POV

Geo-conquesting is a strategy that has been gaining popularity with e-commerce companies and business owners. With the increasing use of smartphones, analyzing how users spend their free time has become easier. 

There are dedicated companies that play with data every day and help these product-based and target-oriented companies by suggesting new trends. These reports are crucial for every business as their marketing strategies depend on them completely.

Moreover, geo-conquesting also helps in attracting customers towards local businesses and customers back from a competitor. This depends on users' location data, and targeted ad campaigns are prepared to captivate users.

However, the practice can be detrimental to your company if done incorrectly. In this blog post, we will discuss what geo-conquesting is and when it becomes a bad strategy.

What is geo-conquesting?

Geo-conquesting is an online marketing strategy that focuses on generating sales and attracting customers by getting them to shop at local businesses. Users of smartphones are the primary target for this strategy because they can be targeted more specifically.

For businesses, geo-conquesting may also mean recapturing lost customers from competitors or driving away competition in a particular region or city.

How does geo-conquesting work?

Nowadays, people use smartphones for everything, and due to this, they spend a lot of time on these devices. Moreover, smartphones allow businesses to segment customers based on location data, an essential aspect of geo-conquesting.

Companies use targeted advertisements to attract users to their store and influence them towards purchasing something from the business' inventory or even drive away competitors from a certain region or city altogether.

Additionally, this marketing strategy focuses on getting the user's attention when they are close to your business in the real world. For example, if you are near a shoe store, you will get notifications of every shoe sale every time you open your smartphone.

Why do businesses opt for geo-conquesting?

The purpose of geo-conquesting is not just to attract users but also to maintain and build customer loyalty towards a brand. Some companies may use geo-conquesting to recapture lost customers from competitors. In contrast, others may focus on driving away competition altogether by ensuring that they don't lose any customers in that particular region or city.

Advertisers use location-based advertising and geo-conquesting to get information regarding the user's region, and then they can create targeted campaigns to entice them towards purchasing a product.

It is also essential for businesses to focus on their local services and products as people now tend to purchase more from local businesses than big brands. Moreover, competing with smaller businesses is easier than competing with more prominent corporations because these small businesses don't have big budgets. These factors make geo-conquesting beneficial for all types of companies.

Types of geo-conquesting strategy

Direct geo-conquesting

If you know that a business has several outlets in a particular city, you can advertise everywhere around the place and attract people to your store. For example, if your rival for grocery products is located in two areas in Boston and Massachusetts, you can use geo-conquesting to get both of these consumers at one place or even drive them away from the competitor.

Indirect geo-conquesting

If there is no direct competitor nearby and your only objective is to drive some customers back from competitors' stores, then indirect geo-conquesting might be helpful. In this method, brands focus on attracting new customers instead of targeting old ones who have already purchased something from them. It is based on the location data of new customers and involves digital ads. 

When does geo-conquesting become a bad strategy?

Geo-conquesting can be damaging if done incorrectly or without proper research. The first problem arises when a company decides not to advertise its product over places other than its targeted area. This can be very bad for businesses as sales are happening elsewhere that the company isn't focusing on, which could build more business if invested in.

Another major problem arises when businesses focus too much on location data. Companies have to keep their product up to date, so if the user has already purchased a product, they won't get notified of sales or discounts unless they want it or need it.

The audience can get irritated and think that companies are invading their privacy by using their location data. This will make the users uninstall the app and delete their accounts, which means that businesses will lose a lot of customers.

Many repetitive push notifications or spam emails can negatively impact users, and ultimately, they will unsubscribe. This can break the chain of marketing. Therefore, it is necessary to determine and set a limit to online marketing strategy while geo-conquesting. Moreover, if your geofence in the competitor's area fails, then it is better to re-design the strategy to attract competitors' customers.

Highly personalized marketing campaigns can seem intrusive to the targeted users. By now, almost everyone knows the true capacities of online tracking and monitoring. However, consumers do not like to be reminded of that. If ads start to depict users’ lives or suggest things like local therapists in their area, it becomes a problem. Thus, many users refuse to let apps or services know their location by hiding IP address. This change is easily done with a VPN and prevents IP-based tracking. In other cases, users might also disable location tracking on their smartphones.

Conclusion

Overall, geo-conquesting is beneficial for marketing strategies but only if done correctly and with proper research. The primary purpose of this strategy is to get the user to purchase your product or service whenever they are closest to you in terms of geographical location.