What is Geofencing: 4 Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask Before Using Geofencing Marketing #414

Hi, and welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebResults, and this is not Matt next to us. Introduce yourself. Adam Gregory, public relations manager for eWebResults. Public relations manager. How exciting is that? And you did say affairs. That's probably from your kind of previous life. Yes, military. Do you want to do a short little piece about that, like what you used to do? So I spent 12 plus years in the Army. Thank you for your service. Thank you. I never know what to say. You're welcome. You're welcome. It was all for you. I think that's what you should know. It was all for you. Started off jumping out of planes, kicking down doors, stuff like that, and then realized that what am I going to do when I get out? So I reclassed, became a broadcast journalist, hence The Voice. So are you telling me when you became a broadcast journalist, your voice changed? When they handed me my diploma, it got really deep. That's pretty good. I think I need one of those, just in general. And been doing that. Did radio for a year. I've got a lot of news stories. Actually, you know, shameless shout out to myself. If you Google Sergeant Adam Gregory, you can see a lot of my old products. Well, cool. So people can go out there, Google Sergeant Adam Gregory, and you'll find some of his stuff. And then we're going to jump into our podcast. And it's interestingly, the content of this podcast is actually an article by no longer former Sergeant Adam Gregory, still Adam Gregory. So as always, we do have a tip from our previous podcast. And that tip is? So the tip is use search data to help drive fundamental business decisions. All right. So if you're thinking about actually, oh, it's not working. Then we're here. Oh, then. So let's start that over again. And the tip is? Use search data to help drive fundamental business decisions. All right. So when

you have a website and it's got a search bar on it, people will do searches on that website. Hopefully, that's usually what happens. Use the data that they're searching for, as well as your SEO data, to drive business decisions. So let's say you're thinking about expanding into a different part in the Houston area. We're a rather large city, fourth largest in the country. Say you want to expand in a certain direction and you don't know which. You might see in the search data where you need to go, which direction, what suburb you need to go. So use that search data. By the way, subscribe, follow. Boom! I haven't figured it all out yet, but I'll get there. All right. So let's jump into here. So we are filmed live here in Houston, Texas. And I'm a results rebel, and you're like a pre-armed assassin. Although we're not supposed to be using, we tried to label some of our products with, like, really, like, sniper and wormhole and bear trap, and it did not, it was not received well. So we'll have to come up with another name for the PR guy. Maybe that's just it. The PR guy. Adam's the PR guy. I did get a review. I want to read this real quick. This is from Chrissy Colton. The review is from Facebook, and that review is five stars. And it says, hello from, oh, and I think there's a country symbol there that didn't come through when I copied and pasted it. It says, thank you so much for always being funny in your podcast. I'm still new to SEO, but listen intently when you broadcast because you give so much value and explain everything so perfectly. Perfect. That is not the word I would have used. I really appreciate it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so generous to give your time to help us all. You are wonderful people. Well, punch in the face to you, Chrissy. Wow, that's pretty awesome. Makes me feel

really good and perfect. Thank you. I feel where she's coming from. I'm also new to it. Yeah, she's new to it. He's new to the podcast as well. I'm learning every day as well, so. All right, so if you could turn the AC up or colder a little bit because I'm going to get warm, please. Make it colder? Make it colder, please. Yes. Also, now it's working. And now it's working. We'll do the tip afterwards. So if you have listened to this podcast before and you've returned, it may be because you like the tips that we're giving. We do have five online marketing mistakes that can tank your business and how to fix them. That's a free downloadable paper. You can get at eWebResults.com slash SEO tip. Like I said, we have a teaser. The teaser, this is an article by none other than Adam Gregory standing right next to me. And it is, what is geofencing? Four questions every business owner should ask before using geofencing marketing. So we're going to dive right into it. It's been kind of a collaborative effort across multiple team members to get this put together. So really excited to cover some of our own information in our podcast. So really cool. If you are in a position to, we would like you to tweet, and you should tweet hashtag SEO podcast. This is podcast number 414. The number's correct this week. It is correct this week. He apologized. Don't worry about it. He gives us something to do. At best SEO podcast, at eWebResults. And while you're doing that, why don't you tag a couple more of your friends who would be interested in our podcast. We would really appreciate that. If this is the first time you've listened to the podcast, howdy. If you've listened before, then you know what we're going to move to the end. So we run a contest each and every week. Adam's been working diligently to help you in that contest. The way the contest works is, if we get 10 shikos.

What's the shiko? Share, like, follow. That's it. If we get 10 shikos on our profiles, and we get a review, which we just read the review, then we move how you can leave us a shiko to the end of this. And Adam, we got like 60 likes on Instagram? Well, 60 new followers. New followers on Instagram, yeah. A lot more likes. Oh, yeah. We had a picture that we posted. Really a tip. Right. You know, if you want a tip, that's where you can find them, right there. Right. On Instagram. And it's Instagram.com slash? E-Web results. Yes. E-Web results. That is correct. Yes. I had to double check. Sorry. You know, we've been revamping, I guess, a facelift across all social media. Instagram's going to be the big project right now. So if you notice, our pictures have kind of gone down. We had 200, and now we only have 60. It's just because we're clearing it out and basically making, I guess the best way you can say is it's a better flow of things. Right. But, you know, our pictures went from like 20 likes to 100 likes. So it's, you know. So one of the ways I can describe this kind of transition is when you take an existing overworked employee and ask them to take care of the Instagram for you, and they do what they can with the time that they have, and then you transition that, one, giving them more free time to do things that they're really good at, amazing at, and give it on to somebody else who has a lot more time, and that's their focus. This is the kind of change you make. So really cool. Thank you, Sammy, for taking care of it for so long, and we're glad to get it off of your plate and get it on to Adam, who's already kind of knocking it out of the park. And I'm not saying that Sammy doesn't post relevant content, which he did, but I'm just saying that we have even more

relevant content now, so. Yep, because we have more time. Exactly, because more time, she took a hat off and handed it to me. Not this hat, but. I'm pointing to this just mystery person in the corner. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was. It's you. Because it's disembodied voice. Especially now. All right, so that's, you've tweeted us, we've done howdy, we'll tell you how to leave a review. If you're interested in a free website analysis, let me kind of throw that out there. Go to eWebResults.com. Hi, and we're back from the podcast. We actually had a technical difficulty. We ran out of space on our digital recording device, so we'll make sure that that doesn't happen again. And it was perfect timing. We just finished the potatoes of the podcast. Now we're about to get into the meat. And again, what we're going to be talking today is, what is geofencing? Four questions every business owner should ask before using geofencing. So we've got a nice little definition. I don't know, did you want to kind of jump? Why don't you jump into the definition of geofencing? Okay, so geofencing, which is new, I think, to a lot of people. I mean, the information out there is limited. Yep. And most people I talk to about it are like, wow, I didn't know you could do that, and they're a little freaked out. So we'll talk about that. And that's what, I mean, well, here, I'll go ahead and read this. So geofencing is a location-based service. It's basically an app or other software. So you don't have to have an app. So let's just clear that up in the beginning. I mean, if you, now someone, you know, and we'll get into that more, but, okay, I'll just go on. That uses your GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi, or cellular data to trigger a pre-programmed action when your mobile device enters or exits a virtual perimeter set up around a geographical location, which is known as the geofence. Right. So you can create this kind of virtual geofence,

and then anybody who crosses into it by various technologies, you can do certain things to those people. And by certain things, we're an internet marketing agency. We're talking about getting ads in front of them. So it's pretty cool, pretty cool technology. And thank you for putting this article together. So number one is how can geofencing help my business, right? So here's a good example, and you can, why don't you share the example of the dry cleaner that actually works for you? Yeah. So, and this is kind of goes where to the app base. Right. So I have an app on my phone, and if I go, they, what kind of app is it? It's just like, the dry cleaner app. The dry cleaner app, basically, it's, I'd have to look it up. But anytime I go in there, it's like, I get a text that says, hey, you know, your dry cleaning's ready, or they, you know, and they know when I'm close by, there's another shop that's close by that I visit, and a lot of times that, that area is geofence off, and I'll get, hey, like a reminder, you know, pick up your dry cleaning, stuff like that. And so it's, it's, it's great, because I don't think about it all the time. Right, right. Or, you know, even, hey, do you have anything to drop off? I mean, it's, it's, you know, but that kind of comes into the app. Right. But. So I don't, I don't know if you're similar, like, my wife is amazing at remembering things and organizing, so she'll, like, leave the house and do, like, a straight line and accomplish five things on the way out, and then on the way back, she'll accomplish five more things. I'm the opposite. I'll, like, leave the house, do one thing, and come back, and, like, oh, I need to do this, go a little bit farther down the same street. The app can help you save time, right, because you're, like, in the neighborhood, you're, like, oh, I

would have never thought to, like, I needed to remember my dry cleaning. So that is one version, right? So it's kind of two versions of geofencing where you've got the app, right? So you're intentionally opted in to the process, to the geofencing process, and then the marketing, which is a little more exciting for us, which is about how you can target people who haven't opted in. So we're going to, we're going to get into that. Another example that you gave here was that a coffee shop could trigger a notification when a cop, when a customer walked into a different coffee shop. So that's more of the non-opted in, right? So what happens in that particular situation is you draw a geofence, and let me tell you, so for one of our customers, they're a wedding venue here in Houston. You should look them up, silversycamore.com. Amazing. The lady, Jackie, a good friend of mine, she built a western town for weddings. I don't know if you had a chance to look at any of the photos. No, no, no, yeah. Literally, it's a cowboy western town on the outskirts of Houston, and at the end of the town is a chapel, and then the grooms get ready in the jailhouse, right? And then the brides get ready in the cantina, and it's just a beautiful place. She wants to market to people who are looking to have their wedding somewhere. And so we're currently geofencing all of the wedding venues around town, comparably priced wedding venues, and we're geofencing them from a certain time when we know that brides tend to go and do tours. And then once they do that, we're going to be able to show ads to them, right, and drive them to Silver Sycamore. So that's one example. And an example I like that you've used on a few of the networking events we went to is the billboard example. The company that wanted to put up a big billboard in front of Halliburton and all of them, because they're an

engineering company, to drive more business to them. But instead, you said, hey, why don't we go in? So let's cover that in this next one, right? So let's jump into it. So number one was, how can geofencing help businesses, right? So number two, is geofencing right for your business? So something that's really important to remember, I put that note over there, it depends on the culture and technical resources of your company. It depends on the message, it depends on your target demographic. So when you talk about culture and technical resources, what are your thoughts? Like, what are the culture and technical resources that you might need? I mean, it's, you know, does your company have an in-house marketing team? So that's, I think that's the biggest. Okay, yeah. Because, you know, if you don't have someone that can monitor this and set this all up, you know, it's, you're just, it's not going to be as efficient. Right. You know, shameless plug, e-word results. Yeah. Has the team to do that. And here we actually, everyone's heard the phrase test and measure, and we're kind of trying to flip that test and measure on end. Where we say measure and then test, which is before you even start the experiment, right, or the thing that you're going to test, make sure you know how you're going to measure it and then start doing it and testing and then measuring. So, so absolutely. So one of them is in-house marketing team. In terms of the message, think about your customers. Do all your customers have a strong mobile presence? I mean, do you have a strong mobile presence with your customers? So I would argue in general, the dry cleaner probably doesn't have a great Instagram following, a great Twitter following, whatever, but they get this app. And so that's the kind of opt-in marketing. If your company has a really good following, then it's actually on the mobile devices where geofencing tends to, tends to excel, right? All right. I'm going to move that piece

to the end. So, so number three. So we've covered two of the four. How can geofencing help your business? Is geofencing right for your business? And the next is, should you be worried about privacy concerns with geofencing? I can say when I'm talking about geofencing, the looks, like I look into the crowd and the faces of, oh my God, they can get this information is amazing. It's, it's, it's scary because it's like, wait, you can go in and you can, I mean, it really blows my mind. Right. I mean, it really does. Somebody knows where you're at that you don't necessarily know who the somebody is. And, and I think as, you know, even like as a parent, you're thinking, oh man, how is this going to happen? Or, you know, but you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it is what it is. It is there. Your data is fairly anonymous, right? I would say significantly anonymous. And if you're wondering, so how is this even possible? Right? Like, cause there's no way somebody on my phone, one, you definitely have to have location turned on on your phone. Right. Without that, there's no way for them to know where you're at, to know that you walked into that other coffee store or into that other wedding venue. Um, and then two, you've got to be, have an app that's actually sharing data with a data source. So, uh, think about it. How many, cause I'm, I'm not asking you if I'm asking you how many free apps do you have on your phone? Right. All of them. Yeah. Yeah. All of you have at least one. Right. And then all of them are free. Actually, if I think about it, including the dry cleaner who could actually not only be benefiting you, but selling your data to the other location. So if we like to say this, if your, uh, app is free, right, then the app isn't the product. You are the product, right? So your data, the, where you're located is actually

the product that they're selling. So, um, in terms of privacy concerns, also, if you're going to engage into geofencing, you need to know the legalities of it. But there is at least one state, uh, so Massachusetts, uh, does not allow geofencing near medical facilities. I'm certain it's HIPAA. Obviously. Related. Related. Although HIPAA is national. Right. And Massachusetts is the only one. So maybe they just took it up a level. Right. Um, it, you know, it, it's, uh, definitely look into what your state's laws are on that. Um, you know, do a little bit of research cause you don't want to target the wrong company and then have some problems and then have some problems. Yeah. So you definitely want to make that. And that goes, again, goes back to resources. Do you have the resources to really manage these and do these things right? Um, uh, you, remember you can always protect your privacy. Uh, the customer is always in control. So just remember if you've got all these free apps, you do have the ability to delete the free apps. Right. Why are these free apps, how, how do they have the right to sell this data? Um, just remember you probably agreed to the terms without reading them if you're like me and everyone I know. And so that's how they have the right to sell the data. Um, all right. So next is, uh, and, and then by the way, if you're going to do geo targeting, you definitely want to have, uh, you know, make sure that your company's privacy policy clearly documents, well, you know, what's going on. Uh, and then number four, how effective is geo fencing? You want to know that before you jumped into it. And, and the thing that's really, that really excites most people about geo fencing, uh, is targeting, right? So we, and when we think about getting a result for our customers, we think about three components. Uh, it's the targeting, it's the offer, and then it's the copy or the sales material

or the banner ads or whatever the copy, right? Um, of most importance is the targeting. If you just put the right offer and the right copy in front of the wrong people, nothing's going to, like nothing will happen, right? It's a total waste of money, but if you get a marginal offer with marginal content into the exact right target, like somebody say it's internet marketing and somebody is looking for internet marketing and we're getting a, you know, a not so good ad and not so good offer in front of them, they're looking for it. And so they're the perfect target. It's more likely to compete than the other example I gave. So geo fencing has this unique ability to target people very specifically. And this is where you're talking about that engineering situation. We have, um, obviously Houston is a big oil and gas town. So we have an engineering client and they want to target some big oil and gas companies and they're off of a, uh, of Bellway eight near the, near the airport. And they're like, why don't we just put a bill of a billboard? Cause everybody's going to like everybody who goes into that company literally has to go down the feeder of our, one of our big loops, Bellway eight. And, and so let's put this builder word up and we're like, well, why do that? Right. Cause it's expensive and it's not that targeted. What if we geo fence the actual two locations of those oil field service providers? Um, and then we can actually show ads to everybody who's enters into the facility, right? That ability to target is what's so exciting about gen of geofencing. Now there are some disclaimers. So I want to talk about kind of the good side. You want to talk a little bit about good stats that, that make you excited about possibilities. Then I'll bring it down. Okay. So, you know, the good is, um, uh, and I know our audiences is all over the country, but I mean, just

think of this number. So 77% of all Americans own a smartphone and 51% of those users have found a new company by just searching on their phone. I mean, really, and mobile is the way to go. Right. I mean, uh, I believe the, the, well, Google is going to switch to mobile indexing first, right? I was getting ready to say what you were talking about yesterday. Yeah. It's, if your company's not on mobile, it needs to be. Yeah. Absolutely. Or mobile. Friendly. Friendly. Yeah. So, um, and then, you know, some other numbers, uh, you know, 60% of consumers look for local information on their mobile design devices. Uh, 40% of consumers look for information while on the go. So, you know, thinking about on the go, they're out, they might be walking by that geo-fenced area. I would argue that 60% of those 40% who are looking on the go are actually doing it when they're not supposed to while they're driving. Yeah. Yeah. Same on them. Same on them. We see the weaving cars. I followed a car back from Austin to Houston was like, he's clearly drunk. And we called 911. He was like, he's probably texting. And I was like, oh, you're right. He probably is. Yeah. Please stop. It's every, every day in traffic. I see the one guy with the phone right in front of his face. And I'm like, he's going to hit that guy in front of him. It used to, it used to be like in, when you were stuck in like crawl and Houston doesn't tend to be crawling traffic. Usually it's traffic that moves. I mean, you crawl from time to time. Time to time. Yeah. Um, but you'll also have bumper to bumper, 80 mile an hour traffic. Yes. It used to be when you're kind of in this traffic, you'd see the one guy with the newspaper. Right. Right. You're like, that's insane. But now because it's on a mobile device, people, more people do it anyway. Stop it. I'm the guy eating

a sandwich. Uh, and then, you know, 70% of consumers. Are willing to share their location. And so that's, that's kind of where it comes into the location services. Right. You know, we all, I, I don't think I've ever turned my location service off because I want, almost in a way I want that geo fence. I want to be targeted because I, you know. Cause he never remembers to pick up his dry cleaning. That's the, that's the, that's the reality. I mean, I mean, seriously, funny story. When I came in for my interview here and I left, Google hit me up on Google maps. How was your visit with eWeb results? Wow. So, I mean, it's, it's, and we've all been there. Yeah. You drive by that location and you get it. Hey, I wasn't there. What are you talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just driving by or you were at the place next door. Um, so, okay. And then one thing to kind of bring this back down, you just know that if you're geo fencing an area, say you're geo fencing a conference location, right? Um, and there's 10,000 people in that conference location, it's not likely that you're going to get all 10,000 people on your marketing list and be able to show them banners, right? People, some people believe it or not, don't have free apps. Um, maybe they don't have the right free apps that are selling data, right? If you're, I say the right free apps, if you're targeting them. Um, maybe the GPS doesn't work in that location or they've got it turned off. Um, so all of these things can be in a factor. Right now, we kind of estimate about 50% of the people in that area that you're targeting are the ones that'll actually end up on your targeted list and so that you can get ads to them. So, you, it's not something where you're going to like, oh, I want to target that one, um, a Jiffy Lube might have enough volume, right? Like

you will. But if it's a small location that doesn't have a lot of traffic, foot traffic, physical traffic, then it's probably not going to work very well. So that's, that is one of the considerations. And, and something else too, um, I think we've, we're probably getting there. It's, it's, it's the size of the geo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about, that's perfect. Let's talk a little bit about best practices, right? So, um, build your geo fences. So this happens often in other places where people, where customers come in and like, here's the keywords that I want the customers to search for. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's, that's, that's not how it works. Like you can want them to search for that. But all that matters is what they're actually searching for. Same thing with geo fence, right? You don't want to say, I want them in my parking lot. So can you geo fence my parking lot? Well, we can geo fence your parking lot. That's just not the right way. This technology works. You want to, you want to geo fence where they're located. Right. And you want to talk a little bit about kind of how big your geo fence, like what challenges you might bump into there. So, you know, everyone like, and that's kind of what the, the bigger is not better in this situation. Um, you know, uh, smaller is better. You know, a rule of thumb, uh, geo fence shouldn't be less than four minutes of travel time to your target audience and our target location. And that, so that's whether you're on foot or car. Right. So think about the situation. Right. Like you don't, and that, and that kind of goes back. I mean, when I say smaller is better than this situation. Oh, well I want to geo fence the whole mall. Well, who's your target audience? You know, if you're that one little store, maybe you should geo fence the stores that are similar to you. Like Microsoft,

you, you, maybe you do, you've got the budget, maybe you do, but maybe it would be smarter to just target the Apple store. Exactly. Although probably not. Like if you're Apple, you're Apple. I mean, that's how it is. So maybe you target like the electronic store or, or something else, but, but that, that's the concept is yes, you can target everybody in there, but if you can choose the particular locations and you can do a much better job of targeting. And that's the real benefit that I see and why we actually have a, quite a few of our customers now are doing some geo targeting, geo fencing, IP targeting. So if you're interested in learning more about this and, and have some ideas you'd like to bounce by us, just go ahead and go to the website, ewebresults.com and fill out the free website analysis. We can, we can shift once we get on the phone with you, a free website analysis over to kind of a free internet marketing analysis. Maybe that's what we should call it. Cause we really get into a lot of the internet marketing, not just the website behind the scenes. I guess we should shout out Patrick Lopez. Patrick Lopez, the DJ punch in the face. Good to see you joining us and, and, and glad we're early so that you can actually join us. All right. So that is, uh, the meat of the podcast. Great article, round of applause for you. Really good. Um, let's see. So what we'd like to do, if you could go ahead and tell three people, you know, about our podcast. Also, if you're interested in growing your business with the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet, do you know what, you know what that is? It's the internet. Internet. Largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet. Al Gore created it. He invented it. Yeah. And then we're, then we're using it. And then we immediately started the eWeb style at the time. Um, go ahead and call eWeb results for

increased revenue in your business. Our phone number is 713-592-6724. If you have a referral, so that's somebody who's interested in internet marketing, um, and, and again, we have to say this, from website design all the way to complex geofence marketing. Right? Anything in between, whether it's social or whatever it may be, uh, we can help you with that. If you send us a client and, and when they pay their bill, we will pay you. That is our, uh, referral program. We do want to tell you how to shiko us. Cause we don't, we want to make sure that we push this to the end. Also, there are a bunch of ways to connect with us on our profiles on these platforms. And they are like facebook.com slash eWeb results. YouTube. No. Twitter.com slash eWeb results. Instagram.com slash eWeb results. Um, LinkedIn.com slash company slash eWeb results. Yes. Finally, to get to our YouTube page, it's eWeb results.com slash YouTube. YouTube. Perfect. Sorry. And we are asking you to leave us a review. It's actually on trust pilot. We've made it very easy for you to get to trust pilot. All you need to do is go to eWeb results.com slash. Trust pilot. Trust pilot works. Also trust. If you're lazy and you don't want to type pilot, just type in trust. That'll take you there. And please go ahead and leave us a five stuff review. All right. All right. So, um, if you are interested, uh, so we were filmed here. We're wrapping up live, uh, in Houston, Texas at five, nine, nine, nine West 34th Street, uh, suite one Oh six, Houston, Texas, seven, seven, zero, nine, two. If you would like a transcript audio or video of this podcast, you can find it. Actually, the audio will be spliced together. The video will be spliced together on this particular episode. You can find it at eWeb results.com. Uh, we are the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes. That is because, well, of Patrick and all of you all out there. Uh,

punch in the face to all of you. Oh, that's a good thing. Until the next podcast. My name is Chris Burris. Oh, yes. Shout out to our YouTube. Punch in the face. That's right. Oh yeah. To our YouTube followers. Cause we're going to try working on our YouTube audience. So, uh, we love you also. Exactly. YouTubers. Uh, until the next podcast. My name is Chris Burris. I'm Adam Gregory. Bye bye for now.