Ping4 was developed to help giant retail chains such as McDonalds, to improve same store sales and operating margins, and to cut down on waste inventory. This is the “Holy Grail” of e-commerce marketing for brick and mortar retailers combining location, deals, and mobile apps, in three part harmony. Ping4s allows any retail chain with public Wi-Fi LAN hotspots, such as McDonalds, to create and modify real time product specials, directed to specific and nearby customers, and thereby to influence onsite consumer behavior and create real time demand.
Whereas Groupon or LivingSocial offer a “deal of the day” hoping to land 1,000 new customers for a select retail client. Ping4s focuses on reaching the thousands of potential customers who travel each day near your stores, and within the radius of your store’s Wi-Fi LAN hotspot.
Ping4s was designed for giant retail chains which are too big for Groupon, and who don’t want to outsource marketing, or sacrifice profit margin. We offer enormous advantages over Groupon or LivingSocial, including greater control, flexibility and much lower cost.
As a simple example, our local McDonalds realize that they have made too many blueberry muffins today. The store manager can “Ping” an instant promotion to nearby smart phones, iPads and laptops, “Half priced muffin with the purchase of coffee!” If that doesn’t clear up the excess inventory, they can offer a better promotion, “Buy coffee, get a free muffin!” or, “Special promotion! Buy a half a dozen McDonalds muffins for $1.50, only while supply lasts!” The moment that the muffin inventory is gone, the promotion can be halted.
Every smart device with Ping4 software installed will “wake up” as it approaches the radius of the McDonalds public Wi-Fi hotspot, and they can then see these McDonalds promotions. Either McDonald’s corporate marketing, or the store manager can control when and how often promotions are seen.
Specials can also be directed from corporate to the thousands of potential customers who travel within 500 feet or so of each of your stores. Your corporate marketing group in Seattle can reach potential customers near every of your 16,635 stores worldwide, all day long, all night long, every minute of every day. With all of the other things that you sell besides coffee and food, this is a unique and an inexpensive way, to leverage your advertising and marketing budget. For example, buy four bags of McDonalds coffee, and get a free McDonalds travel coffee mug. This creates great value for your franchises globally because it improves same store sales, and it’s easy for you to implement and manage on a global basis.
Ping4 is a phenomenal technology for attracting the most valuable possible prospect, the nearby impulse buyer who wasn’t planning to stop at McDonalds. It is also a great way to influence additional discretionary purchases from the customer who came in to buy coffee, and then decide to buy a muffin, a breakfast sandwich, or the special deal of the moment.
Ping4 has extremely high reliability, because Wi-Fi works better than GPS inside of buildings. Ping4 is “idiot simple” for both the retailer and the customer. The customer can download our software, which is available free at iTunes right now. But it’s even simpler that, the customer doesn’t even need to download software. Any smart device with a browser can bookmark Ping4s, and get specials wherever they are.
The way the Ping4s bookmark works is that each Wi-Fi Hotspot has its own unique external IP address which precisely identifies the particular physical location to the internet and for local access. We automatically register the external IP address for each of your 16,635 stores worldwide with Ping4s.com. When the customer hits the “x.Ping4s.com” bookmark, anywhere in the world, Ping4s automatically redirects the request to the web page associated with that physical location.
We envision customers sharing these immediate McDonalds offers out through their social networks, through their mobile devices, resulting in individuals actually meeting in person to take advantage of these Ping4s offers. This will move the social experience off the web and back to an in person experience. This will deliver the true 1:1 marketing experience, originally promised in Web 2.0, but until now, not truly delivered.
Ping4s is ideally suited to giant retail chains because it scales globally quickly almost instantly, and allows global retailers to immediately influence onsite consumer behavior, create real time demand, and improve same store sales. With a small investment of about 0.01% of sales revenue, these businesses can create significant top line growth.
To emphasize a point, Groupon offers a “deal of the day” if you are willing to wait two months, Ping4s can manage a “deal a minute” and you can create these specials instantaneously and throughout the day. Ping4s also has the advantage of zero incremental cost, because there are no middlemen, the retailer has complete control of all promotions.
Ping4 is Groupon for businesses that are too big for Groupon, who need more control over the marketing specials, and who don’t want to give up gross margin to attract new customers. This innovative convergence of location based marketing, mobile technology, and social media, is a terrific way for giant retail chains to improve same store sales. All you need is a Wi-Fi LAN, and since McDonalds has already made this investment, cost is miniscule.