With new-age marketing tactics like geotargeting and geofencing, Moving Targets can guide clubs as they venture into the future.
(Note: This article appeared in our January 2020 issue’s Special Focus on Future Technology. All of the articles in this Special Focus will be posted to ExoticDancer.com.)
In this, the so-called “i” Generation (you know, iPhone, iPad, etc), or, if you prefer, Generation Z, more than one club owner has scanned their club’s floor and seen the glow of the 21st century reflecting the furrowed brow of someone on their smartphone. Now imagine every time you see a patron on their phone, they’re seeing an ad for your club. Time to fight fire with 21st-century fire.
If your 20 and 30-somethings are going to be on their phones (and they are), Moving Targets has the expertise to manipulate that screen time into ad time and revenue for your club. ED spoke with Jenna Gross of Moving Targets to gather more intel on how internet and smartphone-based marketing is done in 2020 and beyond.
ED: For a club owner/operator who may not be familiar with your company and its product, how would you briefly summarize Moving Targets?
GROSS: Moving Targets is a direct marketing agency located that specializes in email, social media, web design and pay-per-click advertising. Our purpose is to help businesses of all sizes connect with their customers across several different platforms. We started working with gentlemen’s clubs a few years ago by request and found we could really help them. We like the challenge of working through the red tape—we work with other industries—but we found big agencies aren’t willing to work with clubs. We are. We like using innovative tactics to get guests in the club.
ED: For those unfamiliar with geotargeting/geofencing, what is it and how exactly does the science and technology behind it work? How does geofencing combat “customer churn” as it applies specifically to gentlemen’s clubs?
GROSS: Geofencing is when you draw a virtual barrier around a location using GPS; it’s what you would do to a building if you wanted to show ads to people in that building. Geotargeting is when you use demographic filters—for example, you want to hit men ages 35-55 within five miles of your club. Geofencing is about the location, where geotargeting is about the person.
A lot of people get those two terms mixed up; you can do geotargeting with regular ads on Google Ads or Facebook. Geofencing has recently become more accessible to all budgets. The apps (map, weather, etc.) on people’s phones transmit their location and it’s that access that allows us to target people within those perimeters. The ads appear either through mobile websites or apps. Once somebody is in your club, the GPS technology captures their mobile ID and they start getting ads because we target people in those perimeters using the GPS from their phone.
Geofencing has recently become more accessible to all budgets. The apps (map, weather, etc.) on people’s phones transmit their location and it’s that access that allows us to target people within those perimeters. — Jenna Gross
ED: One of the major appeals of the kind of digital marketing you do is the ROI it delivers. Can you expound on the ROI your marketing can deliver a gentlemen’s club?
GROSS: With geofencing, we target other locations you want to show ads to and we geofence the club itself, so that way we can tell when somebody is in the location we’re targeting and if we track their phone to their club, we count that as a visit. Clubs make it really easy because a lot of them have a cover charge, so we can evaluate the cost per visit that we’re spending in ads to get someone physically in the club. This ranges by club, in regard to their area and what kind of clientele they’re going after. We’ve found 98% of people visit without clicking on the ad, so it’s akin to a billboard or radio. Just because someone’s not clicking on your ad, doesn’t mean the ad didn’t result in a physical visit.
ED: How does Moving Targets help bring gentlemen’s club owners into the future of their club’s operations?
GROSS: The adult industry has a history of ushering media revolutions. Some gentlemen’s clubs are still writing stuff on paper, doing schedules by hand, not doing anything online. We can bring these tactics to them. The kind of technology we use, we can bring to clubs without a restriction on budget because we work with other industries. We can bring them a powerful tactic to scale where they don’t have to spend an exorbitant amount.
This is foreign to a lot of people, but we basically make it available. We’re Google certified, we do Facebook training, we have access to Instagram data—we can provide that to clubs. Knowing your audience like never before helps with marketing, with every component of your club.
Jenna Gross is a previous guest speaker at the Annual Gentlemen’s Club Expo. For more information, visit movingtargets.com.
