GBAS introduces Proximity Marketing

Proximity marketing is a fast growing trend abroad at big stores, shopping malls, and public venues, and consists of advertising messages sent to customers within a limited geographic area (in front of our window or inside our room).

This system is implemented by installing special wifi system where customers are invited to connect for free by entering some information (e.g. e-mail) through which they are recorded and recognized each time they call back to our premises, and they are connected automatically. Also the system crosschecks these data against social networks.

The success of this system is due to four reasons:

1. The obvious one is that every time the clients connect to our network they see the advertisement of the day (e.g. promotions).
2. The system offers a lot of information to the company’s marketing department related to the number of customers, the time and duration of their visit, gender, age and whatever available information.
3. Combining the 2 first characteristics, the system can display personalized messages (e.g. rewarding good or frequent customers, urging those who have been absent for long, specializing deals for men or women, etc.)
4. The record of customer e-mails enables export of such data into lists for further processing and filtering or exploitation (e.g. sending advertising e-mail).

Consequently the system really assists the marketing and advertising departments, which collect knowledge about all their customers and can have direct advertising access automatically on their mobile phone upon arrival at the store and later through their personal e-mail.

The virtual site that appears on screen can be easily enriched with paid advertisements from our suppliers and it can connect to the “actual” site of the company, and of course with our page on social networks.

It is also possible to enhance the system with tailor made applications which will be hosted in the virtual system site. Some of these are commonly useful, as customer satisfaction questionnaires, weather applications, region maps etc.

In order to implement such a system our company checks and, if necessary, improves the following areas:

1. The basic internet capacity that reaches the store. Calculation of the required speed and bandwidth is based on both the traffic at the store and the minimum speed we want our customer to enjoy for a satisfactory usage. Our company is able to use all available means and connection modes (fixed telephony, mobile telephony, bonding lines, leased lines, wireless download from another direction, or even satellite). From the available connection types, and setting user cost and the desired effect as our priority, we chose the one to bring the best result. The available services are consolidated and shared thus providing security against any failure, since the system will continue to operate on the remaining resources.

2. Internal distribution of wifi signal by positioning access points to cover the entire area into a single network, router, cables, switches, etc. If such an installation is already in place, and if it is deemed suitable, it can be used. If no such installation exists then part of this work may be performed by the technical department of the store.

Moreover, our company undertakes to ensure proper management of the network, which is a focal point in such a facility.
We ensure safe operation, surveillance, uniform distribution of resources without overloads, as well as separation of the network offered to customers from the network used by the administration and the store departments.

Any customer who makes internet abuse can be “braked” or “locked” by the system. On the other hand, the partitions used by the company for its own systems (POS machines, alarm and security systems, voip telephony, etc.) and the office network are protected through permanently available independent bandwidth, which does not coincide with the one granted to customers.

The system administrator, or our company, can remotely and lively monitor the operation of the network and all access points. You can control recorded traffic data and the extent of utilized system resources – either uploaded or downloaded. If you wish, for the purpose of preventing any operating problems, supervision may include all devices connected to the network by providing information on their function such as temperature, CPU usage rate, rate of usage of hard drives, ink adequacy of printers and other information, depending on the type of connected device. For the latter option an inventory and mapping of all devices connected is required.

The system is designed to send alerts in cases of failure, disconnected device, or some other incident for which the administrator needs to be alerted.

Promotional content on the local network. This will appear on customer devices when they connect to our network. It may offer permanent business information including photographs or video you want to show as well as a questionnaire or other applications that we can design with you. It can also include day or week offers, which can be frequently changed by your own marketing department (after training) or our support department.

Moreover specific promotion banners can be foreseen, to be rented by the suppliers of the store.
Finally we support content in many different languages.

Our company has already undertaken and operated numerous installations in the difficult hotel sector by providing good service in remote areas with limited resources (internet), by ensuring safe and satisfactory operation for hundreds of users per site, who have more needs beyond the mere use of the internet (server function, voip call centers, teleconference services etc.). The safe and stable network operation has reduced problems to a minimum while remote surveillance and analytics by a single administrator have gained savings.

Our expansion in the area of department stores and shopping malls, in a sector that requires proximity marketing services, covers a relative shortage in the Greek market against what is offered in other countries. In an industry in need of direct communication with customers the rapid change of advertisement and promotions requires corresponding services that satisfy the modern way of life. Vouchers and coupons or tags and other media traditionally used only when the customer was at the vicinity of our product no longer work. Only promotions made through the customer’s mobile phone device shall be easily and readily accessed by prospect clients.

Please contact us for more information