1. Università degli Studi di Bergamo
MANAGEMENT, ECONOMICS AND QUANTITATIVE METHODS
Management, Finance, International Business – Management, Leadership, Marketing
Proximity Marketing and its technologies: more than 100 beacon use cases analysis
Supervisor: Student:
Professor Daniela Andreini Jennifer Bonacina
19th October 2016

2. Topic: Proximity Marketing
Nearness in space
Time
Relationship
a form of advertising, where a marketer is able to initiate a communication with a consumer that is timely, relevant and personal, through a portable device.
To be more specific, we can add that:
it is not one single technology: it’s a marketing approach that can involve one or more technologies
it utilizes location technologies
it’s not limited to smartphone usage
it can actually be implemented utilizing a number of different methods
Actors
PSP (Proximity Solution Provider)
Adopter
Final consumer

3. Topic: Proximity Marketing history
Location-triggered messages
2008
QR code
2010/2011
BLE beacon
NFC
Geofencing
Wi-Fi
Subsequent years
BLE Beacon: cheap pieces of hardware that transmit Bluetooth Low Energy signals – which smartphones can detect. The interaction with the app can be used to determine the device’s location, especially indoors, as well as trigger a location-based action on the device, such as push notifications. Concerning beacon technology, two main protocols has been developed and launched:
2013: iBeacon  Apple
2015: Eddystone  Google
NFC (Near Field Communication): a passive proximity marketing technology when compared to beacons, because it cannot be used to send push notifications. The signal is transmitted through an RFID chip (antenna) that has a very short range (20 cm). Popular use cases for NFC are mobile payments and providing additional product information in shops or exhibitions.
Geofencing: a feature that uses GPS (Global Positioning System) to trigger an event when a device enters a virtual barrier. It is often used outdoors to engage customers in specific locations with a timely and relevant message.
Wi-Fi: also Wi-Fi can be used by companies for marketing purpose: a company sets up several Wi-Fi hotspots and provides free internet access. In order to use it, customers have to log in and provide their details. The company who hosts the Wi-Fi network can then send location-specific content to the consumers’ browser.

4. Topic: Proximity Marketing statistics & trends
Global Mobile Commerce Market
$ 3,2 TRILLION by 2017
$ 52,46 Billion by 2022
CAGR = 29,80% )
Proximity Marketing Market
BLE beacon shipments
$ 400 million in 2021
BLE beacons
$ 500 million by 2021
In-building wireless market revenue
$ 19 billion by 2025
Wearable device shipments
$ 501 million by 2021
LTE (Long Term Evolution) global subscriptions
$ 4 billion by 2021
RTLS (Real-time locating systems) and asset tracking market
$ 15 billion by 2021

5. Objective: efficient solution or just a bunch of hype?PM
EFFICIENCY
But, even if the stats are positive and promising, there is so much discussion about proximity-based marketing today. Is it an efficient solution or just a bunch of hype?
The objective of the thesis it to analyze and prove the efficiency of this approach: for a business is fundamental to understand
what the potential of this approach could be
how it can be used to improve consumers’ experience.
It is a new and definitely more efficient way to increase the engagement and a lot of companies, all over the world, have already adopted it, thanks to the lower costs and a higher flexibility.

6. Analysis method 29 Countries 66 PSPs 19 Industry Verticals
12 Applications
141 USE CASES
PSP
source
results
industry vertical
year
application
experience
country
goal
[…]
The objective of the research is to understand:
what is the impact of the adoption of proximity marketing solutions for each use case
how the solutions can change according to the industry verticals and
how the results may vary in countries with different culture and education.
Therefore, for each use case, I gathered both qualitative and quantitative information, related to the solution adopted and its results.
OBJECTIVE
Impact
Different solutions adopted
Different results achieved

7. Results & Findings
Performance improvement
Interactions / Engagement rate
Downloads / installation
Subscription
Customers increase
App Users
Advertised content's views
CTR
Coupon redemption
180%
112%
50,14%
166%
81%
126%
34%
125%
64%
From the research study, different insights have emerged.
We can notice the supremacy of the USA: 34,8% of the use cases are located in the United States, followed by the UK with 7,1% and Netherlands with 5,7%. Italy has only 2,8% as a demonstration of the lower level of proximity marketing “culture”.
If we consider the industry verticals in which proximity marketing has been deployed, retail is the one that sees the higher number of adoptions, with 16,3%. It is the easier sector of application: the probability to understand and try to satisfy customers’ needs through PM solutions is high. Conference and Events is the second industry vertical in terms of adoptions, with 9,2% of use cases, followed by Airports (6,4%), Stadium & Sports (6,4%) and Shopping Malls (5,7%).
Push notifications: about 70% of the use cases  the concept of reaching the right consumer at the right time, in the right place and with the right content is collecting more and more success and, because of that, the main reason why a user decides to adopt it is the possibility to send push notifications
Analytics: about 42%
Campaign Results about 36%  tightly connected to the strong presence of
Coupon & Discounts about 37%  proximity services in retail and shopping malls
The data collected are highly heterogeneous and in this table you can see the average results divided according to the different typology of data collected. + comments

8. Conclusions EFFICIENCY Lower costs Higher ROI EDUCATION culture
preparation
MIX OF DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS
New technologies
Flexibility
You could have the most innovative product that has ever been invented, but if people do not know how it works, how good it is and what benefits it can bring, the possibilities of its rise are really low.
The best results have been obtained by adopters that have mixed edifferent solutions, with the possibility to exploit all the available technologies and reach the highest number of consumers. Moreover, services are becoming accessible to every typology of business, even for the smaller ones, thanks especially to the release of new technologies such as Eddystone’s Physical Web, for which it is not necessary to have an app.

9. New solutions in new sectors
Future research
New solutions in new sectors
Proximity marketing is just at the beginning of its deployment and development and there are still further researches and applications that worth to be made.
It will be interesting to monitor how proximity technologies will be adopted by (relatively) new verticals, such as smart energy providers, public and medical sectors. Nowadays, some of these are developing new solutions with the aim to provide stronger citizens assistance and improve efficiency in public management.  prepararsi esempi

10. Thank you for your attention.
Jennifer Bonacina
19th October 2016

11. Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Daniela Andreini, my supervisor, for her guidance and encouragement.
My grateful thanks are also extended to Luca Locatelli, CEO of Near Srl, and all the members of the NearIT Team.
Finally, I wish to thank my family and friends for their presence, support and encouragement.
Dedication: to my super strong grandmother Agnese.