iSign Can Offer a Deeper & More Direct Approach
Coupons are huge. Maybe not so much here in Australia, although I think I’m the only person on the planet who pays full price for petrol (everyone else uses shopping docket coupons), but in the US coupons are a phenomenon. And they’re increasingly going digital.
We’ve heard elsewhere this issue about how beacons can be used to push promotions to smartphones, but there is another way.
The iSign antenna is an alternative method of ‘proximity marketing’ that works without requiring the customer to download your app or a Pass (as we saw with the Four ’n’ Twenty pie promotion).
Here’s how iSign works: physically, it looks like a WAP (wireless access point) and in many ways it is. It beams wi-fi and Bluetooth.
Once you’re in reach of the iSign’s wi-fi coverage, digital signage will encourage you to make your phone ‘discoverable’ to avail yourself of some kind of compelling promotion: two-for-one spiced pumpkin latté, for example.
The customer selects the free-access wi-fi network.
Once selected, the iSign antenna will push promotional content to that phone (iOS, Android, Blackberry) via Bluetooth. Whereupon the customer can click on the desired coupon and take it to the store or department for redemption.
iSign has a number of advantages over an app/beacon combination.
Once downloaded, Apps can then be deleted or switched off. Apps are relatively expensive (although, admittedly, Passes aren’t) and need regularly updating. The analytics you can glean from app usage aren’t extensive. An app for many stores is unnecessary or overkill for simply pushing promotions. The anonymity of iSign can suit customers – no credit card details required or logging on, it’s simply a digital coupon/marketing platform.
What’s more, iSign is an easy introduction to big data. It’s more than an antenna, it’s an integrated hardware/software system that allows retailers to understand customer behaviour and preferences.
iSign’s traditional heartland is in North America and a few interesting case studies demonstrate the depth of the metrics that can be harvested from an iSign installation.
The National Mobile Network has been running iSign in US convenience stores (mostly attached to petrol stations). Leaving aside some of the specific numbers (which are impressive), iSign provides data on the number of phone discoveries on its iSign locations, the number of unique phones, the average customer dwell time, number of people who received the Bluetooth coupon offer, the percentage of those who opted in, the total number of people who connected via wi-fi and unique phones connected to wi-fi. Clearly these kind of metrics are solid gold for a company such as the National Mobile Network which can take that data to potential advertisers (brands in the convenience store).
iSign has obvious applications in any retail environment (from a store to a strip shopping mall), as well as the likes of train platforms, buses/public transport, stadiums, and more — anywhere iSign can tag team with digital signage to make that initial approach to customers, inducing them to pull out their phone, and discover the wi-fi network.
iSign’s features and capabilities run deep. And whether you’re a shop keeper, an integrator, or your corporation’s CIO, iSign demands closer scrutiny.
JEA Technologies: (03) 8736 0330 or www.jeatech.com.au