One of the benefits of location intelligence is how readily it can be enriched with other types of data.  Location intelligence can provide businesses with insights into consumer movement patterns.  When location intelligence is merged with other datasets, companies can better understand the context (both the where and why) surrounding human mobility in the real world. 

For example, location intelligence can provide insights into how consumer foot traffic to a particular area changes over time and where consumers traveled from to visit that area.  Add census data to enrich these location-based insights and now your businesses can get a more in-depth understanding of the market that those visitors represent.  

To illustrate this example, we analyzed Gravy Area Visitors and Trade Area data to learn more about visitors to a popular outlet mall, which is part of the Simon Premium Outlets brand, located in the D.C. metro area.  

Location intelligence from these two Gravy data products provides a snapshot of visitors to this outlet mall, as well as how their visits trend over time.  It also informs us of where those visitors travel from to shop at this outlet mall.  The mall is located in Northern Virginia, so it is not surprising to see that it draws many of its visitors from within the state and surrounding counties. The data also reveals that shoppers also come from Maryland, West Virginia, and even Florida to visit this mall.  These areas may represent secondary markets that Simon Premium Outlets should target to acquire new customers. To effectively reach these new markets with compelling marketing campaigns, Simon will have to understand more about the interests of consumers in those areas. This is where data enrichment with census data comes in.

What insights can Simon Premium Outlets get from combining location intelligence with census data?  They can not only analyze foot traffic patterns to and from the mall, but also the core demographics of the areas from which visitors travel. If they isolate one of those markets, census data appended to our location intelligence can give insight into everything from household income, to home value, to population breakdown by gender in that area and more.

Each type of data that companies invest in powers its own set of use cases.  Businesses should invest in real-world data like location intelligence that plays well with other types of data.  In this case, Simon Outlet Malls could use a combination of location intelligence and census data to:

• Determine new markets and inform marketing programs to acquire new customers.
• Predict foot traffic patterns of consumers from different areas for operational planning.
• Discover the best locations  to build new malls based on market demand. 

For more information on Gravy Area Visitors and Trade Area data with census information, speak with a location intelligence expert from Gravy Analytics today.