How many times have you found yourself lost in a shopping mall and reached for the map on your trusty smartphone, only to encounter a big grey rectangle?
Yes, the GPS that we know and love isn’t so great as soon as you step inside, and we’re often left to navigate the treacherous corridors of malls, museums, hospitals and even some universities with nothing but a keen sense of adventure and nerves of steel.
Luckily, the powers that be have realised physical maps with ambiguous ‘you are here’ arrows and numbered list of shops are just not going to cut it in an era where Google Maps reigns supreme.
Thus, the indoor location-based services (LBS) market was born, so that Google might guide The Lost safely to their destination, indoors or out.
Marketing Potential Driving Impressive LBS Market Growth
Jokes aside, the Global Indoor LBS Market is actually booming, with a projected CAGR of 49.42 percent from 2013-2018.
But the intention behind indoor LBS is not simply altruistic; it has beyond huge marketing potential.
Every fifth person in the world’s mobile user base of 6 million people uses LBS. With the overall mobile traffic set to increase 11 times in the next five years, the number of people expected to use LBS in the immediate future is going to grow exponentially.
This upsurge in the popularity of LBS has triggered an era of innovation in the digital world, and brands are making huge efforts to engage with their customers directly through social media, in order to better understand what they’re buying.
Market vendors like Google, HERE and Apple are already leveraging the huge potential of this technology to not only direct consumers where they want to go, but advertise to them along the way.
And this isn’t just average Joe marketing—indoor LBS opens up a world of possibilities in terms of highly customized ads geared towards specific consumer preferences.
Basically, the addition of the location parameter has changed the concept of online marketing, with traditional marketing losing ground to more innovative location-based marketing strategies.
Get Ready for Beacons!
One issue that a lot of vendors in the market have to confront is what technology is optimal for LBS.
As we’ve already pointed out, GPS is great outside but frankly sucks as soon as you’re indoors, taking it out of the running. Wi-Fi consumes too much power for the scale we’re talking about. So many indoor LBS providers are looking to Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons as the answer.
A beacon is a hardware device along the lines of indoor GPS. It is highly power efficient, and uses BLE connections to deliver content directly to smartphones and tablets.
BLE signals are transmitted through third-party devices called ad beacons, though they can interact directly with compatible devices. They aren’t actually able to send messages directly to a phone, but rather interact with an app already installed on the users’ smartphones and exchange relevant data based on the user location identified by the app.
And these things are specific. Say, for example, a consumer is approaching the cosmetics counter at a shop. Beacons in their vicinity would them send that consumer details on promotions and special offers available on the products they’re looking at. It’s the same concept as the sidebars on your Facebook advertising based on your most recent Google searches except it happens in real life.
Companies like Macy’s, Turkish Airlines, American Eagle Outfitters, and Apple have all starting using beacons in their stores, and this revolutionary technology will see much more widespread uptake in the next few years as more vendors cotton on to the huge marketing potential of beacons and indoor LBS technology.
