Innovation.

If any company wants to go really big today, they have to focus on innovation and novelty.  Simple as that.

Multiple studies have proven that one of the top reasons for driving purchase intent among customers is innovation, or rather, the process of being exposed to something new.

If fact, just the term “new” alone, increases the levels ofdopamine in our brains and makes us eager to explore the “new” stuff, until we are satisfied (when we have enough information, eager to know more and will likely be thinking about it all the time in the future), or dissatisfied (with the whole hype disappearing in an instant).

Another study conducted by Nielsen revealed that from all around the world, 63% of customers like to purchase from companies that innovate and over 50% said that they bought something new during their last shopping trip.

Remember the dopamine? It’s doing its job pretty well.

The same study revealed that among the top purchase drivers today are convenience, affordability, brand power and novelty. Again, it’s not enough to make something old more comfortable anymore. It simply has to be new.

But…

There always needs to be a “but” right?

Getting customers interested in your innovative products and getting them to buy these products are two distinctly different things, especially if those new products aren’t really affordable.

You will need to create a profile of new potential customers, find a way to connect with them on a very personal (desirably one on one) level, get them interested, educated and most importantly, show them the advantages of your product, a.k.a. why should they buy your product instead of the tried old ones?

Also, it’s essential not to let your products get mixed up with others in the same category.

If you are Tesla making electric cars, it’s critical not to let outsiders talk, introduce and market your cars to potential clients. Also, you want to show how your cars are different than standard cars, which goes back to educating customers on your innovative products.

It’s important to understand that habit is a very strong thing and getting customers away from their habitual environment (or usage of products that they are so used to) requires a lot of hard work and strong, precise, personalized arguments.

How geospatial analytics can help innovative business models establish a one on one communication channel with customers.

While traditional customer segmentation models (like demographic and psychographic segmentation) can help businesses build a solid customer profile, they provide only a part of the whole picture.

In their latest business intelligence magic quadrant report, Gartner has specifically pointed out that by 2020, every company that hopes to achieve success will need to take into account the “where” question.

In the modern world, it’s essential to take into account not only who your customers are and what they care about, but also where they are.

In other words, understanding and utilizing customer movement is critical to success.

Customer location has a very high impact on making buying decisions, largely because of what we call the daily routine – every person in the world, more or less, has a routine that they follow, which from the location perspective, is equivalent to places where they spend most of their time at and places they visit most frequently.

This leads us to introducing and understanding spatial targeting.

Spatial targeting and its role for innovative business models.

With today’s technology, businesses have the opportunity to track each and every move their customers make, including keeping track of where they spend most of their time, where do they go to spend their weekends, etc.

This spatial information, paired up with demographic, psychographic and sales data, can open up tons of possibilities for businesses to target customers on a wider, deeper and more personalized level than ever before.

For instance, if you know that your customers regularly visit tech related events, you can safely conclude that they are interested in tech innovation/novelty, probably work in a tech related field and value customizability and comfortability whenever shopping for products.

Why is this important?

• If you are introducing a new product to the public, it’s important to find customers that are most likely to be interested in your products and educate them on why they should consider your product over others.
• Personalization is probably the highest valued aspect of any company’s approach. Not only does it make customers feel unique, but also shows that your company knows what will interest them on a deeper level. Here is a study published by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, which shows just how valuable personalization can be when it comes to spending money on something.

Choosing precise store locations to attract and educate your potential customers.

Apart from the personalized approach, understanding your customers’ movement will help you arrange your stores in a way that will be most comfortable for them. Again, if you’re introducing a new product to the market (electric cars, for instance), you need to make sure that it doesn’t go under the same umbrella of related products (gasoline cars in this case).

You will need to educate your audience on the differences and advantages of your own product as opposed to related products, and for that, you need to make sure that your stores (or educational centers, or show shops, or whatever you want to call them) are located in areas that are easily accessible and exposed to your potential customers.

Why is this important?

Understanding and choosing a perfect location for your store might seem easy, but it can be really tricky. Sometimes, logic doesn’t work in these situations and whatever seems to be the best spot for a store, turns out to be the worst one, like in the case of a dollar store.

Stopping competition within yourself.

Lastly, you want to make sure that your stores and educational centers operate at maximum efficiency and don’t come out as an unnecessary cost for your business.

Opening up more and more stores around the country (or even the world) might seem like a very natural idea at first, but it’s important to take into account the trade area around your store.

Depending on your target group, you might find that some sales territories are so densely populated that they require 2 or more stores to be present in the same trade area, while in other cases, just a single store is enough to cover a pretty large chunk of land.

Note: It’s essential to know that choosing a poor store location might be an invisible issue at first, but will become more and more vivid as you open up more stores.

Why is this important?

Each and every store you open is an investment that absolutely needs to pay off as fast as possible, and become a solid source of income for your company. Choosing your store locations carelessly can not only result in less than satisfactory income per store, but it can also spark “territory wars” between your own stores, unintentionally causing customer acquisition and retention issues.

Conclusion: Introducing new products to the market with new customer targetting methods.

With innovation playing such a centric role when making buying decisions, modern businesses simply can’t afford to go to market using old consumer targeting techniques. New products are generally approached with a lot of skepticism from the large public, until a group of passionate consumers takes them for a test drive. After the initial success, it’s only a matter of time before more and more people start leaning towards the “new” to replace the old. Geospatial targeting can help you locate those passionate consumers, while saving time and effort in the process.

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