IoT Applications and Benefits of Location Data

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has given birth to both excitement and confusion among emerging technology enthusiasts. While some say it is more important than the Internet, others say it is a façade and soon to evaporate technology. In this article, you will find out more about IoT applications as it specifically applies to location data.

What is IoT?

Any object that can connect to the internet and is not a computer or a mobile device qualifies as part of the collection of the Internet of Things.

These various objects can include a variety of unexpected things such as wearables, animals, mechanical machines, and even digital machines. In essence, to qualify as an IoT device, such an object must have two sides:

• The object itself
• A connection to the Internet

Without these, such an object is of little importance to the world of IoT. Let’s consider the various types of objects in the IoT space:

• Wearables

  The sport fitness bands to monitor calorie expenditure and heartbeats, or virtual glasses, or GPS belts are energy-efficient devices and a few examples of wearable devices companies such as Google, Samsung, and others have created and introduced into our daily lives to collate and properly organize information about their users.

• Health

  It has also advanced into the health sector, giving way to technology such as Smart beds which are laced with sensors and are connected to the patient’s body to allow the doctors to observe blood pressure, body temperature, vital signs, and several more. The IoT can also improve the care for patients and prevent lethal events in patients with severe conditions.

• Traffic monitoring

  The Internet of things is very helpful in managing traffic in large cities. Little do you know that when you use your mobile phone as a sensor to collect and pass data from your motorcar through applications like Google Maps, you are using the Internet of Things to inform yourselves and others about traffic monitoring, conditions of different routes, distance, and estimated time of arrival.

• Fleet management

  When you install sensors in fleet vehicles, you automatically establish an effective interconnection between the cars and their managers as well as between the driver and the car.

  In such an instance, both the driver and manager can know all the details about the vehicle such as operation, route, needs of the vehicle, and even problems. In the case of any strange incident, you can get an alarm. IoT even helps in reducing pollution from the cars to the environment, save fuel, analyze performance, and control telemetry.

• Agriculture

  Did you know that smart farms exist? And not just that, they are beautiful and effective as they give farmers details and valuable information about soil condition, level of acidity, the temperature of the soil, presence of nutrients, how to control irrigation, the best periods to plant and harvest, how to discover diseases in the plants, soil moisture and many more.

• Hospitality

  Did you know that five-star hotels now apply IoT to the hotel and hospitality industry to give customers an upgrade in the quality of the service they receive? World-class or top-rated services now involve technological mechanisms that are not always necessary but make for a creative and interesting experience.

  With new devices such as electronic keys, the door can be remotely disabled, information about the room can be offered immediately, and more. It also helps in automatically charging the account of the room, order room service, and gain more information about activities in the hotel that are of interest to you.

• Smart grid and energy saving

  The IoT has also dived into the energy sector. Now, we have sensor meters, intelligent energy meters, and others that allow you to properly control and monitor your electrical works.

  It even increases your knowledge as it gives you important information about your electricity consumption pattern, how to adjust or reduce energy usage in your home, and even how to make some quick repairs.

• Water supply

  IoT has also helped in incorporating sensors into water meters with the right software and what will this help you achieve? You can collect, process, and analyze data that will give you an in-depth understanding of consumers’ behavior, fault detection in supply service, track consumption information in real-time, receive automatic alerts regarding leakages in the water system, and report results.

• Maintenance management

  One core area where the application of IoT technology is used more than normal is the area of maintenance management. When you combine sensors and software specialized in CMMS/ EAM maintenance management, a multifunctional tool will be obtained whose use applies to a multiplicity of disciplines, with the main purpose of extending the life of physical assets, while simultaneously guaranteeing availability and reliability of the asset.

Benefits of Location Data

1. Real-time targeting

   The most obvious benefit of location data is that it gives you the ability to deliver real-time targeted advertising, meaning if you know that a friend of yours is in a specific relevant location, maybe inside one of your hotels or is approaching a city that you have a presence in, you can immediately deliver custom messages that have a higher likelihood of resonating to them.

   This approach is very effective; therefore it should not surprise you that professional marketers all over the world have embraced this technique.  According to BIA Advisory Services data and as cited by eMarketer and now us, “Some 71% of franchise businesses say they are utilizing mobile location-aware ads to reach audiences and 84% are using targeted social ads which often have a location a component”.

2. Segmentation

   Data based on the only location will not just assist in improving marketing efforts in the meantime, but it will also boost effectiveness and efficiency over time. This is because it has better segmentation functionality. When you link location with behavior, it becomes easy for you to place your audiences in particular groups such as those that buy from you regularly and those who only buy from you during festive periods.

   If you think this segmentation is not important, then you have not gone through the recent survey conducted by RetailTechNews which explained that retailer business owners in the UK who use location information say that building an accurate location-based audience into groups or segments is the most valuable insight to be gained from this sort of data.

3. Customer insights

   A very important way, although underrated, through which location information helps businesses over the long term is through gaining better customer insights. This occurs when you combine location data with savvy analysis.

   Through this, you will gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of complex behaviors, such as where your customers commute to and from, the distances they travel, and how they use their time in different places. Cuebiq data recently conducted a report on customer insight showing us why it is very important for both small and large-scale business owners to apply location data.

4. Attribution

   Have you tried all the advertising techniques you know? Are they effective, as in, have they had various positive effects on your business? If yes, congratulations. If no, why not employ location data and get the answers to these questions. You can attribute revenue to certain market investments by specifically linking your audience offline actions, like purchases, to campaign and visits.

   The exciting part for marketers is that they can really tap into the attribution power now as it is still fresh and not yet fully utilized by people. It is however certain that in time new technological innovations will provide a better understanding of attribution and its impact on the business world. According to SAS data by eMarketer, a huge share of retail business owners see value in IoT innovations.

   The current geo-based technologies have the ability to transform marketing thereby enabling brands to have a greater reach to their customers and understand them more effectively and efficiently.

   But it is vital for any marketer to realize that all of these benefits of location data could vanish if consumers decide not to reveal their personal information again.

   This is why treating their data respectfully and securely is highly important, because if your carelessness as much as hurt a single strand of hair on their head, you might not just lose attribution, your business will also be at risk.

To conclude, an IoT device is basically a non-traditional object usually connected to the Internet, having at least one sensor or actuator before any benefit can be gained from this connection. We hope you were able to enhance your knowledge on IoT and see how it can be applied to several business segments.