Social media and use of bots to drive customer engagement and coupon delivery

Personalisation & Innovation are Key

According to the research, brands will increasingly deploy bots, artificial intelligence applications which can interact with consumers via social media and messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger. The research cited Domino’s Pizza and Iceland Air as companies which have already utilised this strategy. Meanwhile, mass adoption of social media has spawned a number of dedicated coupon aggregators operating within that space, including Coupy in India and PennyCat in North America.

Beacon Uptake Set to Expand

The research also found that large scale deployments of beacons – Bluetooth devices which can send offers to consumers whilst they shop – have been constrained. The research claimed that the key hurdle was the need for consumers to have opted in to online engagement with a brand or retailer, either through having installed a store’s application on their smartphone, or to be following their account on social media. However, the research argued that with some beacons (such as Google’s Eddystone) allowing a wider range of online engagement channels including web browser interaction, retailers will have a far more encompassing product moving forwards.

Furthermore, as research author Lauren Foye pointed out, beacons enable retailers to collect and utilise a raft of valuable, relevant data points: “For retailers one of the major tools is knowing their customers. Tracking user movements in store via beacons allows for targeted marketing and offers, this can also aid in providing invaluable data and statistics to a company, this then later applied to drive sales.”

The whitepaper, In-store Loyalty ~ Shining a Beacon, is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the new research.

Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.