Bluetooth marketing is more than blue spam marketing

Although some have called bluetooth marketing “blue spam” marketing, WCIT has taken an approach that should be considered best practice – they have bluetooth zones setup in malls that encourage consumers to register & make their devices discoverable. In return,  consumers who enter the zone can download something of value to their mobile device (like a mall catalogue of sales, store locator etc…) and don’t feel like they are being disrupted at random.

Permission based bluetooth marketing can be a great extension of your digital, mobile, or multi-channel campaign.

Petros Kondos from WCIT contacted me earlier this week with a new use for bluetooth systems – they can also be used as advanced foot counting systems. Having installed new systems in 25 malls already,  WCIT is now also using their system to count foot traffic in malls and have validated their approach as being more accurate than traditional foot traffic measuring systems.

Each mobile device has a unique bluetooth ID which does not contain any personal information or even a link to the mobile number. The consumer is therefore anonymous to the system – although track-able throughout a period of time. This means their system will not count the same person twice – but at the same time they can track where that consumer walks within the mall itself.  Although the best retailers have their own shopper marketing strategy & zones within their space, having an additional layer of data to validate behaviour would be very valuable.

Shopper marketing professionals would jump through hoops of fire to get such detailed & accurate customer analytic information.

The BlueTrac system tracks:

• Number of times the same mobile device returns to a specific mall / store within a day, week, or month
• Time of visit
• Amount of time spent in one area
• Entry and departure times
• Patterns of customer visits

The system can also learn to distinguish between consumers and mall staff – so the data can be segmented accordingly.

Comparative research around this technology and customer volumes in malls has produced accurate extrapolations to include total customer volumes within retail spaces. On the basis of detected bluetooth devices, BlueTrace can indicate total customer footfall within a mall or specific retail area within a given period.

A secondary useful stat that came out of this study is that on average 7% of all consumers entering the mall had a mobile device that was bluetooth enabled and activated.

Although the data relates to the South African market, it’s still directional relevant for the Canadian market.  We know through local bluetooth network Broadburst that of those who have bluetooth devices that are activated, around 3% respond to bluetooth requests within their network – still far above traditional media responses.