Press is bursting with the iBeacon revolution, hardware companies are shipping hundreds of dev kits each day, digital marketing agencies are trying to jump on the train of a new way of advertising. But few people realize how hard it is to build a real enhancement for the app that utilizes iBeacon/BLE technology.
And often the problem is not the complexity of the beacon or device connectivity but the ability to form the right function that will provide the right VALUE to the final user through context-aware functionalities.
The value of context or why is iBeacon more than just coupon delivery
You need to brainstorm A LOT on the possible iBeacon functionalities for your app because it’s not just a spammy deal notifier, it is an EXPERIENCE and to keep people using it you really need to provide the value of that experience.
Of course you can just send push notification to every person who walks by, we tried that and it just didn’t work. We’ve been sending invitations and special deals from restaurants to people walking by. It was very hard to convert people even with the most awesome deal waiting for them. That gave us another hint, that we can’t and we shouldn’t try to make people do what they don’t want to do, we have to enhance their experience while knowing their context.
So we tried another thing, we provided values to customers who approached the restaurant and made it easy to check out prices and menu right away, without any search and friction, it just showed up. And it worked, people seemed to browse menus and those were the people who wanted to visit those restaurants.
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