximity marketing.

Proximity marketing and location-based marketing are similar in concept with slight variations in implementation. Both utilise mobile marketing and “geofencing” barriers to target consumers within a particular geographic area – allowing brands to engage with consumers via an app or on a website.

Proximity marketing leverages on accuracy and works best when targeting consumers indoors within a 50-metre radius. Location-based marketing is ideal for targeting consumers within a larger geographical area. For example, a business that wishes to send a mobile ad to people within a shopping mall.

These marketing methods are not new. In fact, a large number of brands see it as an important element in their overall business strategy today; courtesy of our increasing dependence on connected devices.

This change in lifestyle has aided audiences to consume content on-the-go while furnishing brands to reach their target audience at any place and time.

Even as this sounds beneficial to us, not all consumers feel the need to be troubled by marketing communications. In fact, a 2014 McCarthy Group survey revealed 84% of Millennials are not fond of advertising. As a large number of Millennials have already entered the workforce and are influential in purchasing power and decisions – 84% does sound dreadful when crafting marketing communications to this demographic.

In parallel, a second consumer survey in 2018 revealed 83% of people agreed with the statement: “Not all ads are bad, but I want to filter out the really obnoxious ones.”

While 77% identified with the statement: “I wish there was a way to ad-filter instead of ad-block completely.”

So Millennials don’t hate ads per se, they are just not fond of really bad and intrusive ones.

This is where location-based marketing methods are beneficial and can serve as one of the most effective marketing methods.

Location-based marketing communicates with audiences when they are most receptive to a brand’s products and services. Brands can serve highly personalised ads in a relevant context to people who are within the area, that is, serving a banner about a store sale to patrons who are shopping within the mall. A report on proximity marketing has also confirmed its effectiveness, stating that retailers have enjoyed an increase in profits by 9%.

Realising this potential and armed with the spirit of innovation, Blaze Digital introduced Blaze Proximity – a highly accurate location-based marketing solution for brands.

Andy Yap, vice-president of Blaze Digital, had this to say about its new initiative: “Blaze Proximity’s solutions provide advertisers with an added layer of reach, amplifying their existing digital campaigns to people on-site and on the go. Proximity is also an excellent tool for in-the-moment marketing, driving incremental footfall to advertisers’ businesses in real time.”

Blaze Proximity has successfully implemented location-based marketing to raise awareness for two campaigns – Malaysia Airlines’ Travelicious Deals promotion and for the Global Indian Festival.

Case study No.1 – Malaysia Airlines’ Travelicious Deals promotion

Blaze Proximity was successful in delivering healthy click-through rates for Malaysia Airlines’ Travelicious Deals promotion. The campaign registered a total of 21,536 clicks over 12 days – going as high as 2.34%, which is well above the industry average of 0.3%.

Since Malaysia Airlines was promoting the deal via a billboard near Bangsar Shopping Centre, the team engaged proximity marketing, implementing a geofence with a radius between 200m-300m around the billboard.

This strategy capitalised on the moment the audience was exposed to the Malaysia Airlines billboard, and it was served more Travelicious Deals ads onto the app or website that the user was browsing. This spurred the audience’s interest for Malaysia Airlines’ ads or instilled strong intentions to find out more about its deals.

Case study No.2 – Global Indian Festival

Similarly, Blaze Proximity engaged proximity marketing to create awareness for the Global Indian Festival, which took place in early June at Mid Valley.

Blaze Proximity started serving ads to shoppers in Mid Valley two days prior, targeting women who were interested in fashion. Naturally, impressions were higher during the weekend as the mall experienced higher footfall.

Overall, the campaign achieved a click-through rate that was 167% higher than the industry average. This was achieved as the ads were served to a curated list of audiences who would find the festival relevant to them, hence, encouraging them to click and find out more.

Unusually, impressions were at their highest on a Wednesday – signifying an increase in women interested in fashion visiting Mid Valley. The increase can be attributed to two factors: the guest appearance of a popular reality show star from India, in addition to successful targeting by the team at Blaze Proximity.

Blaze Proximity leverages on infrastructure such as IP addresses, cell tower triangulation, smartphone users’ location footprints and GPS.

All these, combined with advanced data analytics, helps Blaze Proximity to craft out a precise audience profile that includes their position, the demographic they belong to, their behaviour, as well as interests.

With this data – and as demonstrated by the two successful case studies above – Blaze Proximity can offer brands an audience list that is curated precisely based on their individual profiles, then generate live insights and heat maps of this audience. On top of that, Blaze Proximity is able to track offline conversions such as store visits for ROI measurement.

Feel intrigued? Reach Blaze Digital at https://www.blaze.com.my/hello/ for further details about how you can use Blaze Proximity to elevate your brand.

Click here to read more on Blaze Digital’s partnership with VAV Apps for interactive second screen marketing and here on its partnership with Vodus for low distribution surveys.