Marketing is no longer just a means of getting a customers to shop in-store – now, a significant number of retail merchants are leveraging proximity advertising to encourage consumers to take specific action.

A new IBM study suggests 72 percent of consumers would act on a marketing message they receive while in sight of a retailer. Given the fact that more than 1 billion people worldwide now own mobile phones, the devices are the perfect means for retailers to deliver these messages.

"The connection is clear: Marketers that can reach the customer at the point of sale can harness the enormous potential of proximity marketing," MediaPost adds. "Thanks to a pervasive mobile culture in which consumers use smartphones as portable windows to the world, marketers have the power to deliver the right message at the right place when they combine mobile messaging capabilities with digital signage tools."

Walgreens is one of the many retail merchants integrating smartphones into store operations. The brand recently began sending digital coupons and catalogs to people as they entered stores.