The term 'growth hacking' was coined in 2010 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Ellis. Since then it's become a buzzword, hipster-izing every aspect of marketing that it touches. But at its core, growth hacking means understanding your customer and experimenting with low-cost methods to acquire and retain more customers at an aggressive pace. 

If you're not already using location data, it's time to start. Location data is the ultimate growth hack for many businesses, providing the opportunity to better serve customers, optimize processes and create new revenue streams because it allows organizations to personalize interactions and offerings to precisely what customers want when they want them.

In this post, we'll discuss how location data can help your business grow.

What Can Location Data Do For Your Business?

Location data in business has the power to dramatically improve strategic decision-making, customer targeting, and business operations. From seemingly minor fixes like improving checkout pages to revamping an entire marketing strategy, businesses can find several opportunities to utilize location data.

Simplify Checkouts For eCommerce

According to the Baymard Institute, seventeen percent of online shopping carts are abandoned due to a complicated checkout page. It's a big problem for online retailers, costing them billions each year—but with location data at your disposal, you can reduce your cart abandonment rate dramatically. 

One solution to this problem is address autofill. Instead of tedious, multi-field address forms, address autofill allows customers to enter the correct address using only a few keystrokes. Not only does it speed up the checkout process, but it also ensures address accuracy. This reduces failed deliveries, saving the company money, reducing wasted time for delivery drivers, and increasing customer satisfaction.

Power Ten-Minute Deliveries

Customers are expecting faster delivery times, and businesses must adapt to their expectations or fall behind competitors. But, how do purchases go from order to delivery in ten minutes or less? The answer is optimizing each aspect of the delivery process using geographical data.

Find The Best Location To Distribute From

Businesses can use Movement Data to visualize where their customers are located and optimize retail site selection. If a surf apparel company’s customers are primarily located up the coast, precise movement data will help the company find the ideal location for a warehouse.

Choose The Perfect Driver

Using a Matrix API, businesses can assign deliveries to the correct driver based on factors like location, traffic patterns, and order constraints such as vehicle capacity.

Build Optimized Delivery Routes

Easily monitor and manage your delivery operations with route optimization, live tracking, and driver navigation using fleet optimization software. Fleet optimization software uses geographical data to provide fast and efficient algorithms for route optimization, allowing you to monitor drivers’ progress, and helping them avoid traffic jams or construction delays. These algorithms create the ideal route, sequence, and boundaries for last-mile delivery. 

Anticipate Customer Needs

By anticipating customer needs, businesses can connect with them before competitors do. However, by anticipating incorrectly, businesses risk annoying customers with irrelevant alerts, suggestions, or ads. It’s imperative for companies to use precise location data to anticipate needs accurately.

One example of how location data can help anticipate a customer's needs is by providing weather reports to a traveler a week before their anticipated trip. Mapbox incorporates weather data into its location intelligence solutions and enables travel brands to create content personalized to every customer based on their travel plans. If rain is predicted, an automated email can remind that customer to pack an umbrella before heading to London or shorts if hot weather is in the report. 

Another great example of how businesses can anticipate customer needs are automotive navigation systems which can point out relevant checkpoints, EV charging stations, or interesting destinations along the route. Meanwhile, travel companies can use mobile applications to improve their customer’s vacations by highlighting points of interest by utilizing location data specific to the customer.

Visualize Data In Meaningful Ways

It’s no secret that data visualization is a powerful tool. It can help you make better decisions, see patterns in your data and create compelling narratives. According to Demand Gen Report, 91% of buyers prefer visual content rather than traditional formats. Visualization is a vital way for businesses to provide meaningful information to customers and become a resource they seek out.

For example, the Western Fire Chiefs Organization uses location data to keep Americans updated on forest fires while Green Mountain Power keeps Vermont residents in the loop when it comes to power outages.

Retail companies can use data to inform customers of nearby locations where a certain item is in stock. Companies like Airbnb and VRBO can show customers maps of the best deals in cities that customers are eager to visit.

Provide Immersive Experiences

The visual, auditory, and tactile nature of immersive experiences makes them inherently more engaging than static content. This means that brands can use this powerful form of digital marketing to create brand awareness and increase sales in multiple ways.

For example, Strava recently used Mapbox to create a custom map made specifically for the Tour de France. Strava users were able to follow the journey along the winding route — viewing uploads from pro riders, learning segment insights from each stage, and riding along with official Tour challenges. 

Geo-Targeted Marketing

If a customer is located in Hawaii, why are they receiving an advertisement for skiing gear? The customer is probably asking themselves this question and questioning the legitimacy of the business that showed them the ad. 

Geo-targeted marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses location data to deliver ads to specific audiences. It’s an effective way to increase brand awareness and drive foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores, but it can also be used to attract new customers and retain existing ones.

80% of consumers say they would like to receive location-based alerts from businesses. By zeroing in on customers based on their locations, demographics, and movement data, businesses market more effectively. This can lead to an increase in conversions, inspire brand loyalty, and ensure future growth. 

Mapbox Is The All-In-One Location Data Solution

Location data is a goldmine of information for businesses. It allows them to better serve their customers, optimize processes, and create new revenue streams.

Location data allows you to:

• Improve customer service by knowing when and where customers are most likely to visit your business—and deliver a personalized experience based on that data.
• Optimize operations by reducing costs through more efficient use of resources (both human and material).
• Create new revenue streams by offering services that take advantage of the knowledge obtained from location-based analytics.

Mapbox’s location data is powered by hundreds of data sources, and more than 700 million monthly active users all over the world. This data can be easily integrated into different platforms, maps, and intelligence solutions to solve the problems that businesses face. 

When gaining a competitive edge in business, every detail matters. Companies must take advantage of the resources available to run smooth, innovative, and intelligent operations. With Mapbox location data and development tools, businesses are sure to satisfy demanding customers and see their companies rise to new heights.

Learn more about Mapbox here.