Archive for January, 2010

For companies that offer SMS alerting capabilities (including Interactive Mediums) and their customers, results like those cited in this January 29, 2010 MobileMarketingWatch.com post are proof positive of the value of text messaging:

“…a pilot SMS reminder solution…ended with unprecedented results – saving Kaiser nearly $150 per appointment and over $275,000 at a single clinic.”

Efficiencies and costs savings were at the heart of the value in this example, which is apparently driving consumer acceptance of text message alerts – the post’s title is after all, “Survey: Consumers Want SMS Alerts.”  The study was conducted in the U.K., but you can expect similar attitudes prevail in the U.S.

While these numbers are impressive, I would argue that marketers need to keep their eyes on the top line/revenue growth “yin” to the cost savings/efficiencies “yang” offered by text messaging.  That’s the theme behind the diagram included in line with this post.

As marketers in any segment – healthcare or otherwise – approach the mobile channel, they have a variety of options for getting started, as we have previously discussed around mapping strategy to the mobile channel.

Many organizations will approach text messaging from a non-marketing perspective, which can yield impressive cost savings and efficiencies among an entire customer base – which tends to be dominated by customers served at a loss or break-even.  Thus the utility of text messaging as a cost saver.

Those companies that leverage mobile marketing techniques in a parallel fashion to target the revenue side of business should experience even greater results by increasing the pool of highest value customers – the 20 or so percent which generate the greatest value, be it profits or revenue.  The key to unlocking that added value is employing mobile engagement techniques such as promotions and others that call consumers to action.

The title of this article today on DMNews.com titled, “Marketers still missing opportunities with loyalty programs: Survey” immediately brought to mind this recent post of ours, as well as the answer to the missing component: mobile engagement.

The article doesn’t call this out per se, but does strongly imply that engaging in-store strategies such as SMS text message promotions are an absolute necessity to address the potential threat to retailers offered by comparison enabled mobile shoppers:

“…when it comes to consumers, nearly 65% acquired information about the programs in retail environments at the point of sale, compared to only 2.8% who did so on social media networks.”

The article is based on results of a study released today by the Chief Marketing Officer Council and conducted by IBM and Ricoh.  Its key finding is that although marketers are focusing spend on social networks to communicate loyalty programs, consumers are unreceptive to this channel as opposed to strong calls to action in and around the point of sale.

A similar focus on email marketing is also cited as a disconnect between marketer priories and consumer preferences.  Speaking of preferences, relevancy is found to be at the core of effective loyalty programs regardless of how an offer is delivered.  Certainly, data is crucial to developing targeted offers, the kind of which can be efficiently collected also via text message programs such as customer surveys.

Marketers need to as well be aware that even relevant offers may struggle against the tide of comparison shopping enabled consumers expected to change the retail landscape this year and beyond.  Successful retailers will build relevancy into their loyalty programs, but also recognize that engagement strategies such as SMS text message promotions advertised in store can prevent customers from leaving for better deals, addressing key challenges threatening to make loyalty a mythical concept.

This January 20, 2010 article on Mobile-Financial.com features results of a survey of mobile commerce shoppers that retailers would be wise to review.  As we have blogged about before, comparison shopping on mobile devices represents a challenge to retail marketers, one that begs for compelling engagement strategies to keep customers from leaving stores for better deals elsewhere.

The survey finds product recommendations accessible via mobile devices as a huge opportunity for retailers, with 65 percent of those surveyed saying they would make purchases were it easier to find products of interest.  Retailers heeding this advice will implement mobile-accessible product reviews and recommendations based on factors such as real time inputs by a consumer (looking for a plasma screen TV, what are my options?) and historical transaction data if available (purchased TV in the past, suggest a DVD player).

A potential battleground retailers need to keep eyes on is the mobile product reviews/recommendations/comparison space.  On one hand, retailers can develop branded mobile experiences for their customers that are essentially “closed” environments by virtue of product selection limited to that one retailer.  Combined with clever engagement strategies such as mobile promotions, this can effectively combat third parties that aggregate product information, prices and reviews across retailers.

These services could render retail store environments as mere “pick up” spots for products browsed, reviewed, and compared by mobile shoppers.  The retail sector may be in store for a complete shift in power unless mobile engagement strategies rise to the top of marketing plans and priorities.

With mobile application investments set to escalate this year, along with an already huge diversity of apps available for the iPhone, promotion and marketing will take center stage in ensuring these investments pay off.  That’s the implication of this article today on eMarketer.com, titled “Mobile to fare better than social.”

“According to DM2PRO and Quattro, 15% of advertisers and agencies spent more than 60% of their app budgets on promotion in 2009, but more than one-third spent less than 5%.  Promotional budgets will need to increase along with overall investment for apps to find their way to users.”

Marketers would be wise to consider the immediacy of text messaging to communicate mobile application availability and directly link consumers to download and install it.  Consider the ease by which signage in store can point customers to a text interaction that includes a direct link to download the application.  Convenience is key to entice consumers to take action and matching their behavior (out and about) with a device in hand is a recipe for success.

At the same time, marketers have the chance to create or build upon their opt in database of mobile subscribers, and learn more about them using engagement techniques like surveys and others that collect information about mobile consumers (like their zip codes or product preferences).  This data can in turn be used to segment the mobile audience in ways aligned with unique offers and calls to action.

Standing out from the crowd is already key to app success, so hoping your effort is discovered in the App Store can no longer be considered an effective strategy to ensuring ROI.  I say “App Store,” because the article points to the iPhone as the platform of choice for the time being, well ahead of Android and others.  Remember, when it comes to budgeting for the promotion of your application, among the most effective means to do so is to connect consumers with your app via creative use of text messaging programs.

This post today on MobileMarketingWatch.com cites a Business Week article in which the Apple honcho bluntly describes his view of the utility offered by current mobile advertising formats.  He also apparently sees this as an opportunity for Apple to innovate and ultimately dominate the mobile ad medium, even in the face of online ad champ Google and its mobile focus.  We have speculated as much here.

Just the other day we blogged about the hype around mobile advertising created by recent acquisitions.  We’ve also covered issues surrounding mobile ad metrics.

We’re keeping close tabs on developments in this area for our customers so they understand where to prioritize mobile advertising alongside their broader customer engagement charters inclusive of SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, smartphone applications and social media.

An integrated approach to mobile channel marketing – akin to creating more effective mobile ads – is an innovation which greatly increases the likelihood your mobile marketing efforts won’t suck.

Subscription campaigns are unique.  They don’t quite fit in with our other marketing campaigns, such as the Sweepstakes campaign, the Voting campaign, or the Survey campaign.  Subscription campaigns are are long running (typically never ending) campaigns that collect a list contacts that wish to learn more about your product or service.  These campaigns give you the unique ability to directly reach your customers based on all sorts of information that you have collected about them.  In reality, the Subscription campaign is more of a living “list” than it is a “campaign”.

Introducing the Lists tab

Recognizing their uniqueness, we have recently updated TextMe to treat Subscriptions differently from the other campaigns.  First and foremost, we have removed “Subscriptions” as a sub-item of the Campaigns tab, and given Subscriptions their own tab, called Lists.  The Lists tab is your one-stop-shop for managing your Subscriptions.  Upon clicking the new Lists tab, you will be brought to the new Subscription lists dashboard.  The new dashboard gives you a nice, high level summary of your active Subscription lists. It shows you a graph of your current confirmed subscribers, which contains a breakdown of the subscribers for each list if you have less than ten active subscription lists.  The dashboard also displays your active Subscription lists, any broadcast messages scheduled to be delivered, and a short list of recent messages sent to your subscribers.  The “Lists” sub-tab will show you a detailed list of all of your subscription lists, regardless of whether they are active or not, and the “Messages” sub-tab will show you the message activity across all of your Subscription lists.

Sending a message now more intuitive

We have also recently changed the “Send / Schedule a New Message” screen to be simpler to understand and easier to use. The new screen gives you three options to identify the recipients of your message.  The first option, “Lists”, allows you to select one or more of your subscription lists. If you choose this option, the message will be sent to all subscribers in the selected lists.  The second option, “Segments”, allows you to specify a list of filters, or segments, to narrow down the list of recipients based on some criteria. If you choose this option, the message will be sent to the subscribers, in all of your lists, that match the filter criteria.  TextMe customers can login and read more about filters here.  The third option, “All subscribers”, will send the message to all subscribers in all of your active subscription lists.

Choosing whether to send the message now or to schedule it for future delivery is now handled by choosing a time. You can either choose “Now” to send the message right away, or choose “Future”, and specify the date and time you wish to send the message.  We feel this is much more straight forward than the previous, multiple button approach.

Finally, in the “Message” section, you specify the description of the message, and the message itself. The message section also allows you to specify an override message for a single carrier (allowing you to send AT&T customers a different message, for example), or to collect data from your customers, if your TextMe subscription plan supports data collection.

When everything has been specified, click OK to be brought to a screen to review your message.  If everything looks good on the review page, clicking “Submit” will schedule your message for delivery.

Where did the Messages tab go?

The new Lists tab does much of what the Messages tab used to do.  But, there are a few functions, such as Message Search and Message Stream, that are not accessible in the Lists tab.  Message Search can now be found at the top right of the page, right next to the My Account link.  For customers with the Message Stream feature enabled, a new “Stream” tab will appear, right next to the “Lists” tab.

Questions/Comments/Suggestions?

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, about this change or anything else, we’d love to hear from you.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@textme.net.

That’s the phrase which popped into my mind upon seeing this January 14, 2010 post on MobileMarketingWatch, titled “Tracking Mobile Ad Click Rates: Symbian Rules.”

Mobile advertising, just like traditional web ads, is an exciting area because of the reach and audience segmentation possibilities.  In parallel with significant investment moves by Google and Apple to get involved via acquisition, the hype around mobile ads is at a fever pitch right now.  I’m afraid customers and investors who fixate here are in for some disappointment down the line, however.

Click through rate, or CTR, is the measure by which mobile and traditional online ads alike are gauged, and the article highlights global research showing that the unlikely Symbian platform is the leader in offering high CTRs, even in the U.S. where it’s not as dominant in terms of market share.

Clearly, a lot of advertisers are thinking “I have to be on Symbian” yet the hype and press would never point an ad buyer at this platform as opposed to the iPhone or a Google Android device.

Advertisers need to remember as well, where are those who click through going to?  A mobile optimized landing page or website?  A smartphone application download?  A coupon or bar code for redemption at the point of sale?  If the answer to any of these is “none of the above” and instead “we’re just happy to have lots of eyeballs seeing our message,” a huge opportunity to drive sales, engender loyalty, or cultivate brand affinity is wasted.

Viewing mobile as an engagement channel that allows businesses to create highly personal interactions that induce action on the part of customers is the real opportunity represented by mobile advertising.  It needs to be viewed as just one part of the value equation, which is why marketers are increasingly coming to Interactive Mediums to leverage our mobile customer engagement platform and expertise around creating effective mobile dialogues with customers across SMS text messaging, mobile web, apps and social media.

Nowhere else was the popularity of the iPhone as a marketing platform on display than at the National Retail Federation’s 99th Annual Convention this week in New York.  So says this article posted today on RetailWire.com titled, “Apple Hits the NRF Show Floor, Sort of” (registration required).

Both attendees and exhibitors alike were apparently personally armed with the devices and reportedly had either iPhone apps already in the market or were preparing them.  Large technology vendors in attendance also had iPhone apps to talk about, from Oracle and Sterling Commerce to Intel.  Funny that Apple itself was absent.

The observations reported in the article highlight just how powerful a marketing platform the iPhone has become yet retailers should not forget about text messaging as an effective mobile marketing method that can reach almost any mobile phone user.  Although applications are popular, engagement via text messaging is being used by retailers to overcome challenges around loyalty and comparison shopping behavior.

The best strategy is a balanced one considering the impact but lower reach of a rich smartphone application as opposed to the almost universal reach offered by SMS text messaging, especially those facilitating promotions such as sweepstakes and contests.  Targeting the mobile customer experience first, then determining the blend of approaches to achieve your goals is becoming the standard of excellence for successful mobile marketers.

As if it were not hard enough for marketers to know where to begin with respect to mobile marketing, companies like SnapTag and JagTag are creating confusion around one of the most talked about mobile applications: bar codes.

This January 7, 2009 post on MobileMarketingWatch.com describes an offering by a new company called JagTag that offers a very similar service to SnapTag (which we blogged about here back in October of 2009).

These services appeal to marketer’s fears about the limited reach of smartphones capable of reading bar codes.  This is due to the somewhat real issue of handsets often needing special software to interpret the codes.  When marketers think about bar codes on mobile devices, they should break down the options as follows:

• As a coupon delivery and redeeming method.
• As a replacement for plastic cards (like your grocery store loyalty or video store cards).
• As a means of communicating information and/or pointing consumers to rich mobile interactions.

What Jag and Snap Tags do is imply that by using relatively ubiquitous MMS-enabled camera phones, consumers can be called to action as follows: take a picture of a code, send it via MMS, then receive of something of value – pointers to websites, a text message, offer, coupon code, etc.

I fail to see how this adds value to an interaction in the mobile channel versus even more common SMS text messaging.  The only case I can identify is when a brand wants to create an arguably fun activity for a consumer whereby they have a chance to use the camera feature/MMS sending capability of their phone.  That is a very weak scenario in my view.

Dwell time was a concept I first came across years ago as a web analytics measure designed to provide ecommerce marketers with insight into how long a visitor took to either make a buy decision or abandon the site for another.  It seems the same is happening around mobile enabled consumers as they browse retail stores, introducing new challenges for marketers.

Although it doesn’t say so, this post yesterday on eMarketer.com suggests that providing incentives designed to keep your mobile savvy customers in store is closely tied to ensuring they don’t bail and visit another store for a better deal:

“The threat comes from in-store shoppers using their phones to check sales prices at other retailers.  Compete found that 41% of iPhone users and 43% of Android users do just that.”

“You could argue that every retailer on the planet is an off-balance-sheet showroom for Amazon.  So if you go into a retailer’s store and you see something you like—type in that manufacturer’s SKU number and check the price on Amazon. You’ve looked at it, you’ve touched it, felt it, and now you’re getting the benefit of potentially getting the best price on it too.”

To meet this challenge, the post recommends “A retailer’s best defense for maintaining customer loyalty is to develop a mobile offering that allows in-store shoppers access to customer reviews and other product information on its Website.   This is where the opportunity lies for retailers.  By providing mobile access to their extensive online product information, they help customers feel more comfortable about making a purchase.”

This is a logical recommendation, yet it will not prevent price sensitive, mobile enabled customers from comparison shopping and potentially leaving the store.  It also ignores reseach suggesting that loyalty not be the target, but rather engagement.

To keep customers in-store and increase the probability of purchase, retailers should build engagement strategies into their mobile plans such as text message promotions like sweepstakes and other contests.

Consumers value their time as much as their money, which is why many are excited at the prospect of instantly performing a price comparison quickly then moving onto another store.  Retailers who create engaging mobile programs that keep customers in-store such as promotions lessen the likelihood that they will take the time to visit another store.