Retailers, brands and agencies are increasingly looking for new ways to engage with consumers at the right time and place. In terms of customer experience local stores still provide a perfect scene for consumers: they can touch & feel their product, receive invaluable information from sales staff and pick their desired product and take it home for immediate use.

However, often customers still remain anonymous to stores & brands, receive too many different product proposals and leave the store often either empty-handed or make a one-time purchase. With the dominant smartphone penetration in Germany consumers become more demanding and often choose to buy their products offline, simply because it is cheaper.

In their mission to strengthen local commerce and use state-of-the art mobile technology to empower users to make even smarter decisions and enable retailers and brands to engage with their customers where and when it matters most, we teamed-up and developed Beacon Proximity Marketing. With a dedicated and lean team, a 6 digit-budget a solution was built that has already been nominated for an innovation award and is about to pilot a beta with major players from the German retail & entertainment industry.

Beacon Proximity Marketing enables local stores, brands and agencies to engage with customers where and when it matters most. It is a newly developed solution and consists of following components:

- Proximity Marketing Platform: Allows retailers, brands and agencies to easily create, manage and analyse in- & out-store campaigns, beacons, locations and deliver content at the right time and place.

- Beacon Hardware: trigger delivery of relevant content and offers to consumer smartphones. Based on Apple's iBeacon protocol. Own firmware & customized highly secure hardware.

- Mobile Client SDK (iOS, Android): enables retailers, brands and agencies to add proximity marketing experiences to existing mobile apps.

How it works: you need a smartphone, an app and a beacon. Then the right content for a specific location can be displayed on the phone.

The solution can be used to display offers, coupons, product information or enables customers to participate at loyalty programs. You can even use customer-specific knowledge to display targeted content to consumers. The information can be shown on any display, like a video wall, displaying targeted messages when passing by. Customer analytics help optimize campaigns and receive invaluable information about consumer behavior in-store.

Beacon Proximity Marketing is the first end-to-end solution that works in- & out-door and enables local stores, brands and agencies to engage with customers where and when it matters most and establishing a connection that leads to a long-lasting and satisfying relationship.

Beacon Proximity Marketing is based on our partnership and is self-funded. The solution is being actively promoted within our client network. First pilot roll-outs with market leaders from the retail and entertainment industry in Germany are coming up soon. Aim is to offer a scalable cloud-solution for B2B-customers of any size.

Beacon Proximity Marketing is an innovative proximity marketing solution that enables local stores, brands and creatives to engage with customers where and when it matters most. It increases customer engagement by offering a more targeted, personalized and relevant customer experience and thus helps turning an occasional shopper into a loyal customer!

Beacon Proximity Marketing is a solution based on our partnership. It has been presented at the EUROSHOP 2014 in Düsseldorf and been nominated for the POPAI Best Retail Innovation Award. The solution is being actively promoted within our client network.

First pilot roll-outs with market leaders from the German retail and entertainment industry are coming up soon and pave the way for nationwide adoption with selected partners. Including beacon proximity marketing within our own cross-company & industry B2C shopping app 'ShoppingCompass' will help increase reach and relevancy in the German consumer market. Mid-term goal is to offer a scalable and affordable cloud-based proximity marketing solution for B2B customers of any size be it as a stand-alone-solution or as part of a solution from our portfolio.