SMS Mobile Marketing Software for Car Dealers

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

Any type of car dealership can benefit from SMS mobile marketing software. The power and scope of mobile marketing is unparalleled in the advertising world and gives car dealers the chance to market directly to their customers’ hands. Think about it, how many people do you know that have either a cell phone or a smart phone? Now think about how many people don’t have either of these. There’s a pretty big discrepancy isn’t there? The fact is that an overwhelming majority of people own cell phones these days, and on top of that they are always on them! To be more specific, 99% of the U.S. population owns a cell phone and 97% of them are within 3 feet of their phones 24 hours a day! So it is clear that people not only own phones, but they are constantly on or around them. What better way to market to people than through the very thing they use almost literally all day?

istock_000019701534xsmall

The 3 main forms that mobile marketing works through are mobile websites, smartphone apps, and SMS (or text) messaging. SMS marketing is literally cheaper per message than snail mail, and unlike email blasts, the message is sent directly to your customer’s phones. Using SMS marketing is cheaper than developing an app for a specific dealership and much easier than optimizing your mobile site for the many different types of cell phones. The beauty of SMS is that it also doesn’t require a smartphone. SMS marketing works on regular cell phones and smartphones alike so you know you’ll be reaching that 99%. Think your messages won’t be read? Well statistically speaking, 94% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of arrival, and anytime someone receives a text message, they have to open it up and read it before they can delete it. So no worries, your messages will be read.

Text message marketing is very simple. All you need to do is set up a short code that people can opt in to. Customers will simply text the 5 or 6 digit short code with the keyword you give them and they are automatically opted into your service. Once customers are opted into your service, you can now text them with offers, promotions, events, or service specials. Any one of these can and will drive customers into your lot and through your doors.

So how do you get customers to text your short code? A great way to start is by posting signs and posters listing your keyword and short code. You can also put that information on return orders. Give customers incentive to opt into your service by offering them something in return for their text. So how will this look? Let us show you:

  • A customer walks into your dealership and sees a sign on the wall that says “Text CAR to 12345 to receive a FREE dealership t-shirt.”
  • The customer texts the number, receives the coupon on their phone, presents the text to a sale representative, and then recieves their free t-shirt.
  • Now the customer is happy because they just got something free and you’re happy because they are now on your mobile contacts list and will receive all future promotions and offers you will be sending out.

3005

So now you have a list of customers in your subscription database and you want to start marketing to them. Picture this scenario:

  • Your particular dealership tends to be slow on Wednesdays, so you decide to offer a promotion on the spot.
  • You send out a text that reads “Come in today between 8AM and 4PM and get a FREE $25 gas card.”
  • Your customers receive the message and are now considering walking onto your lot and through your doors when before they weren’t even considering it. Plus, you’ll probably make a sale or two you wouldn’t have before.

The possibilities are endless. With SMS mobile marketing, you have the power to send out and control any and all promotions and offers coming out of your dealership. You can use it like the scenario above where you create a promotion on the spot, or you can use SMS to reinforce already existing promotions and offers and remind customers of them. The only limits are what YOU choose. So why wait? There is easy money to be made using SMS mobile marketing!

Mobile In-Game Advertising Takes Off

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Most people see the average gamer as someone who is in college, male, and has all the latest consoles and gadgets. However, upon further review, this is actually a false perception. In actuality, according to the Entertainment Software Association, the average gamer (68% male, 47% female) is 30 years old, has a college degree, and has been playing video games for 12 years. The average social network gamer is someone who earns around $50,000 a year and is around 30 years old. So you can see why mobile in-game advertising has become a very important part of mobile marketing.

Considering that social network gamers spent $24.7 billion on gaming equipment and software in 2011, there is clearly a lot of money to go around for marketers. If you are not putting aside a spot in your budget for mobile in-game advertising, you are missing out on that $24.7 billion. That number is actually bigger now since the mobile in-game advertising market is growing. It is only natural for you as a marketer to go where the masses are. Right now, the masses have mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, and on those devices they are playing games such as Angry Birds, Temple Run, and Ruzzle to name a few. This is where mobile in-game advertising comes in. Because of the onslaught of people using mobile games, marketers have learned to adapt with product placement, advergames, billboards advertsing real brands within virtual worlds, mobile email, SMS, and push notifications.

Before diving into mobile in-game advertising, you need to be aware of two things. One, mobile devices hold a TON of potential when it comes to advertising, and two, today’s gamers are used to being bombarded by in-game advertising. This means you need to figure out the delicate balance between successfully marketing to people on mobile games, and overdoing it to the point where you are only hurting yourself and your brand.

Studies have shown that gamers are extremely fickle when it comes to advertisements. 61% of them prefer in-app advertising if the game is a free download. 39% would rather just pay for the game without advertisements. However, a whopping 72% of gamers actually prefer immersive ads and push notifications as opposed to banner ads.

Considering all of this, marketers need to be smart about when and how often they send out messages and pay attention to details such as mobile device type, location, and buying habits of the user in order to best take advantage of mobile in-game advertising. Ideally, your messages will have max relevance with max influence. You will also want to retarget messages that are not getting the response you want. Ari Brandt, CEO of MediaBrix, a social branding company, gave an example of how companies can leverage in-game advertising to their favor, “Imagine you’re playing a game, and you need a power-up. So a message pops up and says: ‘John, your power is low. Interact with this Coca-Cola ad and receive five free power-ups.'”

14572

Brandt’s example highlights the importance of push notifications. Push originally started as a service to continuously update wireless email inboxes, but has since morphed into what we see on our mobile phones today. Push IO, one company that is using push, reported a 25% growth rate and now boasts over 6 billion push notifications sent to date. Other companies have also reported astound push numbers. Urban Airship, a push provider, reported over 10 billion notifications sent, and Apple’s Push Notification Service has reported an unparalleled 1.5 trillion push notifications sent. With such large amounts of push notifications being sent out, it is only natural to come to the conclusion that mobile gamers are not only receiving them, but they areresponding to them. You WILL NOT survive in today’s marketing environment if you just ignore push notifications and in-game advertising.

So we’ve already illustrated why mobile in-game advertising is important, but simply launching a campaign does not guarantee its success. You must be able to put together messages that provide value, are delivered at opportune times, and are delivered in the proper format. This will require real-time analysis of what’s working and what isn’t. Companies and brands can best do this by using targeting, retargeting, and A/B split testing techniques. (A/B split testing is sending out different versions of a message to see which gets the best response.)

Video games are fun, engaging and are a great way to reach and engage users and expose them to your brand. However, in the game of marketing, you do not get extra lives. Make sure that you and your company are taking full advantage of the opportunities that mobile in-game advertising offers and see your high score (ROI) blow through the roof of your previous record.

So come join the game and let’s play!

Local and Mobile Marketing Spending Continues to Increase

/0 Comments/in , /by

Everyone already knows that marketing has gone digital and it is never coming back. However, a lot of people are unaware that marketing is also starting to go local. A recent study conducted by BIA/Kelsey, an advertisement consultation firm, has discovered that spending on both local and mobile marketing is set to increase from $132.5 billion in 2012 to $148.8 billion in 2017. That is a 12.3 percent increase in spending, or 16.3 billion dollars.

marketing_local

Mark Fratrik, Chief Economist at BIA/Kelsey, says that local marketers will increase their spending on local advertising just under 9 percent by 2015, while national marketers will likely increase their spending up to 20 percent. Realize that the 12.3 percent of increased spending will NOT come from local marketers, but from larger national brands. However, national marketers are starting to take note of the fact that sometimes it is better to market to a smaller area, rather than nationally, to get the best results out of their campaigns.

“Large advertisers are realizing that sometimes a nationwide message won’t work; sometimes you need to tailor an ad to a particular area,” commented Fratrik.

Fratrik also mentioned that a majority of spending on marketing will occur on the digital side. Digital media spending has been forecasted to double by 2017. This amounts to $41.1 billion in marketing and close to a third of all spending digitally. On the other side of marketing, spending is expected to plateau or even start to tail off in traditional marketing mediums like magazines, newspapers, and yellow pages. It is expected that marketers will be spending around 107.6 billion on traditional marketing mediums in 2017, or a 1 percent decrease.

It has been theorized that the increase in spending on digital mediums will be driven by marketers spending more on mobile advertising. In fact, mobile marketing spending is expected to increase to $6.4 billion by 2017. That is a 600 percent increase! Oh, and by the way, online marketing is also expected to pick up 46.5 percent.

google-local-search-results-barbershop

“Mobile’s the explosion,” said Fatrik. “Just the way it affords advertisers the ability to target people in specific locations at specific times. If you want to advertise something like a lunch special, most working people can’t be reached by local TV or radio, and they’re not necessarily reading the newspaper. But they have a mobile device that can display an ad at 11:15 for french fries at McDonald’s that’s three blocks away. And boy, that’s the great aspect of it”

So as you can see, local marketing as well as mobile marketing are continuing their meteoric rise to the top of the marketing hierarchy. Companies can no longer survive just on traditional outbound marketing alone. You must have some sort of an inbound marketing strategy, whether it’s SMS marketing, mobile optimization, SEO, content creation, etc. in order to make it in today’s world of digital media. But don’t worry, you are not alone. Agencies like us here at Anchor Mobile are here to help!

Why Mobile Marketing’s Future is in Responsive Web Design

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The face of marketing is changing, and along with that, the face of retail and mobile marketing is also changing. With today’s newer, faster, and more efficient technology starting to be understood by the general populace, people are starting to use different methods to satisfy their consumerist needs. To put this into perspective, let’s size up what happened during the holiday season in November and December of last year.

jyske-bank-on-many-platforms

For starters, records were set on Cyber Monday. The one-day sales record was broken when over $1.4 billion dollars worth of products were sold, 13 percent of these sales were conducted through mobile devices. Do the math and it comes out to $182 MILLION dollars worth of products sold through mobile devices in one day!Additionally, sales through mobile devices were almost literally split 50/50 between phones and tablets. More specifically, 60 percent of people used phones to buy things online while 40 percent of people used tablets for their online purchases.

Christmas Day was also a day for records to be broken. Over 17 million new mobile devices were activated and tablet sales actually surpassed phone sales 51 to 49 percent. This is the first time this has ever happened and is a 200 percent increase since last year for mobile devices. So we not only know that people are usingmultiple screens to buy things now, but they are also continuing to buy new screens. This solidifies mobile devices as much, much more than just a trend. Mobile devices are becoming a staple of our everyday lives, and you as a marketer need to take advantage of this!

We know everyone is going mobile, but simply reaching them through their phones and tablets is not enough. You need to ensure that consumers who visit your site via mobile find it easy to use, easy to navigate, and visually appealing. Simply put, readability equals engagement, and engagement equals revenue.

Do not forget this rule: customers WILL NOT purchase what they cannot read. If your website has not been optimized for mobile, it is almost assured that you site is hard to read, difficult to navigate, and is rather clunky in structure and visual appeal. On top of this, with a majority of the world now viewing their emails through their mobile devices, it is imperative that marketers have a strong email marketing strategy in place that is designed for mobile devices. Like we mentiond earlier, your emails must be able to be read easily on mobile devices, or they will not be read at all.

Looking at all this information, marketers should be working on, or at least thinking about, implementing a mobile marketing strategy. Why? That’s where all the consumers are, and are going. If you think the mobile market is big now, just wait until 3 years from now.

Smartphones have now eclipsed PCs in use, with over a BILLION in use. One in every five emails are viewed on an iPhone, which doesn’t even take into account Android, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile. Considering that a majority of marketing emails are designed for large screen browsers and desktops, this is a problem. If you have an email marketing campaign and expect your emails to be read on mobile devices, you MUST optimize your emails for mobile or they WILL NOT be read. If your emails are not mobile optimized, users will need to slide, pinch, and blow out the screen, and most consumers will just end up ignoring the email completely. Seventy percent of all consumers deleted their emails immediately if they did not render properly on their screens.

Along with this, 61 percent of consumers will abandon mobile unfriendly sites. So what do you do to combat this?

html5_blog_1_1

Not all smartphones are created equal, and their screens are not all the same size. So how do you design a site that is optimized for each individual smartphone without breaking the bank to do so? The answer lies inresponsive web design. Responsive design uses a single HTML5 code base to allow maximum readability and functionality across multiple types and sizes of screens; smartphones and tablets included.

It doesn’t matter if its an email, a website, or a preference center, responsive web design messages are always, and will always, be readable by end users because it adapts, reacts, and responds to whichever mobile device is trying to access it. A site designed to be 4 columns on a laptop or desktop can be 3 columns on a tablet and 2 columns on a mobile phone. The content is still the same, just the way it appears will change depending on the mobile device accessing it.

You can apply responsive web design to mobile sites as well as emails. Responsively-coded emails enables words and pictures to resize themselves so that end users will have the easiest time possible reading the email, regardless of what device they are viewing the email on. They can even show products and headlines that are specific to an individual user’s device.

The best thing about responsive web design is that it is the FUTURE. Companies and businesses everywhere are adopting responsive design into their mobile marketing strategies because, not only is is working for them now, but it will also work for them well into the future because of its adaptive capabilities.

Don’t wait! Adopt responsive web design into your mobile marketing strategy before your strategy gets left in the dust by those companies who have adopted it. Responsive web design should not be considered an option, it should be considered imperative. Any mobile marketing campaign operating with responsive web design is operating in the Dark Ages. Come out and see the light with the rest of us!

SMS Mobile Coupons On The Rise Says Report

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

According to a recent report from RadiumOne, 42.3 percent of customers would rather receive SMS-based mobile coupons than scan barcodes or use push notifications. The report, titled “Improving the Performance of Mobile Coupons”, found that 61,9 percent of people are using mobile coupons at grocery stores and retailers while51.5 percent of smartphone users choose to use mobile coupons over the 23.8 percent that use scanning-based methods.

mobilecoupon

“Based on our results, we can make the assumption that people prefer to have control over the mobile coupon process and want to have mobile coupons readily available anytime on their mobile device,” said Vice President of RadiumOne, Kamal Kaur. “Consumers also view push notifications as more invasive than SMS, which is another reason why SMS coupons are preferred.”

The report was also able to highlight how women are using mobile coupons for their household purchases, especially women among the 35-54 year old demographic. “When presented with a sales opportunity or coupon,” continured Kaur. “The in-ad options allow women to engage with a brand’s content with great autonomy and choice – a method most preferred and appreciated by this particular demographic.”

Couple this with the rise in social media and mobile and this new information revelas a very promising opportunity with women consumers for businesses and companies that still has yet to be fully taken advantage of. “A demographic, that for the most part, continues to feel misunderstood by advertisers,” said Kaur.

So we know that mobile coupons are preferred by mobile users, especially by women, so that means, naturally, mobile coupon use is also growing. Smartphones are responsible for most of the mobile coupon use, but mobile coupons are text-based so you can send mobile coupons to virtually any phone that is SMS capable.

3966814407_50249010d9_o

RadiumOne’s report examined how customers engage with mobile coupons on their mobile devices while also staying aware of which digital promotions are best designed to fit the desires of customers. As mentioned before, women between 35-54 years of age are the fastest growing mobile coupon demographic since mobile coupons are so easy for them to use. Because of this,marketers and advertisers have been given an opportunity to grow their relationships with these customers.

The report shows that users are valuing efficiency, utility, and ease-of-use with mobile coupons. They especially liked SMS-based coupons and when they were alerted about their coupons through push notifications.

The beauty of mobile coupons is that users can use them four different ways. They can scan them with a 2D barcode, check-in on a mobile app, tap their phones at a point-of-sale terminal, or use a digital loyalty card.

RaduimOne discovered a number of key marketer best practices when dealing with mobile coupons during the course of the study. They recommended multi-step redemption processes, tailoring mobile coupon offers for everyday products, pushing appropriate offers to mobile shoppers through text messaging, and taking advantage of in-app loyalty programs which will automatically redeem mobile coupon offers.

“The ability for brands to identify consumer behavior and understand when people are most likely to interact with brands on their handheld devices is critical when designing a multi-channel media strategy that may include in-store digital promotions,” noted Kaur. “According to survey findings, the top three most frequently redeemed coupon categories included groceries, retail goods and food and drink. Along with that, retailers are currently delivering coupons in four different ways including: scanning a QR code, checking-in on a mobile application, tapping their phone on a point-of-sales terminal or redeeming coupons via digital loyalty cards.”

mobile_marketing_1

So as you can see, mobile coupons are not only growing in popularity, but they are also being used more and marketers are learning how to use them more efficiently. Mobile coupons should be considered by ANY company if they want to bring in more traffic, more leads, and generate more conversions. But you need to hop on the trend now before it leaves you, and your company, in the dust.

Mobile Marketing to Increase Spending Among 12 Vertical Markets

/0 Comments/in , , /by

According to a recent report from Millenial Media, spending on mobile marketing among 12 major vertical markets has risen steadily over the past few years. Actually, the money hasn’t necessarily risen as much as it has been pouring in to mobile marketing efforts. These verticals range from government services, retailers, and restaurants.

ifwt-how-to-make-an-iphone-app-earn-money

In Millennial Media’s Smart Report, they took a look at how today’s marketers are steadily transferring their money into mobile marketing while also categorizing the top goals of marketers when they use mobile marketing strategies. “We saw 12 different verticals grow their spend in mobile by more than 100 percent year-over-year,” said Marcus Startzel, General Manager of North America at Millennial Media. “With four verticals growing spend by more than 450 percent.”

Looking at the report, the top industry to increase their spending on mobile marketing was government services. Year-over-year, government services increased their mobile marketing spending by a monstrous 860 percent! Spending from employment marketers exploded over 523 percent, travel marketers raised their spending up to 495 percent, while personal and home services and fitness and wellness health campaigns rounded out the top 5 on on the list.

Along with the top 5, the telecommunications, retail, restaurant, real estate, energy and power, entertainment, automotive, and consumer-packaged-goods businesses raised their mobile marketing budgets over 100 percent. To be more particular, retail and restaurant companies were the top verticals in the report in 2012 and accounted for over 16 percent of all total brand marketing efforts. At the same time, spending on these efforts were raised over 106 percent year-over-year. The number 2 vertical was entertainment with 12 percent of all spending going towards their mobile marketing budget.

The reasons these 12 verticals are upping their mobile marketing budgets are numerous. An example would be video. Video was incorporated into 64 percent of all mobile marketing campaigns used for either product launches or releases. On top of this, 46 percent of campaigns centered on entertainment focused on social media, 40 percent of consumer-packaged-goods businesses used social media, and 21 percent of all campaigns in the report used either a store locator or map feature. Not enough? 37 percent of campaigns implemented an app download, 29 percent of marketers took advantage of site search as a post-click action, and gaming, music, entertainment, social media, and communication apps were the top 4 categories in 2012. These apps maintained their popularity year-over-year.

420-smartphone-saving-coupons-3d.imgcache.rev1336404915069

19 percent of advertisers leveraged mobile marketing to promote mobile subscriptions and 16 percent of advertisers combined ecommerce with their mobile marketing campaigns.

The marketers were grouped into 3 separate groups when it came to marketing. They were IT decision makers, gadget geeks, and in-market auto buyers. The top goals of the advertisers using mobile consisted of keeping a presence within their respective industries, building brand awareness, and driving site traffic. “Advertisers are using our mobile audience solutions to reach specific groups of consumers,” concluded Startzel. “And whether they are targeting IT decision makers, moms, or in-market auto intenders, mobile is a channel that can work for basically any vertical.”

So as you can see, mobile marketers are starting to not only notice the benefits and advantages of mobile marketing for their businesses, but they are also beginning to learn how to properly leverage it to their advantage. Make sure you are one of these businesses! If you are not you are only asking to fall behind and lose out to the competition that IS using mobile marketing to their advantage.

Real Estate Mobile Marketing Statistics and Trends 2013

/1 Comment/in , , /by

With mobile marketing reaching new heights with the introduction of the smartphone, smart tablets, cellular data networks, and increased cell phone battery life, mobile marketing for real estate has become a growing trend within the real estate industry. Not only is the industry recognizing the need for mobile marketing, but customers and potential customers are learning how to use today’s new technology to search for and find anything real estate related.

mobile-real-estate-marketing

Mobile marketing has gotten to the point where it is considered one of the major differentiating factors when it comes to the success of a business. This is also true with real estate marketers. Companies and businesses who are still choosing not to implement a mobile marketing strategy into their overall marketing strategy are quickly falling behind their competitors. The ironic thing is that these companies aren’t using mobile marketing mostly because they either don’t see the value of the technology or they do not know how to use it.

According to the report at the bottom of this article (which you can open up and view by clicking on it), searches related to real estate on Google are up a whopping 253% in the last 4 years and up 22% in 2012’s third quarter alone. Additionally, mobile searches for real estate terms have increased 120% while searches using tablets to find real estate terms have exploded over 300%.

A majority of marketers and real estate investors are hopefully aware of the fact that 90% of all home buyers are now using the internet for their searches. Over half of that 90% is using it as their first step. Another thing a lot of people probably do not know is that people who buy foreclosures are much more likely to use the internet than others, and they alone were responsible for an increase of 180% in related searches via mobile as opposed to the 7% that used desktops.

If you ask most real estate investors, the reasons they give for not having a mobile marketing strategy right now is because they need money and deals right now and they simply do not have the time for it. These same real estate investors probably do not know that 24% of people using the internet for their home search ended up taking physical action the same day. Not enough? 60% of those same people took action within 60 days and 7 out of even 10 who took action used local keywords to search. If you’re a marketer, note that the most popular states for searches related to forclosures are Florida, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, and Illinois.

real-estate-marketing

A big marketing tool on mobile devices is video. Unfortunately, not a lot of real estate marketers fully understand how to use it efficiently. A majority of marketers think that video is used by customers and potential customers for home tours and to watch testimonials, when in actuality people use video more often to find out more about a particular community.

Lastly, but certainly not least, the marketers who will have the most success are the ones who have the most content and data. The more content and data you have the better you can market your products and services to the house seeking public. Remember this, this is important.

Unfortunately, despite all the information and statistics pointing towards a rise in mobile marketing for real estate, most real estate marketers are still not taking advantage of its endless capabilities. Think about this, it will only take two or three real estate mobile apps to lock a majority of buyers out of the market. If someone else has an app, but you don’t, why would anyone want to come to you instead of someone they can work with through their mobile devices while on the go? The same goes for entire marketing strategies. The real estate marketers who implement mobile marketing into their marketing strategies will survive, the ones who don’t? You won’t hear about them in 5 years.

Using Mobile Marketing to Build Sales and Customer Loyalty

/1 Comment/in /by

Mobile marketing is constantly changing, and companies and businesses need to adapt to these changes or they are playing a game with fire that they will not win. Luckily, there are ways for marketers to adapt to today’s continuously changing mobile market, and business to business (B2B) marketers are learning how to take advantage of mobile and the untapped business opportunities that come with it.

feature_2_mobileapp2

Unfortunately, many marketers are uneducated in the uses and benefits of mobile. Yes, a lot have a general understanding of the subject, and they know it is important, but they have not refined their craft enough to the point where they are fully taking advantage of everything mobile has to offer. Some firms don’t even have a mobile marketing strategy in place. This is mind numbing to us! Fortunately, many marketers do have a mobile marketing strategy in place and have little confusion when it comes to starting it and extending it across all the channels they want it to cover. They’re getting better, but they are still learning where to focus and how to come up with a strategy that is wide enough for the entire business, yet narrow enough to work with each individual channel.

The smartphone opens up whole new realms for marketing because of its numerous capabilities. Along with the fact that they have touchscreens, cameras, and GPS, they are also in your customer’s hands all the time. Because of this, marketers now have the capacity to create experiences that did not exist before when providing content and creating a value exchange with audiences. This can also open up conversation and dialogue between you and your customers and potential customers, creating not only sales, but customer loyalty as well. Also, remember that over 50% of executives across the country use tablets, primarily in the mornings and evenings when they can look at more in-depth content. These people obviously have much more disposable income than the general population and need to be noted when putting together your mobile content.

You also want to remember that tablets are a “lean-back” experience, which means that users have much more time to consume and digest the information given to them. This means that tablets are prime real estate for white papers and videos. If you develop an app that targets the executives, or C-suite, you can provide new alerts when new pieces of information are available. An example would be to tailor your content based upon what your customers have told you they like or dislike in the past through your interactions. Apps also make it easier to share content and information with others, which is good for content distribution and driving more people to engage with you and your company.

istock_000017005101xsmall-300x225

You can also use apps at events for lead generation. Designing an app for an event that can help lead them around and inform them about the content your brand offers, where it is set up at the venue, and what speeches may be given on the subject. Apps can also provide alerts, set up contests, and drive people who have the app to interact with others and inform them of whatever new products or services you may be releasing or launching at the event. This not only helps the customer learn about your company, but it lets the customer engage with your company.

An example of a company that has done a great job of incorporating mobile marketing to help their company is Siemens. Siemens has an app for events and other interesting apps for products. In last year’s second quarter, they introduced a service app which allowed customers to scan a barcode for any industrial equipment they buy and pull relevant FAQs and/or manuals for that particular product right there on the spot. Customers could also take a picture of the product if there was something wrong with it, or the particular problem they were experiencing and send it in to Siemens so they can set up a customer service support request. This not only provided better support and service for their customers, but they also gained a lot of positive reviews from their customers in the process since it showed that Siemens was willing to go above and beyond to serve their customers.

Looking at mobile marketing from the top, B2B marketers can greatly improve their brand’s visibility and customer’s awareness through mobile marketing, and this will only cause the brand to generate more leads. Once you’ve secured a bunch of leads, mobile can also help marketers be more efficient when dealing with prospects in the sales funnel. The revenue is generated by creating more customer interactions and sales opportunities.

From the bottom, mobile marketing will provide efficient customer service and support. This will naturally build loyalty among your customer base. If your products and/or services are truly delivering value to your customers at the bottom of the sales funnel, you will assuredly generate interest at the top of the sales funnel.

Email Marketing Responsive Design Drives More Results

/0 Comments/in , , /by

images_(2)

Marketers are beginning to learn how to be more clever and refined with their marketing approaches. Recently, they have learned how to integrate responsive web design into their mobile marketing strategies to better benefit their email marketing. Mobile email has been a big subject for marketers in 2013 since mobile rates are continuing to rise. So to take advantage of this, the idea to incorporate RWD to drive mobile results came to the forefront.

“A lot of effort is now going in to make sure users can scan and click on the email when it’s on the small screen. If it takes a user to pinch or zoom to see the email, forget it; they’re gone,” stated Matt Caldwell, Vice President of creative and agency services at Yesmail Interactive. “So one area of increased sophistication is in message design and coding.”

He also said “responsive email design is probably the best example of increased sophistication” and that “responsive coding and design of email can be complicated and time-consuming, but because of this surging open on a mobile, we see many if not all, of our clients want to do it. Why? It will alter the email layout to a true mobile design when opened on mobile.”

A majority of companies will see more than half of their commercial emails opened on mobile devices in 2013. This is according to a recent study done by Knotice. Even in light of this, Yesmail discovered that several mobile marketers are still not formatting their email correctly for mobile devices, even through their is a definite rise in email openings through mobile. In fact, it was discovered that in their survey of over 65 marketers over 6 months, Yesmail found that only 14 of 65 companies had correctly formatted their emails for mobile. Mr. Caldwell explained, “Our test was, ‘when opened on the mobile device, can I read every word and click on every link without having to adjust the email layout to make it bigger’? So we’re still seeing many email marketers are ignoring this important aspect of email; how to design and code it.”

Yesmail recognizes several ways for marketers to improve their email layouts to drive up open rates, drive up click through rates, and increase ROI. Marketers can use scalable hybrid layouts, so there’s one layout that will fit both big and small screens equally. They can also pull and link social content like tweets, photos, and comments into their messages. Yesmail also suggests incorporating a catch-all bottom navigation format to push clicks through to other category levels with a series of links at the bottom. Of course, it’s imperative to remember to include mobile call-to-actions in your emails. This is what will drive users to engage with your content.

Yesmail also recommends that marketers jump in and attempt to try to at least incorporate either scalable or responsive email design into their marketing strategy. Sometimes it’s even possible to do both.

email1

“Scalable means ‘the pumped up layout’; you keep your message with the same 600 pixels but you pump up your type, to a minimum 14 points, and you pump up your buttons,” said Caldwell. “Why make it bigger? Because when the layout is reduced to have its size on the phone it can still be read and clicked.”

Caldwell then explained responsive email design, “Responsive is using media queries to make your HTML email device aware. When it’s opened on a small screen, it will load a different set of styles that can resize, reformat, and delete to make a true mobile layout.”

If you observe the Knotice data, you’ll notice that emails are not being viewed on multiple devices. This means that if someone opens up an email on their cell phone or tablet, then the odds of them opening that same email later on their desktop back at home is very unlikely. This only highlights the fact that marketers need to integrate a mobile email strategy into their mobile marketing strategy that does not end up rendering poorly on mobile devices.

Responsive design is great, but according to Knotice, it does not address issues like matching performance levels on PCs.

Patti Renner, Director of Marketing at Knotice, pointed out, “One trend marketers are now using to address this is responsive design for email. This format strategy incorporates multiple content options built into the email, with the ability to adjust the email images and content served based on the size of the viewport when opened. This format strategy incorporates multiple content options built into the email,” she continued. “With the ability to adjust the email images and content served based on the size of the viewport when opened. While this is getting some buzz as a cure-all for dealing with device proliferation amongst consumers, responsive design is no silver bullet. Even the best responsive design on mobile may not match performance levels on PC.

“And it may not render as well on Android as it does on iPhone. Mobile optimization requires marketers to be open to testing, adjusting, testing, and then testing again to get it right for the audience”, Renner concluded.

It is also important for marketers to be aware of click activity across multiple channels at once. This is a great way to find out how people are engaging with your emails once they’ve opened them.

As of right now, click activity is still stronger on PCs and desktops as opposed to mobile devices. This will change when marketers start to send more mobile-friendly emails.

“The simple fact that click activity remains so much stronger on PC and desktop as compared to phone or tablet will likely shift when predictive design methodology is used; anticipating the device used based on a past history of email activity for that device, for that individual and designing around that.

“This is the trend we see coming for marketers; using your data for mobile optimization, while understanding individuals and the devices they use for the best mobile experience possible,” Renner concluded.

Have Push Notifications Crossed The Line?

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

crossing-the-line-300x191

Ideally, push notifications are a way for marketers to reach their consumers and customers with pertinent, well-timed messages. However, recently it seems as if push notifications are starting to wear out their welcome due to a number of issues concerning them. For one, they can become annoying or burdensome over time due to their ability to notify users at any time throughout the day or night, and two, they can drain your smartphone’s battery quicker than usual. There is also the issue of making sure your notifications don’t violate Apple’s terms and conditions. Considering all this, it still seems as if the biggest thing marketers need to learn with push notifications is to maintain moderation.

Cezary Pietrzak, Director of Marketing at Appboy in New York commented on the subject, “Much of the success of push today can be attributed to the fact that it is a new marketing channel and has not yet been exploited by the developers, but as adoption rises and more apps abuse their power to proactively contact their customers, we can expect the efficacy of push notifications to fall.”

When push notifications are used correctly, they can be extremely efficient. For example, fitness social network Fitocracy uses push to remind their customers to work out on a regual basis, airliner JetBlue uses push to alert their customers on upcoming trips, delays, or cancellation, and ecommerce retailer Fab uses push to send invitations to customers as soon as flash sales go live. “There is no question that push notifications are valuable,” Mr. Pietrzak said, “But they must be relevant to their audience and served at the right time, place, and context to achieve the greatest impact.”

“One-size-fits-all messaging does not work,” he continued, “To do push right, you first need to segment your audience into more specific groups based on their individual profiles and behaviors. You should then send them push notifications that relate to their specific needs, so that the message enhances their in-app experience.” Pietrzak noted that push is becoming eclipsed by the rise of in-app messages. In-app messages are considered a less invasive form of push notifications due to the fact that they stay within their specific apps; they don’t notify users every single time there is an alert. Users have to go to the app first.

3681-3-flight-status-pro-push-notifications

However, learning how to better target your users will enable you to send more relevant and appropriate push notifications, which will make users far less likely to see your messages as irritating or annoying. Marketers want to remember to market to individual user segments, not general groups of people. “There’s rarely a scenario where it makes sense to send the same message to your entire user base,” Mr. Pietrzak said, “Instead, focus on the needs of individual segments and tailor your offer accordingly.”

“Also, add value to the message – it is not enough to tell people, ‘Hey, come back to my app.’ You need to add some real value to the content you send, whether it is through timely reminders, breaking news, relevant offers or location-aware notifications,” he said. “Create a schedule and limit the amount of messages that you send to each person during a particular period.”

“Push is very powerful, but is easy to do incorrectly. Stop and reevaluate your strategy if it does not work. The worst thing you can do is annoy people to the point that they shut off your ability to contact them via push. If your current strategy does not work, stop contacting them, take a break and try something different – quality always beats quantity.”

Ken Gaebler, Principal and Founder of Walker Sands in Chicago, agrees. He thinks push notifications can be a very potent threat in customer engagement, but he still maintains that moderation is key. He says companies need to stop thinking purely about quantity and start thinking about the messages they are sending. “Let them determine how many they get and what topics are allowed,” he said, “The lessons are the same ones that many marketers have learned with other marketing methods, such as email marketing methods. Send too many out and you are likely to see your customer base run for the exits.”

Probably the biggest thing you want to learn about push notifications is that they should be transparent and honor your promises. It is imperative that marketers live up to their promises and not sneak in backdoor marketing that will instigate a conflagration with their customers. You also want to be aware of possibly violating Apple’s terms and conditions. “Many push notifications that are being sent out may violate Apple’s rules about not sending messages that contain advertising, promotions or direct marketing of any kind,” Mr. Gaebler said.

“When a marketer breaks those rules, they put their firm’s relationship with Apple in jeopardy and they tarnish their brand in the eyes of their end users,” he said. “It is playing with fire and the downside far outweighs the upside.”

So, as you can see, push notifications have sparked a bit of controversy considering their invasiveness. But if you know how to be clever and crafty with them, they can become a very important tool for your mobile marketing strategy. Remember Apple’s rules regarding push notifications and that moderation is key and you should be golden.