Archive for November, 2009

Today an eMarketer.com analyst published a brief article titled, “Mobile predictions for 2010,” in which he outlines challenges facing marketers and consumers around mobile in the coming year.

The article describes three “divides” that will make it difficult for 2010 to be the vaunted “year of mobile.”  I propose a fourth divide but first the three cited.   One is a knowledge and resource gap facing marketers; both in terms of best practices but also how to gauge success.  The second is the delta between consumers with multi-media savvy Smartphones versus those without.  The third is potentially most troubling for marketers; a gap between consumer preference or responsiveness to mobile advertising and the amount of dollars and efforts flowing into a form of mobile marketing especially in vogue now given Google’s high profile acquisition of AdMob.

“As consumers’ usage of mobile devices has grown more sophisticated, their attitudes toward mobile marketing have become more negative.  BIGresearch’s ‘Simultaneous Media Usage’ study indicates that relative to last year, more consumers now dislike receiving text ads, video ads, and text voicemail ads, and more feel that mobile ads constitute an invasion of privacy.”

It is for this reason a fourth gap exists which will challenge the mobile marketing industry in 2010 – confusion between advertising and Active Customer Engagement (or more generally targeting customers in the mobile channel).  Although mobile and online ad networks will garner much press over the coming months, marketers who approach mobile as an interaction channel and map their marketing strategies appropriately should achieve the best results.

It’s easy to buy a keyword or place a banner in a mobile application or website, but it’s an entirely different challenge and likely more rewarding one to call customers to action at the point of device.

Today on MobileMarketingWatch.com a post appeared titled, “Applying Email Strategies To Mobile Marketing,” which suggests email marketing best practices have applications within mobile.  While I agree that strategies like targeting and relevance apply to either discipline, as noted here marketers should remember that email and mobile often have different or interdependent applications.

More interesting than the recommendations were references to an earlier November 24, 2009 article on MarketingVox.com citing Direct Marketing Association (DMA) ROI research for email and search marketing:

“…commercial email now returns $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009…”

“…search advertising..is the next most effective channel with an ROI of $21.85 for every dollar spent.”

A simple conclusion would be that email’s return is about 100 percent that of search.  Consider as well that, with respect to email, “41% of consumers find that promotional offers are irrelevant, according to a study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).”  That means despite nearly half of those subject to email marketing rejecting those offers, ROI is greater than 4,000 percent!  It isn’t clear if ROI was calculated based on direct sales driven by email promotions.

Even so, you could argue that relevance is a key determinant of return for email and search marketing investments.  Paid search may help connect consumers with relevant results, yet search by its nature is rather broad, pointing consumers to some destination rather than calling them to action.  An email communication pushed to a consumer by a business should be more targeted, relevant and contain a compelling call to action.

Considering mobile — especially SMS text message interactions – by its nature must be relevant, ROI should exceed both email and search.  Extrapolating figures cited in the article, ROI for mobile marketing could be another 100 percent greater than email, offering upwards of $80 for every dollar spent.  Even if it’s no better than email, mobile’s ROI is highly relevant to marketer’s interested in making the most of their budgets.

The title of this post is not in reference to the mobile professionals networking group but rather how mobile marketing techniques should improve the effectiveness of promotions during Cyber Monday.  For those unfamiliar, Cyber Monday was coined in 2005 after retailers noticed a trend of online shopping the Monday following Thanksgiving (and just two days removed from Black Friday, the year’s busiest shopping day).

You might not think mobile marketing has a role in purchasing behavior involving workers shopping online from their desktop computers at work.  Unfortunately for employers concerned with productivity, mobile can – and will – play a significant role driving online transactions in a couple of days.

First, some statistics illustrating how important Cyber Monday is for retailers, from this November 23, 2009 article titled, “Retailers Power Up Cyber Monday Promos.”

“…87.1 percent of retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 83.7 percent last year and 72.2 percent in 2007…”

“This year, 53.5 percent of workers with Internet access, or 68.8 million people, will shop for holiday gifts from work.”

This November 24, 2009 post titled, “New Partnership to Deliver Mobile Deals on Cyber Monday,” describes an online portal where retailers can promote offers associated with Cyber Monday.  Here, consumers may register to receive text message alerts for “a Deal of the Hour mobile marketing offer.”  This is a great example of how Mobile marketing techniques can add value to an otherwise static shopping activity.  The post, quoting from a press release on the topic, sums it up as follows:

“The brevity, immediacy, and mobility of the text messaging channel makes it ideally suited for communicating CyberMonday.com’s Deal of the Hour.”

Today we were featured in MobileMarketer.com with an article titled, “Why mobile is key to active customer engagement.”  In it, we describe an application which isn’t about mobile as much as “Active Customer Engagement,” a term we use to reflect the nature of customer being targeted within the mobile channel.  You can check it out here, but I also wanted to highlight recent posts that make reference to Active Customer Engagement, many of which describe how the solution works in practice.  We also recently issued a new Point of View paper that provides a similar level of detail and a real customer success example.

• Vendor Lines Blurring but One Thing is Clear: Active Customer Engagement
• Retailers Succeeding with Active Customer Engagement…Even if they call it M-Commerce
• Establishment Converges on Active Customer Engagement
• Active Engagement Comes to Life for Mobile Marketers!

A while ago we blogged about how text messaging programs were helping broadcast communicators maintain and grow their audiences as a means of attracting advertising dollars.  Texting responses to “on the fly” surveys, topics for segments or song requests are all common ways radio stations engage their audiences, keeping them listening longer and more likely exposed to ad messages.

Continuing with this theme, radio stations are looking beyond text to other mobile marketing techniques to bring their content to “on the go” consumers.  Radio as an advertising platform no longer is limited to the airwaves, as more stations bring content online via real time streaming.  Even so, this recent post on MarketingForecast.com titled, “Brighter Outlook for Radio Advertising” suggests the opportunity relative to overall ad revenue may be small.

“Research concern SNL Kagan predicts that online radio revenues, which should reach $441.4 million or 2.7% of the industry total this year, should grow to $827 million by 2013.  At that point, online revenues would comprise close to 5% of the industry total.”

Yet, the post mentions as well that the future of radio is closely tied to a consumer behavior similar to what we are seeing in mobile applications.

“In 2009,  consumers said 19.4% of their media consumption related to radio, an increase of nearly 3% from 2008…U.S. consumers say they find TV to be the most credible information source.  However, radio ties with newspaper for second place with each media form claiming 6.3% of the total share.”

Obtaining news and information is probably among the most used mobile applications so it’s not surprising to see as well researchers suggesting mobile applications are on radio station radar screens as much as online investments:

“…they’ll be embracing online streaming and mobile apps to drive their local base to their multiple platforms.”

As radio marketers provide access to their content in convenient ways that map to the mobile customer (across online, text and mobile apps), they should continue to attract a strong audience ripe for ad messages, as pointed out in the post:

“Marketers who want to broaden the reach of their messages  may continue to find that radio represents a unique and effective way to deliver consumer attention.”

Earlier this month I came across an article about a consumer segmentation method launched by Acxiom for telcos to understand loyalty patterns among mobile subscribers.  It was notable simply due to the fact a large marketing services company was launching a mobile marketing data service not for marketers generally, but for marketers of mobile services specifically.

Before reading about something like that I expected to see Acxiom instead enter the mobile marketing fray like its cousin in the marketing services market, Experian.  So it was not surprising to see this headline today: “Acxiom, Partnership Infuses Consumer Intelligence in Mobile Channel.”  What was surprising is that the company is partnering with a third party to provide mobile marketing capabilities to its clients as opposed to developing something itself.  Moreover, Acxiom is partnering with the exact same firm as Experian to provide the service.  Sadly for their clients, even the benefit is the same, down to the quote in the announcement: mobile as an enabler of effective “customer life cycle management (CLM).”

That bit of déjà vu was not in the announcement, no doubt because Experian and Acxiom often compete for business.  While the news highlights the importance of the mobile channel to large, established marketing services companies, it also shows they don’t exactly know what to do with mobile (other than tack it onto their services as a means of ensuring their clients don’t look elsewhere).

Marketers who use these companies for services need not be locked into using a commodity third party for mobile messaging.  The beauty of many offerings in the marketplace are their openness and ease of integration with third party data sources to help segment mobile customers and inform more relevant dialogues.  Firms like Interactive Mediums also offer services encompassing the entire mobile customer experience, which is fundamentally the focus of marketers looking to achieve real business results at the point of device.

Today an article on MobileMarketer.com titled, “How to combat the confusion around mobile marketing’s definition?” appeared which jibes completely with Interactive Mediums’ vision for mobile marketing; that it’s about creating an effective mobile customer experience informed by both marketing strategy and the available ways of interacting with customers via the mobile channel.  We thus describe ourselves this way:

“Interactive Mediums provides next generation customer engagement solutions designed to facilitate high value interactions with today’s increasingly on the go consumer.”

A focus on how we help our customers achieve their business objectives is at the very core of this value proposition.  It is not about a specific technology or method.  It is about “bringing the heat” to however a client is best able to target their mobile customer – via messaging, applications or mobile web.  The article says it this way:

“Mobile marketing includes many ways of delivering targeted communications to a mobile device, and each tactic has a predominant audience that requires a specific strategy to maximize reach.”

For marketers taking their initial steps into mobile marketing, this is an important point as it influences who they should partner with.  Options are aplenty, from the boutique ad agency to interactive marketing services company to dedicated mobile technology firm.  It made me wonder how Interactive Mediums’ simply stated value compares with other companies offering mobile marketing technology products and services – many of whom can be found here.

Following are snapshots of what some of these companies lead with in describing themselves:

“(Company) drives revenue and increases listenership, viewership and loyalty for clients by tapping into the behaviors and interests of more than 136 million Americans who use text messaging on a regular basis.”

“We provide a turnkey, hosted mobile and email marketing platform backed by world-class support and expert advice to help businesses make money.”

“(Company) offers its services and technology under an On Demand Web-based software license that empowers companies with the ability to create and manage mobile initiatives themselves.”

“(Company) pioneers easy-to-use technology for scalable mobile marketing campaign management.”

“Providing robust, easy-to-use mobile marketing tools is our passion.”

“we help you achieve breakthrough marketing results by using ground-breaking technologies in mobile marketing, voice marketing, IVR and product recall.”

When an idea fails to resonate, we here at Interactive Mediums like to say “I’m not feelin’ in,” and that applies to most of the above statements.  Not so much for what they say, but what they don’t – that it is about targeting customers in the mobile channel, not text messaging, on demand software or even campaign management.

Some marketers are looking for those things, no doubt, yet I suggest that marketers who aspire to what Aberdeen Group calls “best in class” mobile marketing results are taking on the point of view of their mobile audience as a means of developing a strategy.  When it comes then to selecting a partner to help execute, those well versed in creating mobile customer experiences should be shortlisted before any others.

The beauty of mobile marketing is that by definition, you have to approach the channel with the perspective of creating a relevant message, call to action or offer – a marketer has no choice.  Whether needing to obtain permission from customers to communicate via SMS text message or ensuring an investment in a mobile application pays off with thousands of downloads, relative to other marketing tactics such as email, relevance is a must in formulating any mobile marketing strategy that hopes to succeed.  You could argue the high response rates common with mobile promotions reflect the necessity to craft plans that focus on the customer (convenience, for example) more so than the marketer’s goal (such as selling more products).

I call out email specifically because of a few different things I’ve read over the past week which suggest certain marketing tactics make it too easy to be ineffective – or less relevant to consumer needs.

Although mobile email use is growing, email as an interactive channel by itself has hurdles to overcome in my view which hurts its ability to serve a marketer’s objectives.  Today, for example, on eMarketer.com an article titled, “Relevance Remains a Challenge for E-Mail Marketers” cites statistics which suggest email for many consumers is very much like traditional snail mail – for the bills:

“Promotional e-mails were the most common thing for respondents to find in their inbox, with 60% saying they received such e-mails most. E-newsletters were the next-most-common type of messages.

But it was the least common messages that were most likely to be opened—monthly bills and bank statements. Only about four in 10 recipients said they “always” opened promotional offers or newsletters.”

It’s the consequence of this mismatch between consumer preference and marketer practice that marketers need to be wary of:

“Web users also complained of receiving too many to manage and getting tired of all the clutter.  In many cases that clutter can have consequences for marketers: 22% of respondents have decided not to purchase from a company because of irrelevant promotions, either via e-mail or direct mail.  A further 41% said they would consider doing the same.”

Another article, a November 20, 2009 item titled, “Yesmail talks strategy behind mobile email, SMS features” quotes the email marketing firm’s leaders regarding their move to offer mobile marketing services to its clients:

“Yesmail is already starting to early stages of mobile marketing evolving from an acquisition channel to a retention channel.  We expect to see SMS campaigns being created with the same level of sophistication as many email marketing campaigns – both in terms of segmentation and in terms of staged triggering over the next two years.”

In fact, some mobile marketing providers are already offering the ability to create triggered campaigns based on customer segments – no need to wait two years.  It’s illustrative of an undercurrent of FUD (fear/uncertainty/doubt) from email marketing services companies scrambling to extend their offerings into mobile in order to hang on to their customers, many of whom increasingly view email as a commodity.  Wise marketers should recognize the difference and not get fixated on mobile as an add on to an email campaign.

When it comes time to creating a relevant message flow, offer or call to action, it’s logical to segment your customers into groupings which lend themselves to the task.  This was the topic of a great October 22 article on ChiefMarketer.com titled, “Lock and Load: The Basics of Triggered E-mail Campaigns.”  The article is all about email as a means of crafting an interactive dialogue with customers to achieve business goals – a task that email may be ill suited to given the recent statistics cited in this post.  It concludes with a quote that marketers should take to heart, but with a view toward mobile as the means – not email:

“The beauty of event-based triggered messaging is that you can make it extremely relevant to the person receiving the e-mail.”

Problem is, email may not be the right approach to delivering those messages.

In our Point of View titled, “Mapping Mobile to Your Marketing Strategy,” we describe Champion/Challenger testing as one of the most logical – yet overlooked – applications for mobile marketing.  It’s both important in determining where to align your efforts but is also among the more measurable applications since measurement is the entire focus of the effort.

“Mobile may be the killer tool for testing the effectiveness of marketing messages and various media before a full scale rollout. Text message interactions are often used to this end, and also serve to measure return on investment for advertising across media such as print, billboards, radio and television.”

An article today on MobileMarketer.com brought this to mind, with a list of tips for testing your mobile strategy before executing holiday marketing plans.  I thought the tips were excellent, but marketers should not view testing as a single threaded activity; take the opportunity to test multiple approaches simultaneously against similar populations of targeted customers to see which one represents the greatest potential return.

Strictly speaking, champion/challenger testing is about comparing results of new ideas with those already in production.  So, in a marketing context, this would be akin to testing different discount offers as incentives for signing up for a mobile loyalty program, and comparing the effectiveness of different discount levels at attracting sign ups with those associated with a pre-existing non-mobile program.  The net result offers two benefits: a focused effort you can be more certain will meet your objectives and a direct comparison with non-mobile marketing efforts which should help align marketing budget more wisely.

So when reading the article’s suggested steps to creating a test plan, do so with an eye toward multiple scenarios and comparing results at the conclusion.  For reference, I have paraphrased the prescribed 10 step process:

• Identify the testable “entity” – For example, an SMS text message offer for joining a holiday discount club, the attractiveness of a dedicated holiday shopping application or new e-commerce enabled mobile website.
• What is the metric you are trying to measure?  # of responses, # of new sign ups, conversions between text message interaction and receipt of a discount?  Identify one or multiple attributes which can be measured and compared.
• How will you determine success?  If you are relatively new to mobile, it may be difficult to establish a target for your metrics beyond “finger in the air” guessing.  This is why the champion/challenger concept is especially suited to mobile given you will be able to compare results — ideally with past programs — to use as inputs into creating realistic targets.
• What criteria is necessary to identify when a test should be stopped?  If your test runs several weeks, you may want to cease testing if you observe little to no material difference in measures, or if one idea is simply generating far greater results than the others.
• What measures will you want to monitor for your targeted segments, independent of success metrics?  Migration among value segments/tiers would be one example.
• What other factors could affect the test, such as concurrently running marketing campaigns/promotions or those of your competitors?
• What resources are required, both technical and creative, to execute the test?  Consider both your internal staff and their potentially competing priorities as well as agency and technical third party partners.
• Be sure the proper stakeholders are aware of your plans; sales in the event demand generation is affected, brand marketing in case new messaging, visuals or brand-attributes are components of the test.
• Who is the “test sponsor” – basically the most senior person who signs off on the program.  Have this person identified – be it you or someone else – so you can quickly address any escalations that may occur.
• Time horizon for having the results: have this in mind from the beginning and back off this date to create a testing plan.  With Black Friday just a few days away it’s too late to implement these ideas now but keep them in mind to start off strong in 2010.

A couple days ago we speculated a reputed move by Apple to offer free, ad supported iPhones could force Google into the device business.  Yesterday it was reported Google was in fact getting into the device business but with a voice over internet protocol (voip) phone which would access data networks only.  Apple’s recent patent filing may have nothing to do with Google’s plans but it’s hard to imagine this is purely coincidental.

Although the move hasn’t been confirmed by Google, the article notes that “the carriers won’t love this,” no doubt because doing so subverts their immense sunken costs in traditional cell networks.  Even so, AT&T has supposedly lined up to provide data network access, because if they don’t surely another will.  With Google Voice offering phone service over data networks, Google will effectively have a tightly controlled alternative to any other mobile phone, and one that could be given away free if supported by built in advertising – that Google also happens to provide.

Long term, moves like this could render voice networks irrelevant.  On the device side, should Apple and Google move toward free, ad supported devices, traditional makers like Motorola will struggle to manufacture hardware at anything approaching a profit, no matter what operating system is used.