White Castle Takes Advantage of Mobile Marketing | Another Success Story

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White Castle has become another example in a long line of success stories involving companies who have implemented mobile marketing. Recently, they integrated a mobile campaign into their marketing strategy and have seen the robust returns mobile marketing can bring. They launched their SMS campaign using a Text2Crave service which, whenever customers are near or around any of their restaurants, sends customized alerts and unique mobile coupons to them. Their customers are then given the opportunity to opt-in to White Castle’s service any time they are around or near a White Castle location. This allows them to control what and what isn’t sent to them, while also connecting into White Castle’s mobile campaign to get coupons and deals on the food they crave.

Shuli Lowy, Marketing Director at Ping Mobile, pointed out, “Mobile coupons delivered through SMS are known to have the highest redemption rates—dwarfing those of all of all other forms of distribution including direct mail, newspaper ads, mobile applications, television commercial and mobile banner ads.”

Lowy continued, “Particularly when it comes to fast food restaurants, SMS has proven to be widely effective. SMS coupons in this vertical can easily have redemption rates of 10-30 percent – especially when location targeting is added to the recipe.”

White Castle’s mobile campaign is simple and easy to understand, and that’s the beauty of it. Any normal street-goer who uses a mobile device or a smartphone is easily capable of opting-in to White Castle’s service. We’ll you how their campaign works.

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Customers or potential customers who choose to opt-in to the service can do so by texting the keyword CRAVE to the short code 25787 (you’re welcome, White Castle, for the free
promotion). Now that the customers have opted-in to the service, they will now receive real-time text mesage alerts from White Castle any time they are within a 1-5 mile radius of any White Castle location. Now, you may think this could become a problem, especially if any of these customers are near White Castles often, but White Castle has implemented a setting into their mobile marketing campaign which limits the amount of texts they send to one customer to 6 per month. This prevents them from bombarding their customers with text messages and possibly annoying or irritating them to the point where they opt-out of the service, which is obviously not something you would want.

The coupons sent through the text messages range from from discounts for the company’s Angus Steak Chili and Brownie on a Stick to deals on Sliders and other favorites. Ms. Lowy chimed in, “The mobile marketing industry has been blessed with tremendous innovation in the space and the addition of many new, exciting forms of advertising. However, the majority of those campaigns can only be executed on smartphones.14481Smartphone penetration is currently at just over half of the market.” Luckily, the smartphone market is growing rapidly and the younger generation already dominates the smartphone market with 74% of 25-34 year olds already owning smartphones. This is a growing trend that you DO NOT want to fall behind on. If you do, you and your company WILL feel the effects of it.

In addition to the Text2Crave service, White Castle is also offering two free Original Sliders to anyone who opts-in to their service. So on top of the incentive to opt-in for deals on White Castle food and products, customers also have the added incentive of just opting-in for the free Sliders.

Ms. Lowy summed up, “The beautiful thing about SMS messages targeted by location is that it enables brands to catch the right person, in the right place, at the crucial decision making moment. Opted in consumers have already expressed interest in the brand and are therefore likely to engage with it further. They are being contacted in the right place as the system can gauge whether they are within the vicinity. Additionally, messages are often pushed out pre-meal time when consumers are beginning to contemplate where to eat their next meal. That is targeting.”

SMS Mobile Marketing Best Practices

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It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned SMS mobile marketing expert, or you are just beginning, you MUST be aware of the DOs and the DON’Ts of mobile marketing. Yes, we know every marketing campaign is unique unto itself, but you will either fail or get in trouble if you do not follow these guidelines.

DO NOT Send Messages Without Permission

Never, ever, ever, EVER send a message to someone without first getting their permission first. This is the GOLDEN RULE! People need to opt-in to your text messaging service before you can start messaging them. Not only will you upset the people you messaged without permission, but it is non-compliant with regulations.

But don’t look at this as a bad thing. SMS is powerful because you have to get permission. By texting only people who have opted-in to your service, you now know you are messaging people who want to hear what you have to say! So not only will you know people are opening and reading your messages, but you will get responses and interaction from them. This only strengthens and enhances the business to customer relationship, which makes them more willing to spend their money with you!

DO Advertise Your Keyword Call-To-Action

You’re probably asking yourself, “How do I get people to opt-in to my service?” This is simple. You want to market and advertise your short code (this is your call-to-action) on any and all print materials, social media, and if you’re still traditionally marketing, on all of your TV and radio spots.

A call-to-action (CTA) looks like this: Text SHOES to 54896 for Coupons & More from Sally’s Shoe Shop!

You’ll notice there was an offer included with the short code so people have added incentive to opt-in to your service. Remember, you want to also include at the bottom of your texts a way for subscribers to opt-out of your service.

An opt-out instruction would look like this: Msg & Data rates may apply. Text STOP to opt-out.

This is good for you because it gives freedom to your subscribers. If you text them without including the opt-out at the bottom, you will not only irritate your subscribers, but this is also non-compliant. Giving subscribers freedom to opt-out of your service will make them happier and, believe it or not, less likely to opt-out of your service. Why? Because you are giving them the choice.

     DO Add Incentive To Your CTAs

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This was mentioned earlier, but this cannot be stressed enough. People really have no reason not to opt-in to your service if you are giving them something.

For example, a GREAT way to incentivize your opt-in text would be like this: Text SHOES to 54896 to get 25% of your next pair of shoes at Sally’s Shoe Shop!

Who doesn’t want a discount? On another note, the BEST way to get people to opt-in to your service is to offer FREE stuff. Now this isn’t always feasible, but it’s something to keep in mind. Always remember that incentivizing your CTAs brings guaranteed results!

DO NOT Send Text Messages Without Value

Text messaging can be the most powerful tool you use in your marketing strategy, but you need to be careful. Since SMS is such a personal and immediate medium, it can be easy to become annoying or aggravating to your subscribers. You want to remember that a lot of people still pay per text, and no one wants to be bombarded by constant texts every second of every day. This is a SURE way to lose all of your subscribers. Don’t do this! You worked hard for your opt-ins, don’t just give them up for worthless text messages. Make sure you have something to offer in EVERY text you send, or you are wasting your time and your subscribers’ time. A good guideline for sending messages out is 4-5 messages a month.

DO Make Opting-Out Easy

You may be wondering why in the world you would want to do this, but hear us out. Remember, SMS marketing is permission based. A majority of people who subscribe to your service are only doing it because they know they can opt-out at any time. You also want to note that you still spend per text (yes, it’s pennies per text, but this can add up!), so you don’t want to be sending messages to people who don’t want to hear what you have to offer. Don’t waste your money on people who are never going to listen to you, make opting-out easy!

DO Track Your Results

Don’t just run a campaign without tracking your results! You are spending money so you want to make sure you are reaching the people you want to reach. If you get the right mobile marketing platform, you can measure when’s the best time to send messages, what content is intriguing your subscribers the most, and who you are getting the most responses from. If you’re including web links in your campaign, be sure to use a link shortener such as “bit.ly” that allows you to track who is clicking on your links.

These guidelines may sound like a lot to digest right now, but in actuality they really aren’t that hard to implement. We just want to make sure that you are aware of these rules and make sure that you are compliant, while at the same time running a successful SMS mobile marketing campaign.

Godsend mobile marketers!

SMS Mobile Marketing For Schools and Universities

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SMS mobile marketing is already being implemented by schools and universitiesworldwide to make internal and external communication quicker and easier. University staffs have found that it is particularly useful when organizing open days, events for students, or simply sending updates to the students concerning on-campus activities. The beauty of SMS is that you can build a large database of mobile phone numbers so that you can contact an almost unlimited amount of people at one time (i.e. literally your entire campus.) SMS has been used to help keep administrative staff, professors, researchers, lecturers, and students up to date with any news or relevant information for the faculty and students. If you’re a school or university and you haven’t taken advantage of the power of SMS mobile marketing yet, you are falling behind! So many schools and businesses have already integrated SMS into their everyday activities to make things smoother, easier, and more efficient. If you are not one of these schools or businesses, the competition is beating you! Don’t be beat!

People seem to think that including SMS into their marketing strategy is just another thing to worry about, but in reality it’s EASY! Let us show you how!

Promote Events

Using SMS mobile marketing, you can send texts to anyone who could be interested in faculty open days, events on campus, or other events scheduled by the university. You can easily get students’ contact information during the enrollment process, and you can get faculty’s contact information through the hiring process. Remember, this is a service to them that will make their lives easier and allow them to know more of what is going on without having to run around campus. They will WANT this.

Generate New Contacts

You can create a university SMS club in which students and faculty sign up to the group by sending a text to “54869” (short codes will be given to you upon implementing SMS) with your university or school’s name. They will then be subscribed into your database and you can send anyone in the database information concerninganything they would want to know about.

Internal Communication

SMS makes internal communication unbelievably easier for schools and universities. Using SMS you can keep faculty and staff up to date on any relevant news or information, at any time. Using SMS virtually eliminates the need for bulletin boards or even emails. You also want to note that the faculty who receive these messages from you can also forward these same messages to their students if it is relevant to them.

Student Meetings

Texts can be sent out reminding students of specific meetings, club meetings, on-campus concerts, sporting events, or any other type of extracurricular activities. You can also schedule your texts ahead of time. For example, if a certain student club is meeting that evening, you can schedule a text to go out in the afternoon reminding students of the meeting. You can also be selective with who gets your message. Your messages don’t always have to go out to the entire campus.

Deadlines

SMS can be used to remind students of deadlines for assignments, projects, returning books, enrollment, or graduation.

Emergencies

Probably the most important service SMS can provide is the ability to immediately alert everyone on campus if there is an emergency. You can notify them of cancelled classes, closing of the school because of snow, accidents or tragedies on campus, or if there is a suspicious character or active shooter on campus. This is especially important considering the recent string of events concerning school shootings and college security. By using SMS to alert students and tell them what to do in the case of an emergency, SMS can literally save lives!!!

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What If I Have No Mobile Numbers?

If you weren’t able to acquire students’ mobile numbers through the enrollment process, or your faculty’s through the hiring process, you can publish your short code to any and all promotional material on campus (flyers, posters, leaflets, brochures, signs, or your university or school website.) Students and faculty can see this and can text your short code using you school’s name, which then subscribes them into your database. If none of this works, which is extremely rare, you can simply ask your students and faculty for their mobile numbers. Since this is beneficial to them, they will have no reason not to.

SMS Marketing For Hotels and Spas

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SMS mobile marketing is, simply put, a wunderkind; not just because of its ability to quickly and efficiently reach customers in real time, but it can be used for so many different types of businesses, hotels and spas included. A lot of mobile marketing is not taken advantage of simply because businesses do not think it can help them much, or they don’t know how to use it. This a big problem, because if your business is not integrating SMS mobile marketing into its marketing strategy, you are losing to anyone else who IS using it. Don’t be one of those businesses; let us help you!

SMS mobile marketing is already being integrated into many hotels’ and spa’s marketing strategies, and it is working for them. It improves customer service, encourages customer loyalty, and promotes bookings of rooms, restaurants, and spa treatments. It helps maintain a long and lasting relationship with your customers, and increases the likelihood that they will return to your business. Something as simple as automatically sending a “Thank You” message to each customer that visits your hotel or spa goes a long way in building relationships with your customers. This also builds customer loyalty and could lead to more customers coming into your business based simply off of good word-of-mouth reviews given by previous customers. You can also send messages offering discounts, special offers, or encourage future bookings from that same customer by maintaining a relationship through text messaging. Using SMS marketing to communicate with customers not only increases the amount of contact you have with your customers, which leads to more revenue, but your contact becomes much more personal to the customer, since they are communicating with you through their mobile phones as opposed to them seeing your marketing through more traditional marketing channels (television, radio, billboards, newspaper ads, etc.) People have been bombarded with traditional marketing so much that they have become immune to it. They are NOT, however, immune to text message marketing. Take advantage of this!

Of course, the best part about all of this is that SMS mobile marketing is CHEAP! You are spending pennies per text as opposed to the thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands you would be spending on traditional marketing. Plus, it’s way more effective! There is NO other marketing method you can use that will get your message directly sent to your customers hands. Plus, statistics and surveys show that people open up and respond to text messages quicker than any other medium! (Within 4 minutes to be exact.) This is perfect for hotels and spas to use because that is exactly what you are trying to create. A personal relationship with the customer that isn’t invasive, doesn’t annoy them, and doesn’t feel spammy. You can also add to the relationship by sending them messages for their birthdays (you could include a discount for this one) or holiday wishes (discounts would work with this too.) The possibilities are endless! So what are you waiting for?!?! Get started on integrating SMS mobile marketing into your hotel or spa’s marketing strategy today and reap the rewards!

SMS Marketing For Bars and Nightclubs

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If we’re being honest with ourselves, bars and nightclubs usually do not do a very good job of marketing themselves to the general public. Nightclubs hire promoters, and bars usually promote through more traditional means, especially print materials like newspapers, flyers, brochures, billboards, promotional booklets, etc. They also like to use radio and a little bit of television. The problem is, even though these traditional means of advertising do work, they only work to an extent, and they definitely don’t work as well as SMS mobile marketing does.

If you’re promoting your bar or club using traditional means, we can almost guarantee you that you are spending too much money. It is also much harder to track the results or returns on investments (ROI) for traditional means. With SMS mobile marketing, you can track your results and get a much more accurate ROI, while at the same time taking advantage of text messaging’s ability to reach people in real time and real space. Print materials, radio, and television are not direct advertising. You do not know exactly how many people are seeing your ads, how often they are seeing them, or when they are seeing them. You are basically taking a shot in the dark using traditional means, and if that shot in the dark doesn’t work, you are losing you and your company money. In the advertising industry, taking shots in the dark is not smart, nor is it anywhere near efficient. SMS mobile marketing is both of these; smart and efficient.

Today, 91% of Americans use a mobile phone or tablet, and over 95% of Americans use text messaging on a weekly and daily basis. This means almost literally everyone is using a mobile phone or tablet right now. Using SMS mobile marketing, you would literally be sending your advertisements, promotions, and offers straight to their hands. And even better, they would be receiving and opening them within 4 minutes of you sending it to them. Think of the last time you got a text message and you didn’t open it. Can you even think of once? Now how quickly do you usually open them, and then respond to them? All of that happens pretty quickly now doesn’t it? So why wouldn’t you be using text message marketing to advertise to your customers?!?!

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SMS mobile marketing is perfect for bars and nightclubs because it’s cheap (you spend pennies for text messages), it’s efficient (you are guaranteed to reach the people you want to and get a response), and it’s non-invasive (anyone can opt-out of receiving your text messages at any time). Now let us explain how easy and simple this is.

How It Works

Getting your customers to opt-in to your SMS promotions is easy. All you need to do is get them to text a phrase or code to your promotional code. After the customer has opted-in, you can now start sending them offers and promotions with the click of a button. You might be wondering how you can get people to opt-in to your service. Picture this scenario:

-A customer walks into your bar or nightclub.

-They see a sign on the wall that says “Text BEER to 12345 to receive a FREE beer.”

-The customer texts the number, receives the coupon on their phone, presents the text message to the bartender, and then receives their free beer.

-Now the customer is happy because they got a free beer with little to no effort, and they are now on your mobile subscription list and will receive all future promotions you plan on offering.

So now that you have a list of customers in your subscription database, you’ll want to start marketing to them. Here’s another scenario:

-It’s a Saturday morning and business is slow. You want customers coming through your door as soon as possible, so you decide to offer a promotion on the spot.

-You send out a text to all of the customers in your database that says “Come in today between 1-4 PM to receive one free drink and half off appetizers.”

-Your customers receive the message and are now considering walking through your doors when they weren’t even thinking about it before.

The facts are there, SMS mobile marketing is THE way to market to customers and patrons of your bar or nightclub. It’s cheap, it’s efficient, and it’s easy. There is money to be made! Launch a mobile marketing strategy today and see your establishment fill up with customers!!!

Why SMS Mobile Marketing Is Here To Stay

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The secret is out, and has been for awhile now; SMS mobile marketing is here to stay. If you haven’t heard of SMS mobile marketing, or have heard of it but don’t know anything about it, then you must have been living under a rock lately. If we were to say that the SMS text message market is growing at an astounding rate, we still feel we would be making an understatement. The fact is that SMS mobile marketing is EXPLODING, and it is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The most important thing to gather from this article is that SMS is not just a flash in the pan type thing, statistics and analytics have shown that SMS marketing has, and will continue to thrive in the coming years. So if you’re not marketing at all using SMS mobile marketing, you better start before all the companies who are already using it pass you up and leave you in the dust. Don’t believe us? Let us prove it.

Consider this; 83% of all U.S. adults own a mobile phone, a third of them prefer text messages over phone calls, and 95% of all text messages are opened within 4 minutes of arrival. However, marketing emails are only responded to 6% of the time, ever. This means a shocking majority, or 94%, of all the marketing emails you are sending are not being read at all. It’s obvious that SMS marketing has a higher response rate than email. In fact, almost 50% of all marketing text messages are not just read, but responded to. Statistics also show that the demand for SMS short codes, MMS, and instant messaging is constantly growing. It’s also important to remember that about half of the U.S. population has smartphones right now, so that means half of them don’t. So if you’re using a mobile marketing campaign that only targets people who use smartphones, you are only reaching half of the population. Using SMS mobile marketing, which simply sends texts that can be received by any mobile phone, means you will be reaching at least 83% of the population, rather than just half. The numbers don’t lie, with SMS mobile marketing, you cannot lose! 

Now the numbers we mentioned deal with just people who own mobile phones. The 13% of people who don’t own mobile phones is very small, but you can still reach them using SMS mobile marketing. How? Think about this; every person you text has an inner circle of friends, family members, and significant others. This means when you text someone and they like what they’ve received, they can easily share your information with their thousands of Facebook friends, hundreds of Twitter followers, and dozens of Pinterest followers. You also can never underestimate the power of word of mouth. Now, with just one text, you’ve reached all these people, while spending pennies for your advertising. Compare that to the thousands of dollars you could’ve spent on advertising in magazines or newspapers, or the tens of thousands you could’ve spent advertising on television or radio, and it’s clear that SMS marketing is the cheapest and most effective way to reach the people you want to reach. And since SMS marketing is an opt-in service, that means the subscribers you are getting are people who want to hear what you have to say and what you have to offer. Can you honestly think of anything a marketer dreams of more than thousands of people who are listening to them with open ears? Well SMS marketing does this exact thing!

This point cannot be made more clear; there has not been a better time to get you and your company started on an SMS mobile marketing campaign. The numbers show it, the results show it, the returns on investments show it, and several companies who have already incorporated SMS mobile marketing into their marketing strategy can vouch for SMS’ unparalleled success and efficiency. The best part of all of this?

It’s EASY!

SMS Marketing Statistics 2012

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In today’s world, anywhere from 95-98% of text messages received are opened and read within minutes of receipt. Because of this, SMS marketing is growing quickly as a means of delivering marketing messages to clients and customers. This kind of marketing can be a great benefit to any kind of company. However you use text message marketing to reach your audience, you’re sure to get attention. Still not so sure? Take a peek at these SMS Marketing Statistics 2012 and see just how powerful SMS marketing can be.

For starters: With Four billion mobile phones out there, 86% of mobile users said that they receive or send at least one text message per week, though often it is much more. Last year alone, 7.8 trillion SMS messages were sent. It is estimated that SMS traffic will reach, if not surpass, 9.6 trillion messages by the end of this year,

25% of all of those four billion registered phones are smart phones and of those consumers using mobile phones, 30% of households said that they no longer even had a landline in their homes. Over one third of mobile phone users said that they actually prefer text messaging as a means of communication over a phone call on that same mobile device. 44% of people said that they are apt to check their phones an average of at least 10 times a day.

95% of all mobile users (both smartphone and non-smartphone users) have been connected to by brands that are using SMS marketing to reach their customers. Regarding ad awareness, the average mobile based campaign utilizing SMS marketing significantly outpaces online ads. One third of consumers say they interact with a brand via text message on a regular basis. They do this by opting in to regular messages with promotions and incentives on the brand’s website, scanning QR codes, or texting in keywords to a mobile short code.

Of the 250 million mobile users in the United States, about one fourth use their phones to access the internet for browsing, searches, shopping, games, and more. 9/10 mobile searches lead to action, and half of these searches eventually lead to a purchase. With 50% of local searches being performed on mobile devices, it’s pretty clear that mobile isn’t going anywhere. Why not use it to your advertising advantage?

Speaking of advantages, here are some that SMS marketing offers:
In all the emails received each day, so many are spam: upwards of 30%! Users have found their way around this with spam filters, and are less likely to open an email they find unfamiliar because of this. In SMS marketing, though, only about 10% of daily received messages are considered spam. Because of this, users aren’t as prone to brush them off without first reading through them. This reading through often leads to further action. For some facts: Only about 6% of marketing emails are opened and responded to, while SMS Marketing campaigns have a much higher response rate-45% to be specific.

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With all the marketing images consumers see daily, marketers constantly have to create new, engaging imagery and campaigns all the time. The fact that SMS messages are direct to the customer is definitely a big plus- even if someone is on the go, they’re very likely to check their text messages and see what you have to say. Another perk is that there is so much less need to compete with other media in this form, because it is a fairly new way of marketing products and ideas to clients.

With all of these statistics in your favor, it’s not hard to see why SMS marketing is a great tool to add to your marketing repertoire!

Mobile Marketing Statistics 2012

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Gone are the days of traditional marketing techniques as the only means of attracting clients and customers. Sure, traditional marketing still definitely has its place in the world, but marketing companies have seen huge growth in marketing by way of mobile marketing. Not so sure? Come check out our Mobile Marketing Statistics 2012 and see for yourself. Even if you’re not quite ready to take the jump into mobile marketing, these stats are sure to help you see just how big mobile marketing has gotten, and the fact that it’s not going anywhere but up.

According to Hubspot, almost half of all U.S. businesses (more specifically 45%) are using some form of mobile marketing. Of all marketing agencies out there, about 47% of them plan to step up their mobile game in 2013. The most common forms of mobile marketing are as follows: Mobile websites come in first at 70%, Mobile Applications come in second at 55%, and QR Codes come in a close third with 49%. Mobile marketing is expected to account for roughly 25% of overall E-commerce revenues by the end of 2017. By the year 2016, mobile marketing advertising revenue worldwide is expected to expand by over 3.5 times it’s current size.

So how does it work?
For starters, you’ve gotta have that little gadget that everyone is so attached to–that no one can leave home without : their cell phone. Of the four billion cell phones out there (yes, you read that right, four billion), over a quarter of these are smartphones. Of those one billion smartphones, roughly 75% of those are either iPhones or Android powered phones. Over 75% of those total phones have text messaging (sms messaging) enabled.

Think about that for a minute: over 3 billion people can send and receive SMS messages at any time, day or night. What that means for you: the marketing messages you’re trying to get out there could be sent to almost half the world in mere seconds. Another perk of SMS marketing is that those messages are going directly to your clients and customers instead of possibly being filtered off into a spam folder, tossed out, or ignored like some traditional advertising outlets can be.

So with four billion mobile phones out there, what are their owners doing with them? Aside from just talking on them, many cell phone users are browsing the web, checking email, and using apps and mobile codes to help them shop.

Mobile web usage is up almost 70% from where it was in 2010. In the United States, about 8% of all web traffic comes from mobile users, up from 4.7%. Specifically, 14.6% of that mobile internet traffic is from smartphones, and 5.6% is from other mobile devices, such as tablets. Worldwide, mobile web traffic is up to 10%, over 160% more than where it was in 2010.

Of all local searches performed today, about half are done via mobile. Customers also shop around using their phone–either by a search, or by a native application. They’re checking online reviews and doing price checks while in store. One in five smartphone users said they would scan product barcodes, one in eight uses an application to do price comparisons. 29% of mobile users said they would scan a mobile tag, text in a keyword, or scan a QR code to receive coupons or discounts from a company.

Speaking of QR codes: 50% of smartphone users said that they have scanned a QR code. 80% of Americans can identify a QR code when they see one. QR code scans are up to almost 20%, up from under 14% (where they were at in April of 2011) in the United States alone.

Any company can benefit from mobile marketing, and these stats definitely go to show that mobile is here to stay. Hopefully they showed you that you should consider adding mobile marketing to your marketing plans today!

Mobile Marketing Trends & Ideas for Small Business

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Mobile Marketing on the Rise

A recent report shows that Mobile Marketing is increasingly being adopted by small business. It is for this reason that our company is experiencing incredible growth as marketing companies and consultants are seeking to quickly become Mobile Marketing Experts. They want to provide strategy, software and campaign support to the small businesses that rely on them for marketing and advertising guidance.

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There are many ways a small business can increase traffic and sales using the mobile channel. These include SMS Marketing, QR Codes, Mobile Web Sites, Mobile Coupons, Apps and more. Each one brings it’s own unique benefits and challenges but together they create a mobile strategy that if tied to Social Media strategy is a very, very lucrative endevour.

“SMS Mobile Marketing” began trending in only February 2007 and has has seen a sharp increase in demand since then!

Saying that SMS is the workhorse of mobile marketing, a title from a recent blog post, is entirely true.  At the core of every small business mobile strategy should be SMS.  A mobile strategy without text message marketing is like a social media campaign without a “LIKE” or “FOLLOW” button – Pretty useless!

Consumer mobile coupon use is also on the rise.  People WANT to use their phones as coupons.  People WANT to scan QR CODES and see ‘what’s on the other side”, and those same people EXPECT your website to be mobile friendly when they visit it on their smartphone. For these reasons, it is no surprise that Mobile Couponing and Developing Mobile Web Sites are on the top of the “to-do” list at most small businesses. People love convenience and most smartphone users would prefer coupons and offers at their fingertips, on a device that is constantly on their persons, rather than in a binder or an envelope that commonly gets forgotten on the kitchen counter.

Today, the buyer has the power.

It is the power of selective consumption and the power of data driven decision.  This power comes through the convergence of Social Media, Search Engines and Mobile Technology.  Small businesses need to get found and convert mobile customers.  Once they are customers, good customer service will make them “fans” of the business.  You know, that old 80/20 rule, where 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers.  Those customers in the 20% are your “fans”.  They are the ones that will like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter or subscribe to your SMS Keyword by texting it to a short code. These fans are loyalist and they love to be rewarded for their loyalty. And along with loyalty, they also offer word-of-mouth references to others who are looking for services or products like the ones your company offers. Once you prove yourself to one customer, you’re opening the door for them to pass your name along to their friends and family. How many times have you found an app you really like and when you hear someone else mention needing something like it, you give your personal testimony about the app and then they download it for themselves?

Not only do you want to GET followers, likes and fans, but you want to GIVE them something as well. Having mobile rewards programs, mobile coupons, SMS vouchers for FREE gifts, and other CRMs are all great ways to keep your top customers engaged and in love with your marketing.

So by opening your company up to Mobile Marketing, you are able to draw in more customers, who then use your products and services, spread the positive feedback and attract more customers. You’re giving customers what they want – easy access to your companies website, rewards and convenience at their fingertips! What are you waiting for? Join the movement and get started with mobile marketing today!

Text Messaging Killed The Voicemail Star

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In today’s day and age of faster communication, faster information transfer, and faster ways of getting things done, voicemails are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and annoying. Simply put, when you are at work, sometimes you just don’t have the time to be checking every voicemail left on your phone. It’s also important to note that voicemails are becoming less tolerable because we are conditioned as a society to get the information we need much quicker. Voicemails are time consuming, most lasting at least a minute or two, sometimes longer, and create an unnecessary nuisance when trying to communicate. Time is money, and voicemails cut into your time.

According to a uReach Technologies study, 30 percent of voice messages remain unheard for up to 3 days or longer, and over 20 percent of people with voicemails sitting in their mailbox rarely check them. It has been found that adults under 65 years old respond more quickly to a text message than a voicemail, and adults under 30 years old are four times more likely to respond within minutes to a text message rather than to a voicemail. Ultimately, it takes the average person 6-8 hours to check their voicemail after a message has been left. Leaving a voicemail has essentially become like sending a message in a bottle, someone might pick it up…eventually.

Moving along these same lines, it has become apparent that not only voicemail, but direct mail, telemarketers, email marketers, and call centers are becoming obsolete. People have been bombarded by these forms of advertising and marketing for so long that they have learned how to filter out the noise. This truth is especially prevalent among the younger generation, more specifically anyone under 30 years old. Of course, knowing all this, one has to ask why is this happening?

The truth of the matter is that text messaging has essentially killed the voicemail star, pun intended. The traditional ways of advertising mentioned above are much more intrusive than a simple text message. Through text messaging, people gain a sense of authority and control over what they want to see and what they don’t want to see. They can choose whether to view a text message or not, unlike telemarketers blowing up your phone or email marketers flooding your email. Along with this, even if they view a text message, they still have the option of whether to reply or not, and also the choice of how long they’ll take to respond. Text messaging, especially for business and marketing, has become the forefront of the industry because of the ease and speed at which information is sent and exchanged. If you are still using voicemail, direct mail, email marketing, or telemarketing to drive your marketing, you are doing you and your customers a disservice.