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The importance of spatial marketing can also be measured by trying to count the companies that offer software and services called geomarketing. All the proposals from specialized companies can be found on the Internet. But one may wonder how to choose a software or a geomarketing “solution”. Several selection criteria govern this decision⁴:

 – a geomarketing software must have a “user-friendly and intuitive back office” with understandable options;

 – importance of an option to integrate external data in order to be able to deal with company-specific problems;

 – possibility of frequent software updates;

 – presence of modules allowing the study of consumer behavior, but also, for example, of real estate prospecting;

 – of course, the cost: you can choose a flexible rate or a package depending on what you want to do with the software.

For example, these software applications allow customer spatial analyses to be carried out in order to help sales representatives control their tours and prospecting activities, or to help them identify store customers. To do this, these analyses are carried out in four stages:

 – the geocoding of customers’ addresses according to the number in the street where they live. There may also be the step of processing or pre-processing the data. These GIS integrate in particular spatial clustering functions or models (Huff – see Chapters 2 and 4 – on Geoconcept, add-on resolution of location-allocation models on ArcGis, etc.), R software functions on QGIS, etc.;

 – the preparation of the map, in other words, all the layers necessary to produce the map according to the desired level of detail:- physically geographical obstacles: rivers, mountains, forests, etc.;- road and rail infrastructure;- large locations: airports, military camps, universities, hospitals, etc.;

 – represent on the map, prepared for this purpose, the geocoded addresses of customers to see if they are grouped or scattered;

  – choose a scale so that the map is sufficiently clear in its reading and that the identification of customers is immediate.

On the map in Figure 1.2., we can see the presence of a store (blue star) and customers (red triangles). It is quite easy to distinguish the edges of the strongest customer area. The analysis then involves dividing the market area studied into cells: cells of 10 miles are suggested for a local study and 100 miles for a national study.

Figure 1.2. Map of the addresses of the clients (triangles) of a firm located south of Paris (source: Spatialist)5 . For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/cliquet/marketing.zip