Beacon Marketing Application | 5 Ways How Beacon Technology is Helping Brands Transform Marketing

Source    : martechadvisor
By        : Rohit Roy 
Category  : Mobile Marketing

Beacons are hardware devices which utilize low energy Bluetooth to transmit messages to tablets and smart phones. The introduction of Eddybox, the technology from Apple that lets mobile apps interact with the beacons in their vicinity, has enhanced their importance for in-store consumer engagement activities.  The subsequent compatibility roll out for Android devices has brought us to a scenario where, according to a blog, about 570 million devices are compatible with the beacon functionality.
Beacon technology is being leveraged by leading brands to deliver an unmatched customer experience. Here is how they are transforming marketing and promotional activities:

1. Understanding in-store shopping behavior
In order to improve consumer experiences, brands need to be aware of how a customer behaves when he visits a store. Through a simple integration of in-store beacons with their effective CRM system, brands can find out the number of visitors, and the frequency of an individual’s visit. They can easily identify the store sections where the customers tend to spend most of their time, the number of transactions per customer and how many people signed-up for and utilized the loyalty programs. Businesses can track the effectiveness of their marketing programs, evaluate services quality and abandonment rates, and see how many customers utilized the app, browsed the offers and made purchases. The enhanced understanding of in-store shopping behavior would allow them to send out more personalized promotional offers, helping to drive better engagement.

2. Delivering in-store notifications to increase intent
A large number of customers use a shopping app when inside a store, and most of them are willing to share their location in return for value. Beacons can be used to send out push notifications of sales and other promotional offers as soon as customers are within range, to help increase purchasing intent.

3. Increasing personalization
With a deep understanding of customer behavior, it is possible to send out more personalized, context-driven messages. You can use the beacons to guide customers to specific sections in your store and inform them of the new arrivals, on the basis of their past behavior. You can also send out custom welcome messages as soon as they step into the store and recommend products based on their purchase history. The increased personalization will therefore ensure that your customers enjoy a wonderful experience and want to return to your store.

4. Meeting challenges of competition
Implementing beacons in the right way ensures that you enjoy the fruits of competitive advantage over your rivals. By delivering value added content in the most personalized fashion, beacons can help you meet the challenges of stiff competition.

5. Ensuring efficient customer service
A large store can be confusing for your customers, who may be unsure of where to start. By strategically placing beacons to help the customers navigate your store effectively is therefore the first step towards ensuring effective customer service. You can also use it to track how much time a particular employee is interacting with the customer, and identify potential staff training needs, if any.

Beacons are therefore poised to transform proximity based marketing. Early adopters can look forward to significant gains in terms of enhanced engagement, loyalty and satisfaction.

(Read More : martechadvisor.com/customer-experience/5-ways-how-beacon-technology-is-helping-brands-transform-marketing/)

Bluetooth Low Energy | Extends BLE Portfolio for Banking, Industrial and Lighting Applications

Source  : Stocks Newswire
By        : Lisa Walker
Category  : Bluetooth Low Energy

According to the very latest news report, Cypress Semiconductor Corp. declared its highly integrated, single-chip Bluetooth® Low Energy solutions are now accessible in new packaging and temperature range options. The PSoC® 4 BLE Programmable System-on-Chip and PRoC™ BLE Programmable Radio-on-Chip solutions each now have an option for a micro-ball Chip Scale Package (CSP) optimized to bring Bluetooth Smart connectivity to secure credit card applications. The package is only 0.38-mm thick, making the reliable and fully Bluetooth-certified solutions, ideal to replace chip-on-board devices.

Cypress also offers solutions with an extended industrial temperature range option with operation from minus 40 degrees Centigrade to +105 degrees C. This ensures consistent product performance throughout this temperature range for industrial, automotive, and lighting applications that must operate in extreme climates. Both the micro-ball CSP package and extended industrial temperature options will be accessible for the 128KB and 256KB flash versions of the PSoC 4 BLE and PRoC BLE solutions. The new offerings are pin-to-pin compatible with Cypress’s original Bluetooth Low Energy solutions, simplifying upgrades.

“Bluetooth Low Energy is quickly expanding its market reach and Cypress is continually innovating to address requirements for a diverse set of emerging applications,” said Eran Sandhaus, Vice President, and Wireless Product Family at Cypress. “These new CSP and temperature options bring the ease-of-use, programmability and robust, low-power performance of our PSoC 4 BLE and PRoC BLE solutions to an even broader range of customers.”

Cypress’s customizable Bluetooth Low Energy solutions deliver unprecedented ease-of-use and integration for IoT applications, home automation, wireless Human Interface Devices (HIDs), remote controls, healthcare equipment, sports and fitness monitors, and other wearable smart devices. PRoC BLE is a Bluetooth Smart microcontroller with Cypress’s industry-leading CapSense® capacitive touch-sensing functionality, while PSoC 4 BLE offers expanded design versatility by adding intelligent analog and programmable digital blocks. Both solutions integrate a Bluetooth Smart radio, a high-performance 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M0 core with ultra-low-power modes, up to 256KB flash memory, 36 GPIOs, and customizable serial communication blocks, timers and counters. Additionally, both solutions have an on-chip balun that simplifies antenna design while reducing board size and system cost.

Additionally, Cypress offers the small-form-factor, Bluetooth Smart, EZ-BLE™ PRoC module, which integrates PRoC BLE, two crystals, an on-board chip antenna, metal shield and passive components, all in a compact 10-mm x 10-mm x 1.8-mm form factor. It comprises Bluetooth 4.1 qualification and worldwide regulatory certification, greatly simplifying design and cutting time to market. Cypress is the single supplier for silicon, software, firmware and module hardware, streamlining the customer support required to develop remote controls, health and fitness equipment, home appliances, toys and other wireless applications. This combination of technology delivers unmatched system value for Bluetooth Smart products, with prolonged battery life, customizable sensing capabilities, and sleek, intuitive user interfaces.

Bluetooth Low Energy Design Tools

Designers looking to create Bluetooth Smart products must often use software tools from multiple vendors and develop complex firmware to meet wireless specifications. Cypress has abstracted the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol stack and profile configuration into a royalty-free, GUI-based BLE component that can be dragged and dropped into designs using Cypress’s PSoC Creator™ integrated design environment (IDE). PSoC Creator enables complete system design in a single tool, slashing time-to-market. Alternatively, users of Eclipse® and other ARM-based tools can customize their own Bluetooth Low Energy solutions on PSoC Creator and export the design to their preferred IDE.

Cypress offers the $49 CY8CKIT-042-BLE Development Kit, which gives users easy access to the Bluetooth Low Energy devices, while maintaining the design footprint from the PSoC 4 Pioneer kit. The development kit comprises a USB Bluetooth Low Energy dongle that pairs with the CySmart™ master emulation tool, converting a designer’s Windows® PC into a Bluetooth Low Energy debug environment. Cypress also offers two production-ready, reference design kits (RDK) that enable customers to get to market faster: the CY5672 Remote Control RDK and the CY5682 Touch Mouse RDK.

(Read More: stocksnewswire.com/cypress-semiconductor-corporation-nasdaqcy-extends-bluetooth-low-energy-portfolio-for-banking-industrial-and-lighting-applications/96150/196150/)

Direct Mobile Marketing | Bluetooth Beacons Are the Future of Shopping

Source  : Design News
By        :    Fred Eady
Category  :  Bluetooth Beacons

I belong to a wholesale club that heavily utilizes self-checkout stations. However, when the club wants to push a particular item, a human is posted at a special sales station to hawk that item.
As you leave the club, a permanently entrenched human window salesman always attempts to get your attention. The random special sales stations within the club can be easily avoided, but it is impossible to get by the window sales station without being accosted. But I digress.

The club has used self-checkout stations for years. I'm sure this saves money, as a single clerk can oversee multiple self-checkout stations. The club could possibly save even more money by replacing the sales stations with beacons. A Bluetooth-based beacon transmits very small amounts of data at timed intervals. For instance, an iBeacon frame consists of a unique universal identifier (UUID) and a major and minor value. The idea is for a receiver to digest the incoming beacon data and perform a task based on the contents of the incoming beacon frame. The concept behind Bluetooth-based beacons has been around since Nokia introduced Bluetooth Low Energy (known then as Wibree) in 2006. Apple brought its version of the beacon (iBeacon) to the world in 2013.

The open-source Eddystone beacon is currently giving the iBeacon a run for its money. The Eddystone beacon is particularly attractive for developers that do not possess an Apple MFi license. An Eddystone beacon can be configured to send UID, URL, or TLM (telemetry) frames.
My wholesale club could benefit from a dongle that emits an Eddystone URL frame. Instead of a human at a sales station asking customers to try a product, customers equipped with the right smartphone app could be alerted to special promotions via their smartphones. If the customer is interested, he or she can investigate the offer further from information provided by the beacon.

Now that you have been presented with a problem (pesky salespeople) and a possible solution (beacons), what if you're tapped to build the beacon? There are lots of beacon manufacturers that can sell you bags full of beacons. However, let's say the club wants its own in-house Eddystone beacon design.
As of this writing, there are only five tested implementations listed in the GitHub Eddystone document. One of the solutions is Arduino-based, while the remaining solutions are SDK-based. Silicon Labs, CSR, Nordic, TI, and RFduino are represented.
If your Bluetooth Smart beacon design is to be based on a Bluetooth Smart modular radio, any of the five solutions listed in the GitHub entry can be employed. Three of the listed Bluetooth Smart Eddystone implementations -- Nordic, TI, and CSR -- can be employed to create beacon hardware at the IC level. You will need an ARM development system (C compiler and debugger/programmer hardware) for a Nordic solution. The TI solution requires an IAR or CCS development system.
We can add yet another Bluetooth Smart radio manufacturer to the Eddystone beacon list. ACKme has just announced out-of-the-box iBeacon and Eddystone beacon support for its Bluetooth Smart radio modules. The ACKme Bluetooth Smart radio modules are UART-programmable, which eliminates the need for a firmware development system. I have knowledge of yet another major semiconductor manufacturer that will announce beacon support for its line of Bluetooth Smart radio modules very soon.
It looks my wholesale club is in business, as far as beacons are concerned.  All it has to do is choose a beacon type, select a platform, and execute a design. I would be most grateful if the window salesman suddenly assumed the form of a beacon.

(Read More : designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=278669 )