How to launch a proximity advertising campaign?

Employing Bluetooth technology to do proximity marketing by targeting people's mobile phones, laptops and handhelds. A contemporary permission-based advertising solution to do cell phone advertising without any costs for the recipients.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Proximity marketing is the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular private or public place. It does not make any sense to employ broad range wireless technologies like GSM to do proximity marketing as targeting people within a place is very difficult. We are not saying that it is not feasible, in fact it is, but we need to equip a particular place with a system/device to collect people's cell phone numbers, transmit them to the central station and have the central station broadcast ads for that particular place.
2. For sure that system/device must track the entry and exit of each individual to start/terminate sending ads to that person. It sounds like lots of headache and also spending lots money! Small size businesses may not be able to afford such system to purchase. Large size corporations like large retail areas will be disappointed soon due to the complicated maintenance of this system and probably high costs. There is another alternative that can be very helpful in launching local-based advertising campaigns. That alternative is employing short range wireless technologies to cover a predetermined area. Now, the first question is that what technology can be suitable, the second one why, and the third question is what percentage of people can be targeted by that technology.
3. WiFi, and Bluetooth technologies are two well known short-range wireless technologies in the market. Something like 95% of new cell phones have been equipped with Bluetooth radio and so many people keep Bluetooth radios on to transfer files, musics, pictures, communicate with their headsets or vehicle's Bluetooth hands-free system. The omnipresent of mobile phones and their Bluetooth capability, opens up a new door to marketing strategies. According to the market research conducted in few crowded private places of Toronto, Canada like well known busy restaurants by Proximitia Marketing Inc., roughly 60% of people keep their cell phones' Bluetooth radios on.
4. Therefore, there is a really remarkable chance in getting advertising contents to people's mobile phones. This sort of marketing is called proximity marketing. To perform proximity marketing, usually a Class '1' Bluetooth-enabled device that broadcasts advertising contents is required to be installed somewhere with a good signal exposure in a private or public place. This device or access point keeps sending a signal within a predetermined range so that once another Bluetooth-enabled device like mobile phone, laptop or PDA enters that signal range, it starts communicating with that mobile phone by initiating a connection. The mobile device responses back to the access server and the required file transfer protocol is initialized afterwards. The file transfer protocol is usually OBEX protocol. Upon initializing this protocol, the mobile phone prompts the user by getting the user confirm receiving the content. Once the user confirms it, the access server starts transmitting the contents to the mobile phone or laptop. The beauty of this system is in permission-based model as the contents is not downloaded to the mobile phone if the mobile's owner does not want to receive anything.