Venue marketing on mobile devices becomes extremely important in today’s “mobile world”. Bluetooth beacons technology seems to play very important role in the changing paradigm of venue marketing. In these article you will read about Facebook Beacons and hotel marketing beacons based solution.
Bluetooth beacons link what’s online with what’s off line, particularly the places like hotels, airports and retailers. And Facebook Beacons have all it takes to add huge momentum to the upcoming revolution.
Facebook beacons
Facebook has started to roll out its own Bluetooth Beacons to select businesses. Beacons offered by Facebook are free of charge. Using this IOT technology Facebook allows its users to see more information about particular business location thanks to their new feature called Place Tips.
Place Tips, a new Facebook app’s feature works by showing Facebook users posts and photos about a specific venue or business location once they open the app within the range of it.
Facebook says how place tips work
“Place tips show you more info about places you visit, including your friends’ photos, experiences and moments from that place.
Your location is determined using cellular networks, Wi-Fi, GPS and Facebook Bluetooth® beacons. Viewing place tips doesn’t post on Facebook or show people where you are.(…)”
Venue Marketing Connects People and Brands
By offering a free Facebook Beacons there is a strong signal to push business to connect with their own customers whenever they use Facebook during their visit. We at PressPad are checking possibilities of using Facebook Bluetooth Beacons to connect with our PressPad Lounge, a location based venue marketing service dedicated mainly for hoteliers and travel industry.
— That was a Facebook’s. How about dedicated local solutions for venues and hotels?
— No worries, further you will read all you should know about PressPad Lounge for your business location.
Hotel Marketing Beacons
We designed our own hotel marketing solution to enhance guest experience, improve brand awareness and drive up loyalty among hotel patrons and visitors just like Facebook did for their app. With your own branded app it opens huge new opportunities to drive loyalty among your clients and guests. It works for hoteliers inside and outside the hotel at the same time.
Inside the hotel, it provides premium content or magazines for guests, entirely for free. Remember our core business is digital publishing. We publish magazines on mobile devices with 400 titles on the App Store.
Outside the hotel, it engages people with selected brand communication and offers promotions currently available in the hotel, to all the people with the app installed on their mobile devices.
What’s more, hotel marketers are able to engage app users with branded communication spread through three channels:
- Push notifications
- Email notifications
- Custom Twitter Feed
Three essential channels that are not accessible through the Facebook app, but there is a solution, which is our PressPad Lounge app.
How PressPad Lounge Works
The PressPad Lounge system consists of two complementary components:
- a software component
- a hardware component
The hardware component called iBeacon is delivered to the desired area of the hotel, where it broadcasts a gentle radio signal – This is how the exclusive virtual area of PressPad Lounge is shaped.
Bluetooth Beacon Hardware specification:
- The size of a match box.
- Available in white.
- No maintenance needed.
- 2-year battery life.
- Easy to attach to any surface.
- Range of up to 50 meters in open space.
The software component is a branded mobile application which works anywhere on the Planet. However, in a hotel area with working PressPad Lounge it unveils additional premium features, available for hotel guests for free, right there on their mobile devices.
Mobile application features:
- Branded layout
- Main view distributes premium content
- Side view displays Twitter feed
- and/or promo codes and branded messages
- Push notification support
- Email notification support
- Social media integration
Marketing and Sales Values for Hoteliers
Hotel marketers gain a unique tool to build brand awareness through branded communication, directed towards mobile users. They can feed the hotel’s sales efforts with engaged users, who installed their app in order to receive a promo code.
TV, free Wi-Fi or even an iron in the room, all shape the guest experience, but so does a selection of free high quality magazines, available to read on the guests own mobile phone or tablet. Engaged patrons drive positive word of mouth, which is at the base of every successful recommendation based sales process.
PressPad Lounge is available as a preconfigured package. All you need to do is attach iBeacon devices in the desired area of your hotel. It only takes 5 minutes and is ready to use from the moment your beacons are attached. No complicated integration and no detailed technical knowledge is needed to use this product.
PressPad Lounge can work alongside any available loyalty marketing products, without friction.
Opportunities for Hotel Marketers
PressPad lounge is very flexible and its applications range from shaping guest experience to shaping reading zones and loyalty building using a mobile solution. It adds value to the hotel’s offers and is not just another app, but a coherent solution that utilizes people’s behaviour. People like to read and people like to be given things, like discounts or free access to premium/restricted areas.
Here are the main features of the PressPad Lounge:
Branded App — This is a mobile app for the individual hotel that works with PressPad Lounge. It can be named after the Hotel Lounge and published on the App Store and Google Play, to support the biggest mobile platforms in the world. This way hoteliers can approach mobile users in any part of the world.
Custom content — These are custom hotel publications in PDF format, that can be distributed through the app, providing fantastic user experience. This applies to brochures, magazines or even the hotel’s restaurant menu.
Magazines — PressPad publishes hundreds of magazines from all over the world, including USA, UK, South Africa, Japan and Europe. We can provide 5-10 magazines per PressPad Lounge implementation.
Push notification — This is a message similar to a text message/sms that can be sent to app users. The message can be up to 100 characters long, and is displayed on their device via their operating system.
Email notification — This is an email that can be sent to all app users who agree to receive email.
Promo code spread — This is a static text that is displayed in the side panel of the hotel’s app, that can identify people who have rights to the specific discounts or promotions. This code can be renewed on a weekly basis, or even earlier upon request.
Twitter feed — Twitter has proved to be the one social network actively used by travellers. Therefore, the hotel’s Twitter account can be displayed in the app to engage people with all the hotel’s latest news and deals.
Mobile Users Drive 40% of The Internet Traffic
We live in a mobile world. Cisco in their White Papers called: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2014–2019 claims that:
“We see a rapid decline in the share of nonsmartphones from more than 61 percent in 2014 (4.5 billion) to less than 27 percent by 2019 (3.1 billion) (…)”
Global Mobile Devices and Connections Growth by Cisco
Everyone uses at least one mobile device, which becomes the constant companion of most people. We are entertained by the digital world via mobile devices. PressPad Lounge operates where modern people’s attention is focused, in the mobile digital space.
PressPad Lounge turns a dedicated hotel area into a virtual digital press corner. Hotel guests can read digital magazines on their own mobile devices, free of charge, while people around the world can use a hotel’s mobile app to get coupon codes unveiled by the hotel, and be engaged by the hotel’s marketing messages.
As long as you have the app installed, you get the hotel discounts. And as long as you can receive discount/coupon codes, hotel marketers can send you push notifications and email messages.
Last but not least, while PressPad Lounge is engaging, easy to use and it has power of enhancing guest experience, do you offer a free Wi-Fi at your venue?
Beacons Tips:
Check this:
- How to show Place Tips to your visitors on Facebook.
- How to Request a PressPad Lounge beacon for your venue.