What is a Bluetooth Beacon? Intro to our proximity marketing course

Описание: Nearby Notifications have been ended by Google. See more here:    • End of Google Nearby - Google Kills Nearby...  
Do you want to learn how to use Bluetooth beacons? Our course focuses on the marketing side of beacon technology - using them to build email lists, Facebook messenger bot subscribers, and happy customers. You can find it, along with the rest of the free beacon training videos and the paid course material, here: https://proximityfun.thinkific.com/

Here's a link to the beacon database: http://bit.ly/beacondatabse

Let’s start with the first question: what is a beacon?
A Bluetooth beacon is a tiny transmitter that sends out a Bluetooth signal. Cell phones within the beacon’s range can receive that signal and display it in the form of a notification – like what you would see from any other app. Then, when the user taps that notification, they’re taken to a website.
The signal type that we use the most is called an Eddystone URL. Eddystone was developed by Google and has a few different features. For example, Eddystone UID is made to work with dedicated apps. An Eddystone URL directs users to a website. There are some other types of signals, such as the iBeacon signal – but the most common and useful for our needs, by far, is the Eddystone URL and the vast majority of beacons come with the ability to broadcast that signal. As far as programming your beacon, typically, all you need to do is copy/paste the URL and press save – so don’t worry about that.
An app is required for the signal to be received and understood by the user’s phone. This is really easy on Android devices because it’s built into the Android operating system – meaning that it’s already installed, can’t be uninstalled, and is usually turned on by default. So, for Android, you shouldn’t need to do anything special. iOS users need to download a 3rd party app, but there are a lot of them and they’re free. We talk about how we get people to download those apps in the course. But to summarize, you need to offer something that the visitor wants, and they’ll actively look for ways to get it.
When it comes to picking a beacon for your project, there are a few things that you want to keep in mind. First, is the beacon’s cost. Some beacons are tied to a specific platform and the manufacturer/platform owner will charge you a monthly fee for them. We’ll talk more about these in the Beacon Platform video, but there are some benefits to using these when compared to the one-time purchase beacons.
Next, you want to look at the beacon’s range. This just shows how far the signal can be sent. You’ll find ranges from less than an inch, like the NFC tags, to over 400 meters. The way that we use beacons usually doesn’t need anything over 70 meters (or enough to cover the location you’re working with). We used to try to hide beacons in high-traffic areas and cover entire city blocks with beacons, but we’ve found that we get the best results when our beacons are optimized for specific locations and offers.
The other important thing to look at is how you connect to and modify the beacon. Most beacon manufacturers use dedicated apps to program their beacons and have versions of these apps available for their customers. You can also use Google’s Beacon Tools app to manage the beacon. For the most part, we just want to make sure that they’re working and broadcast our Eddystone URL.
In the next chapter, you’ll read about some of the different kinds of beacons, where to get them, and you’ll get access to our beacon database with all the features and prices of the most popular beacons on the market, as well as reviews from other proximity marketers.
See you there!