If you’ve used Google Ad Services at some point during the last 24 months or so and your business has a physical location, chances are you’ve received a little box from Google this month containing a Google Beacon.
To add to the mystery, Google hasn’t really promoted Project Beacon and the instructions which come in the box are quite lean (to be kind). I’ve done some digging on this program and can provide a bit more information.
What is the Google Beacon project?
As Google describes it, Google Beacon is an initiative which employs technology to enable proximity-based triggers and actions in both the digital and physical world. Utilizing Bluetooth low energy (BLE) hardware technology, Google Beacons communicate with nearby smart devices, such as tablets and mobile phones. Devices enabled with “Eddystone” technology can receive and transmit data to smartphones. The result is gaining updated details about your current physical environment.
In plain English, Google Beacons will communicate directly with smartphone users near your place of business, allowing them to more easily discover your location, interact with your Google My Business profile and for you to provide them with incentives to stop in.
What does all that mean for your small business?
First, it will help you get more reviews. These Beacons help stimulate reviews, photos, and more from people who have stopped by your office location. And as you know, these are essential for increasing word of mouth and also enhancing your website’s SEO.
Second, it will help you get more foot traffic. By refining location and proximity data, Google Beacons can put you on personal maps for users that have turned on Location History, and it can reduce confusion because it transmits from where you actually are.
Finally (for now – it’s new and there are undoubtedly other features in the offing), it’s a way to promote and funnel foot traffic to your business. For example, if you are a restaurant or coffee shop, Google Beacon will enable you to send updated daily specials right to the phones of passers-by. If you are a Spa or Healthfood Store and you have Google Beacon enabled, customers could park nearby and get step-by-step walking directions from their phones to the front door.
Getting involved with Project Beacon now also means, according to Google, that you get access to additional features as they are released, one of which will probably be more analytics information (although it is difficult to speculate on what kinds of metrics Google may provide for Beacon users in the future).
The net-net – if you have a brick and mortar that relies on customer visits to your location, Google Beacon is something you should consider. If you haven’t received one, here’s what you need to do to get yours: have a physical location, enable Google local extensions in your Google My Business profile and have used Google Ad Services. This post on the Google Beacon page provides more specific details and instructions.
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