Archive for March, 2010

At Interactive Mediums we describe our value proposition as helping clients engage their customers in the mobile channel in revenue and profit producing ways.  Key to successful mobile marketing is having access to a variety of best practice mobile-optimized campaigns — or Engagement Actions — such as sweepstakes, surveys, polls and others.  Just as crucial are the metrics used to track mobile marketing efforts to gauge success but also improve efforts over time.  To those ends, our Customer Engagement Platform includes a variety of interactive reporting capabilities that lend insight into the effectiveness of mobile marketing campaigns.  Following is a summary of the metrics and reporting capabilities offered by our Platform:

Metric: Stickiness
Within the context of SMS text message mobile marketing, stickiness refers to the ability of a campaign to hold onto its opt in subscribers, such that customers may be targeted repeatedly over time.  The utility of a call to action has a great deal of influence over how many customers elect to opt out of your list.  Marketers want to see the trend in this analysis track positively over time as an indicator of stickiness.

Metric: Acquisition
Marketers need to view as a significant “win” the permission provided by customers to engage in text message interactions.  At-a-glance, marketers can instantly view the magnitude and trending for acquiring subscribers, by campaign.

Metric: Loyalty
Although referred to as “Retention,” this measure offers insight into the “mobile loyalty” of your customers.  Opting into communications is different from subscribing to receive messages proactively.  This view offers insight into the relative number of customers who have opted in that also elected to subscribe to a campaign.  Marketers can interpret this as an indicator of consumer receptiveness to mobile engagement, much as loyal customers engage in repeat purchase behavior.

Metric: Response Intensity
The ratio of messages a marketer sends versus those responded to by customers can be used to evaluate calls to action as contributing to mobile engagement.  MT, or Mobile Terminated messages, are those sent by the marketer.  MO, or Mobile Originated messages, are those sent by customers.  The greater the number of MOs for a given MT indicates superior engagement for a campaign.  Viewing MOs in isolation quickly across all Engagement Actions provides instant insight into the campaigns working best to pull customers into mobile interactions.

Metric: Reach
The value of SMS text message marketing is often described as offering universal access to consumers.  This is realized by analyzing the number of subscribers to a particular campaign, which is shown by keyword.  Keywords are how marketers connect their customers with mobile interactions and so viewing the aggregate number of subscribers per keyword illustrates the reach afforded by a campaign and its call to action.

Metric: Engagement Mix
Increasingly, mobile interactions are becoming “multi-mobile” in nature, inclusive of both SMS text messaging and the web (both mobile and desktop).  It is therefore crucial for marketers to have a single view into the interplay among these channels as part of mobile campaigns.  This analysis provides insight into the mix of distinct interactions stemming from text and web, which illustrates customer engagement channel preferences.

Today on PromoMagazine.com an article titled, “Consumers Put Price First in Calculating Retail Loyalty: Colloquy” describes results from a wide ranging survey of consumer loyalty factors in retail categories such as grocery, personal care, mass merchandise, department store and specialty retail.  Unlike a year ago when customer service was considered a top element of loyalty, today price leads.  Walmart was thus identified as the loyalty “winner” across many of these categories.

Competing for customer loyalty strictly on price is a losing proposition unless you’re Walmart, who pairs with price the equally powerful message of value.  Both rule the day in a down economic climate:

“Our 2008 index showed that loyalty marketers worked within a significantly diffe5rent retail landscape,” Colloquy partner Kelly Hlavinka said in a release accompanying the latest research. “Customer service, store environment and a wide product selection were the underlying factors for customers’ self-professed loyalty [in the 2008 study.] But our 2010 index proves that the Great Recession became the great equalizer. Low prices have stepped up to become retail’s strongest loyalty lure, according to consumers.”

One of four recommended actions retailers should take is an especially strong fit with mobile engagement strategies such as text message promotions:

“Be data-driven, using loyalty programs to collect information that can make your communications, pricing and inventory more relevant to your best customers. Hlavinka points to the examples of Kroger and CVS as two brands using customer data effectively to win the loyalty contests in their categories and regions this year.”

With price the leading decision factor around loyalty, mobile comparison shopping enabled consumers need incentives to visit and remain in-store long enough to discourage leaving for a better deal elsewhere.  We’ve blogged recently about ways marketers can meet this challenge using mobile: 

• Marketers’ Priorities All Screwed Up with Respect to Loyalty
• Marketers Striving for Loyalty Should Make Mobile Engagement the Target
• Brand Marketers Break through the Engagement Barrier with Mobile Promotions

The March 27, 2010 edition of Mobile Commerce Daily featured an article by us, titled “Creating a quick-serve restaurant mobile marketing playbook.”  In it, we describe an approach used by multi location quick serve restaurants (QSRs) to implement and roll out mobile marketing tactics such as SMS loyalty clubs.

You can also download a paper on a similar subject.

Shortly after reading that Augmented Reality was the hot-topic at this years International CTIA Wireless conference , I caught an NY Times piece on AR’s tie in to portable real estate listings.

Upon reading, I was quickly convinced that mobile augmented reality can reshape tourism, real estate and travel and is already beginning to.  From there I began pondering how it could be applied successfully to other industries such as retail.

Clearly the opportunity is there. Industry reports say that mobile handset integration will make a significant impact on Augmented Reality and catapult the industry size to over $350MM.

Secondly, It is a technology that when done well can add incredible levels of utility to a mobile device.  So far the mobile AR concept is simple, add live data population (metadata) to what you are already looking at through your mobile devices camera, or respond to an image capture with data. Whether it is a real estate listing, a state monument, or an important location in relevance to the Beatles’ history.  Once you point your camera, the information pops up right over it on your screen.

Given the opportunity & usefulness it seems like a wise choice for companies to adopt early. However, companies looking for ROI must enter this arena with the intention to offer utility & improve the lives of their customers, not just give them a fun gimmicky display of a new technology (see Fanta, or Coke Zero).  While some say this technology is going to be quickly “overhyped and abused” many will find new and innovative ways to increase convenience in consumer’s lives, in turn for brand allegiance.

Big box store IKEA is already testing out a future augmented reality catalogue showcasing building instructions. It’d be even better if you could use the pictures of your own home from your mobile device to find out while in store what that red chesterfield would look like in your living room.

As for grocery innovation, imagine walking into the canned beans section of your local supermarket on a hunt for the lowest sodium beans. With an application dedicated to healthy eating, you could potentially point your camera at the entire beans category and it could point you directly to the can with the lowest amount of sodium. Recipes would be a simple way to innovate & add useful data. Perhaps Mixology could help you think of drink recipes before hosting a party while you are shopping at the liquor store, all you would have to do is point your camera at a bottle of vanilla infused vodka and presto!

Whatever the use, AR is quickly becoming a respected medium and one of the most advanced marketing utility tools. As for other industries that can quickly be transformed the ones that come to mind are transportation, greeting cards, restaurants, and cinema. Those who adopt and integrate into their mobile strategies early will win customers & gain big shares of the opportunity, while those who sleep on this will likely get outshined by their competitors.

Just like mobile, investments in social media marketing are growing but quantifying the value of social can be a lot harder given its more subjective nature.  Yet, many forward thinking marketers are taking advantage of the popularity of social networks in line with quantifiable mobile interactions.  Dunkin Donuts is one such example highlighted in this March 26, 2010 post on the Digital CPG Blog.

Dunkin Donuts’ Twitter efforts:

“…include tracking customers that sign up for the company’s rewards programs and sweepstakes offers via Twitter, and assigning a dollar value to those customers that can then be tied to an actual ROI.”

The ease by which this is possible using solutions such as Interactive Mediums’ Customer Engagement Platform across SMS text messaging and the web makes these practices an essential component of any social media strategy.  As shown in the attached recent “Tweet” from the Dunkin Donuts Twitter page, broadcasting a contest to followers which incents them to purchase can also be used to collect valuable information about followers otherwise unavailable to marketers.  The opportunity for engagement encompasses both action (purchase) and knowledge (follower demographics).

In case you doubt the mobile nature of Twitter users or the value of understanding the audience, consider research into the Twitter user base:

“Since Twitter is pushed as a service that can (and should) be used from mobile phones, it also comes as no surprise that Twitter users are more likely (by fairly significant margins) to use their cell phones to go online and send text messages than the overall online population. In fact, Twitter users tend to use and consume all sorts of media more than the rest of the population; they’re more likely to read a newspaper on a smartphone, regular cell phone, and even online than everyone else, while “regular” Internet users are more likely to read a print newspaper. Twitter users are more engaged in blogging and reading other people’s blogs as well.”

Research into Twitter users from mulitple sources is consolidated in a post here, where it’s noted that: “Twitter are notoriously guarded about user information and Twitter usage statistics,” placing the onus on social media pros to develop creative ways of understanding their fans.

An article on Intelligent Enterprise titled, “Wendy’s Taps Text Analytics to Mine Customer Feedback” caught my eye today as a potentially interesting application of SMS text message feedback systems such as surveys.  After all, the most accurate and meaningful feedback a consumer can provide is often communicated as close to the time of service as possible – which is a perfect fit for text messaging.

One sign in every store pointing consumers to text their comments to a shortcode could act as a highly effective and efficient feedback collector – especially when paired with entry into a loyalty program.  Response rates for text message programs have commonly been reported as high as 30 percent.

According to the article Wendy’s staff will be able to:

“…analyze nearly half a million text-based customer comments per year collected from Wendy’s Web-based feedback form, call center notes, e-mail messages, receipt-based surveys, and social media sources. The chain’s customer satisfaction team currently uses the combination of spreadsheets and keyword searching to review comments in a slow, manual approach.”

Notably absent that list of collection points is text messaging.  Not only are barriers like 160 character limits broken with multi-question survey capabilities such as those offered by the Interactive Mediums Customer Engagement Platform, but data can be collected via web form and feed the same database as well.

Quick serve restaurants of all stripes should leverage once obscure analytic technologies like text mining, and would be wise to tap into the immediacy of text messaging as a key data source.

I recently came across two different articles citing research that at first glance contradict one another.  Marketers tempted to tap into consumer readiness to purchase apps as part of development project business cases should be wary of statistics like these:

From Yankee Group:  “Nearly one-third of apps downloaded are purchased, up from 18% a year ago. Further, individual app prices have risen. The average paid app costs $2.85, compared with $1.99 last year.”

Contrast this with research from an apps analytics firm, which found “prices of iPhone apps worldwide have decreased by 15% during the period from Dec. 1st, 2009 through the end of February, with Australia having the largest relative price decrease of 27% overall…The most popular applications are the most expensive in Europe, the report suggests, with an average of $3.86 per app, and the least expensive apps are in North America, with an average of $2.43 and Asia, with an average of $2.69.”

No matter if prices are increasing or falling, the market for mobile apps is growing rapidly.  If anything prices will fall as more consumers are presented with greater choice and developers can monetize their apps instead by tapping into ad networks, as is planned by Apple.  You can be assured that viewing apps as a siloed revenue opportunity as opposed to a part of a larger mobile engagement strategy will soon be a thing of the past.

Marketers in all segments sense the urge to begin employing mobile as part of the marketing mix.  If they are not planning to do so already, marketers need to begin mapping out a strategy to engage their customers in the mobile channel.  Otherwise, at risk are the mobile relationships that will likely define success.  At this formative stage of the newly mobile consumer, it’s critical to budget appropriately and move forward with a right-sized approach.

Today on MarketingForecast.com a posting titled “Businesses and Brands Allocating More Funds to Mobile” cites recent research into mobile marketing budgets for different categories of business:

• Agencies – “…the average client allocated $143,000 in mobile ad spending in 2009 and expected it would increase that amount to $260,000 in 2010.”
• Brands (or more generally, businesses other than agencies or publishers) – “Companies that are already using mobile to promote their brands expect to more than double their spending. Average spending will increase from $269,000 in 2009 to $679,744 in 2010.”
• Publishers – “Mobile publishers receive nearly half (49%) of revenue from ad money. These publishers sell their mobile space as a separate property nearly 2 out of 3 times. However, up to 2/3’s of mobile publishers also bundle the space with ‘other media sales’.  This ad space is growing but, to date, “only 25 percent of mobile publishers sell out more than half their inventory.” Participating in ad networks is a popular way for publishers to bring in revenue. Nearly 6 in 10 (58.2%) are in a mobile ad network and  publishers count on 60% of ad revenue from this source.”

These number reflect businesses already engaged in mobile marketing.  Many clients we speak with are taking their initial steps and may identify more with others new to the medium.  The post contains useful data around budget for those getting started as well:

“Up to 20% of newcomers plan to allocate at least 10% of 2010 marketing spending to the mobile effort.  In addition, nearly 1 out of 3 businesses say the funding for the new mobile efforts will be incremental.”

As noted, mapping out a strategy is crucial to determining how best to allocate marketing dollars.  Moreover, when considering mobile marketing investments, be sure to understand the distinction  between advertising networks and customer engagement, as noted here.

Mobile advertising expenditures in the so called BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China are expected to grow incredibly strong through 2012 with China leading the way, according to a new BRIC study by eMarketer.

The numbers are astonishing.

Currently, China has over 700 MM mobile subscribers, India has approximately 525 MM, Brazil has 174 MM, and Russia has just over 170MM. That’s over 1.5 Billion mobile handsets, which is roughly 5 times the amount in the United States.

On top of that The Mobile Outlook 2010‘s statistics indicate that 38.4 percent of mobile users in China are receptive to mobile advertising and marketing, while 37 percent of urban mobile users in India have already been solicited with marketing messages involving ringtone downloads, wallpapers and games!

It’s been said that Gen-Y Chinese will play a huge role, as they are more adventurous and impressionable than any other generation, and they have an increased interest in interacting with brands & being treated like Western consumer.

As fully-covered high-speed access, and improved processing-power phones hits these consumers, they will likely begin interacting with brands at a volume never seen before.

However this will take time.

The big factor here in how fast this explodes will be the rate at which consumers gain 3G power allowing easy mobile Internet access.

While the United States plentiful options have lead to 64% of mobile users to get a internet enabled phone, who knows what percentage will be achieved in BRIC countries over the next 10 years or so.

But for now, while America is moving on to more advanced functionality, mobile campaigns in these countries will primarily continue as SMS and MMS based messaging due to the low penetration of web-enabled phones.  China’s majority of mobile phone users are still using non-3G devices and networks, & India is still waiting on a 3G rollout, which is holding back more engaging marketing tactics.

What that means is an incredibly large demand for SMS and MMS opt-in marketing.

While these slower handsets, & poor coverage are setting some obstacles for users and marketers, many companies are investing in BRIC countries and preparing for an incredible new pool of could-be customers. Is the delayed advancement of web-enabled phones really a road bump or an opportunity, and where will you focus your efforts?

For tips checkout our Whitepaper: Mapping Mobile to Your Marketing Strategy

In times of economic hardship, the last thing a retailer who often appeals to those most affected wants is to do is anger its customers.  But that’s exactly what happened to Kmart recently, as described in this March 23, 2010 RetailWire.com article titled, “Kmart’s Coupon Mistake Becomes PR Blunder.”

It’s becoming cliche to say couponing is a killer application of mobile marketing techniques, due to the ubiquity of text message enabled phones and the ease by which numeric or alphanumeric codes tied to discounts for various products can be generated.  Often overlooked, however, is the fact that by its nature, mobile is a very location centric medium that forces marketers to think about geographic considerations when developing programs.  After all LBS, or location based services, is becoming a term understood by nearly all those involved in the mobile ecosystem, and collecting zip code via text message interaction is becoming a standard procedure for many.  Email marketing, on the other hand, doesn’t really create the same impression.

In the case of Kmart, an email coupon offer designed for certain markets was instead presented as valid at any Kmart location.  The result was confusion and disappointment at the point of sale, with store staff placed in the awkward position of assuming fraud in some cases:

“Cashiers and managers in stores where the coupon was not valid refused to accept the coupons and, in some instances, went so far as to accuse customers of trying to cheat the retailer.”

Had these coupons been electronic rather than paper, store employees may have been less inclined to presume fraud, the accusation of which is more harmful to customer relationships than simply saying “sorry, but that coupon just isn’t valid in our store.”  Add in the speed by which unhappy customers can communicate this experience via Twitter and Facebook, and it’s a public relations disaster.

As described here in a recent MobileMarketer.com article, another leading retailer, Sears, has mitigated coupon risk by tying coupon offers to specific customers and particular stores:

“Sears has consistently used SMS to drive cross channel store traffic, with customer specific coupon offers delivered via SMS and redeemable at physical point of sale in stores.”