On The Heels Of New Funding, Swirl Rolls Out In-Store Mobile Marketing Platform
Boston-based Swirl Networks has announced has released a new indoor marketing tool, which provides tools for retailers to create and deliver personalized content to their customers based on the customer’s in-store location. The company launched a pilot program of the platform in May for retailers including Kenneth Cole and Timberland, and has now released the service to the general public.
Swirl, which closed an $8 million round of funding from Hearst Ventures last week, uses micro-location with a retailer’s app to deliver offers and content to customers while they shop. The platform uses Bluetooth Low Energy-powered indoor positioning beacons to automatically verify the precise location of a shopper using the app, according to the company.
“During our pilot, 88 percent of shoppers said that the in-store mobile experience was valuable or highly valuable,” Hilmi Ozguc, Swirl’s Founder and CEO told Street Fight. “The benefit to consumers is that they receive highly relevant and valuable content and offers at exactly the time when it is most useful – while they are shopping in the store. Shoppers loved the fact that the content and offers were automatically delivered based on the store they were shopping in, and many commented that it made their shopping fun.”
In addition to the beacons, Swirl’s platform also offers retailers the opportunity to embed its technology into their own branded retail apps, providing a host of white-label self-service marketing tools for in-store mobile campaign management and analytics through a unified console.
With cash in the bank, Ozguc says the company plans to move upstream, bringing its technology to “large scale, multi-category retailers, including department stores and big box chains.”
Myriah Towner is an intern at Street Fight.