Beacons in Outdoor Venues Location-Based Marketing Platform -Swivio

Though beacons are often known for their use cases in retail stores and indoor events, they also have the powerful potential to transform large outdoor spaces into interactive, context-aware environments. Beacon technology can bring anything from stadiums to concert venues to public parks to life through interactive content, targeted promotional offers, navigation assistance and more!

 

1.    NFL

NFL recently leveraged beacons to make a big push into geo-targeted mobile advertisements at the Super Bowl, one of America’s most watched sports event every year. They initially installed beacons at the MetLife Stadium and New York’s Times Square where the game was being played and used the NFL’s mobile app to send notifications and personalized ads to reach out to potential shoppers during the big game. The location-based notifications sent by these beacons contained messages directing users to merchandise, NFL exhibits, and shorter concessions lines.

 

2.    Major League Baseball

MLB recently worked with Apple to integrate the iBeacon indoor mapping technology in iOS 7 to customize its ‘At the Ballpark’ app in order to provide app users with an interactive game-watching experience at the stadium. MLB installed iBeacons at 20 ballparks around the U.S. to offer spectators using iOS relevant contextual information during the 2014 MLB season. For example, when a user loads the app on his or her way to the stadium, it immediately identifies the stadium he is heading towards and begins sending stadium-specific information. Once he

is near the entrance, it displays the barcode of his ticket and directs him to his seat via a map while highlighting the nearby points of interest. If he had purchased his tickets online using Apple Passbook, the app can even pull them up automatically.

 

3.    Wimbledon

Wimbledon organizers have begun beacon trials at nearby metro stations to communicate important information to attendees of the tennis mega-event. People with the Wimbledon app on their device who walk by these beacons will receive match times and schedules as well as directions to the stadium based on whether they have a ticket or not.

  

4.    Bonnaroo Music Festival

Bonnaroo, an annual four day music festival held in Tennessee that draws up to 80,000 attendees every year, recently deployed 100 beacons at the campgrounds and entryways of the event. However, the manner in which they used iBeacon technology is a great lesson to many brands out there. Instead of pushing offers or deals, they used beacons to create an enhanced interactive experience for their visitors with non-intrusive proximity-based messaging. In 2014, the Bonnaroo music festival saw attendees spend 102 minutes interacting with content via beacons.

 

5.    Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens

Drawing 1.6 million visitors each year, the LA zoo recently deployed beacons to revolutionize the way visitors interact and learn about animals in their natural habitat. They leverage their mobile app called ‘Rainforest of the Americas’ to unlock interactive content in a diverse range of formats, including detailed animal and habitat information, informational audio, and high-resolution images as the visitors move throughout the zoo. Moreover, the app also allows visitors to take the content home with them, creating a strong customer relationship with the Zoo that extends beyond their visit to the park.       

 

6.    Fluwel Tulpenland

Fluwel’s Tulpenland (Tulip Land), a theme park that specializes in displaying Dutch tulips, recently adopted iBeacon technology to helps visitors navigate through the park by directing them to other interactive locations. In order to more deeply engage visitors, the park’s app presents quiz questions that customers can earn automatic rewards for correctly answering and also provides additional educational content for those interested in learning more.

 

7.    Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors, an American basketball team based in Oakland, California, successfully completed a full-scale beacon deployment in Oracle Arena to better connect with fans. They have placed beacons at the entrance, which trigger welcome messages and exclusive content in their mobile app, as well as beacons at the top of the escalator to offer seat upgrades.

  

Questions to answer before getting started with beacons at your venue

 

·         Before you decide to use beacons at your event, the first step would be to understand the use cases that benefit you and your event attendees.

·         Will users already have downloaded your app? If not, what are some strategies to build an app audience?

·         What types of content (i.e. athlete stats, concert info, etc.) will enhance the user’s experience at your outdoor event?

·         How can you integrate beacon technology with location services (GPS) to enhance an attendee’s experience at your outdoor event?

·         How large is your outdoor space? If it’s large, are there any “hotspots” where you should definitely place beacons?

·         How can you reward loyal customers (i.e. season ticket holders, frequent concert-goers, etc.) through your beacon campaign?

 

5 beacon campaign ideas

·         Notify concert attendees of “secret” shows or exclusive content such as

backstage interviews.

·         Send concert fans a link to buy an artist’s new song as they leave the concert venue.

·         Create more engaging half-time shows that involve the audience in competitions, polls and more—all through their mobile phones.

·         Allow people at concerts and sporting events to buy merchandise from their seats instead of waiting in line.

 

Launch your beacon pilot campaign today without any developer’s help! SWIVIO makes it easy to order and deploy beacons.