What demographic responds best to mobile?

What core demographic responds best to mobile messaging? This is one of the most common questions that a business has to answer. As you talk to different experts, study usage, and conduct surveys - you get an answer that is a little 'all over the place.'

Teens do text and they are phenomenal at it. In fact, they are quick, they use short code, and most importantly they are able to multi-task while texting. Young adults respond to mobile messages in droves. They are quick to respond and wear their phone as an attachment to themselves. Thirty something's carry their phones as if it was part of their body. They are able to look things up very quickly using their mobile devices. Forty something's feel connected to their mobile device. Not as much physically, but the phone gives them a feeling of comfort and an assurance that they are not going to miss anything. Fifty something's look for convenience. Something easy to use, not too cumbersome to carry, and easy to find in their purse, bag, or pocket. Sixty something's look at mobile as part of a routine. And of course, those who are seventy or more look at it as a really cool device.

The US is going through a revolution of sorts. The smart'er' phone is becoming a norm and the utility of the phone continues to increase. The consumer interacts well with the phone. Many international countries lead the world in mobile, they have more users per capita with mobile devices, and the business applications of these devices are tremendous. If you really want to see how the phone is going to be used to you need to consider three things - first, see how different demographics in different parts of the world have responded to messages over the past few years, second, look at the emerging intuitiveness of the newer devices including the applications, third, consider the phone as something you won't leave your home without.

With the phone being so personal, and the availability of relevant applications - it is going to be like the TV. Everyone is going to have it, know how to use it, the key will be how relevant is the content that is being served. Join us later this afternoon on BrightTALK as we engage in a conversation with experts Mickey Alam Khan & Barg Upendra as we discuss what Mobile can do for the Marketer.

Read more >>

Bentley says Hi!

One of my friends received a text message from her grown up son, 'Bentley says hi!' Right after she texted him back, she shared the picture with her colleagues. All done in a matter of minutes. Her colleagues liked the pictures a lot. She shared it with them as well. One of the colleagues shared the picture with his kids on Facebook, lots of people gave the image a thumbs up - the dog was now a mini celebrity.

I went to my favorite home improvement store (Ken's place) to purchase a new part for my door luck. Unable to remember the exact model, I was about to run home when my son took an image of the lock, and texted it to me. 15 minutes later, I was home with the right part.

A good friend of mine was looking to plant flowers in her yard. Not sure as to what to put where, she took pictures of a number of flowers, went home, and then started grouping them together until she liked the pattern. Her phone helped her take pictures that she downloaded, and when she put her patterns together she actually posted them on Facebook - got her friends to comment and only then did she go back to the nursery and purchase exactly what she needed.

I was lucky to have an awesome room at a hotel earlier this week - top floor suite. It rained all night and I woke up at 3.30 am. What woke me up was a continuous drip of water from the ceiling - not good at all. I called the front desk to complain only to be told that engineering would take care of the problem in the morning. I mailed the image to their corporate customer service desk. Engineering was at my door before 4.00 am.

You can use your mobile device for authentication for financial transactions, carry an electronic boarding card for an airline, receive coupons for retail, & stay connected. Mobile is getting more powerful, it is getting easier, and gives marketers an opportunity to connect with those they serve.

Join us on BrightTALK at 2.00 pm EST tomorrow as we talk about different aspects about mobile, email, & social. We will talk about trends, opportunities, and answer as many questions as possible. You can register for the call at BrightTALK.

Read more >>

Mobile Marketing: Workshop on Friday

I ate lunch with Mickey Alam Khan, Editor in Chief Mobile Marketer - his words directly, '2010 is the year for Marketers!' His feeling was that the opportunities that existed to communicate with consumers were tremendous and marketers had a real chance to shine as they powered cross channel messaging.

Dinner with Barg Upendra, the President of Mobomo - his focus is on developing applications for the mobile consumer. One of the select few to work on the i(Stuff) - Barg is immersed in the opportunities presented by consumers on the go. He continues to create new applications and enable existing applications for smarter phones. It is a new world, and Barg is helping marketers make connections.

The mobile device is quick, personal, & with people all the time. It can be tracked. The question is how are people leveraging it?

Both Mickey & Barg will lead a discussion, 'What can mobile do for the marketer?' on Friday April 30th from 2 - 3 pm EST. The call will be hosted by me on BrightTALK - a company focused on delivering education over the internet - webcasts worth watching.

The call will cover the following areas: the Industry, Design, Device, List Size, Offers, Regulations, Reporting, & Research.

Some of the questions we plan covering include:

• What is the state of the industry and what is the opportunity ahead?
  
• How should a company be set up organizationally to support mobile initiatives?
• How best could one leverage advertising on social media channels using mobile devices?
  
• How can people acquire new mobile numbers?
  
• What core demographic responds best to mobile messaging?
  
• How secure is the mobile channel?
  
• How do you drive the consumer to a secure landing page?
  
• One way or two way communications - what is the difference?
  
• What key regulations should businesses be aware of?
  
• What are the disadvantages of sending marketing messages via text?
  
• How best should one get (re)started?
  

Do join our call, I have many more questions for our experts. We hope you can leverage their insight into your converged channel marketing initiatives. Here is the information to sign up for the call. Remember you have to register with BrightTALK for this discussion.

Read more >>

Now why did I get that message?

It is certainly cheaper & quicker to message people through interactive media. The consumer can not only respond faster, their behaviour can be tracked and therefore leveraged into further personalizing future messaging. Sadly, many businesses continue to push the limits of consumer acceptance by trying to trick the consumer into a relationship.

Some businesses feel that by tweaking their privacy policy they can turn around the legal requirements of why a consumer can be messaged. So all of a sudden the poor consumer who provided an email id or mobile phone for a transactional update starts receiving promotional messages.

It gets worse when the consumer starts getting emails from partners, and things are downright deceitful when under the guise of a contest, the business starts sharing the consumers contact information with other businesses.

Bad behaviour like that is hurting good businesses, as consumers either un-subscribe, complain about spam, or turn themselves off messages from legitimate businesses. To keep things flowing, here are a few things to include in your messaging.

Remind people why they signed up for your campaign. 'You are receiving this message because you signed up for our program on …. ' List your contact information clearly so the consumer knows who you are. Messages from 'Customer Service' or 'Bambi' (believe me this is a true from field) do little to boost consumer confidence as to the origin of the message. Give consumers the option of contacting your business easily. Some companies have even set up help desks that respond to queries and concerns within 24 hours (if not right away.)

Take a little time to make the 'About Us' section prominent or easy to get to from your messages. Tell a story - have compelling content, it goes a long way in keeping the anticipation up for future messages. Best of all, make it easy for the consumer to get off your list if they want to. It saves time, it saves money, and it truly boosts consumer confidence.

Read more >>

Ya'll ready for this?

Businesses seek the hearts, minds, & wallets of consumers. Consumers are happy to oblige if they are approached correctly, engaged with interest, & served with relevance. Here are a few things to do to make sure you have covered your basics.

Reuse your content across emails, your social media sites, & in print (if you do print marketing). Don't just make a copy of what you are doing on one channel onto another - repurpose your content appropriately. The mobile phone may not work for a long email. Make sure that the email can be viewed on a mobile device.

And if you do offers on mobile - make sure that the offers can be seen clearly on the little phone, that they are relevant to what the consumer wanted, and in compliance.

Remember compliance shouldn't just mean that you are covered by law to send the message - 'real' compliance implies that you also have the consumers permission to communicate with them.

Make things interesting for the consumer. If it is intriguing and valuable, they will appreciate the communiqué. Give them reasons to go through your content. And if you do mix things up by putting offers on both email and mobile - if it is done correctly, you could actually be successful in driving the consumer from one channel to another.

Make it easy for your consumer to provide you with feedback on your messages. Don't just solicit feedback, ask people to comment on your messages. Leverage these comments onto your social media sites. It is the best way to drive engagement.

Don't make assumptions about 'older' people not being interested in your digital communications. The lady in the picture is not a model who posed for me. She was, 'simply catching up with her messages on her laptop and got a coupon for a free next meal by offering the restaurant her mobile number.'

Read more >>

10 Ways to Enhance Your Email Program

I - Welcome Emails: You have to send the first message right away. You have to follow up with two to three more messages in an attempt to build up rapport and create a dialogue with your consumer. If you are not doing this - you’re missing a perfect opportunity to set the stage for future campaigns, reinforce the recipient’s expectations of your brand or even convert them to a customer right out of the gate.

II - Private Email Club: If you compare recipients across campaigns, you’ll likely see that there are a handful that consistently open and click. Acknowledge them; let them know they are in your First Responders Club. Give your first responders the perks of receiving offers a couple hours before the remainder of your list; or offers unique to them. This First Responders Club could evolve further, maybe even a Private Email Club – something that could include a paid membership for personalized emails with offers sent before the remainder of the list. Your cost could be based on the shipping fees your repeat customer made in the past year (play with it based on the customer.)

III - Bring out your Dead: Take the Dead (people who don't open, click, or order from your emails) out of your list. Don't send them every mail you send on a weekly basis, but reduce your sending to them to a bi-monthly or monthly basis. You may be surprised to find that a reduction in frequency could actual spurn a resurrection.

IV - Test, Test, Test: Take the time to test out subject lines, different highlighted products, and content. Just because you think it's a great subject line, doesn't mean your customers will. Try testing out these things to no more than 10% of your list, trying maybe three different variables. Then send the most successful performing content/segment to the rest of your list. This takes some planning, but it's worth it.

V - Segment for Success: Move away from the idea of "blasting" your customers with email, but instead focus on segmenting them and sending them email content that is relevant and interesting to them. This can help to boost your open rates and orders.

VI - Train your people: The best investment you can make in your email program is to train your touch points in the collection process. Start with the people who talk to customers and prospects, ask them to list three to five reasons why people ought to sign up for your email program. Put this list together and make everyone aware of it. Listen to what is being said to prospects on the phone and (if you can) ask the customer/ prospect what they thought about the solicitation for email. Your team needs to understand why you need email, you need to continue to give them updates, listen to their concerns and make it consistent across channels.

VII - Keep Asking: You never know enough! Create various conversation zones with your customers. Start with the sign up process; ask them for more than their email id. Insert a link in every email, soliciting feedback from your subscribers about your company, your service and give them a comment field. Make sure you act upon this feedback because you want to make sure that the customers aren’t ignored. Plan a quarterly email asking them about the style of your communiqués – ask them for direct feedback on ways you can improve your email program. In fact, why not ask them what they would like to see in print. In addition to asking, leverage their actual behavior; compare it with what they said they wanted and use this click data to further improve your email program.

VIII - Speed & Service: Email is fast and people love great service. As a customer service representative many years ago, I enjoyed anticipating events and freaking people out by showing up with what they needed almost immediately. Email allows you to get into the inbox almost immediately, use it to make sure you are providing a service. Take every single customer service communiqué within your organization and see how you can improve it through your email program.

IX - Tie in Social Media: User Generated Content is huge; it gives you the third party endorsement your product/ service needs. See how you can take this feedback and incorporate it into a Web2.0 medium – a community, a blog, videos etc. If nothing else figure out a way to make a presence on the various channels – put your TV commercials on YouTube, post your emails on a blog with a little comment about the campaign.

X - Don't forget Mobile: Capture the consumers mobile number and use it to give them things that you promised. Mobile on a smarter phone is more personal, can be accessed anywhere, & is immediate. You should look for ways to leverage it into your dialogue.

The future of email marketing lies in a marketer’s ability to create an interactive conversation with their clients and prospects. Leverage your knowledge about the customer, make your people part of your process and excel at service – it is as simple as that!

Join our call next Friday April 30th - 'What can Mobile do for the Marketer?' Call details are on the Service in Action site.

Read more >>

The Online Chuck-a-Puck Contest

Once upon a time there was an email marketing manager for a regional hockey team; the team was a start-up in an area not very familiar with the sport so ticket sales were low. They managed to sell 4000 of their 12500 seats in season tickets, another 2000 would typically sell on their own and their sales team was able to move an additional 1000 through corporate sales/ event nights. This left them with 5000 empty seats.

Disappointed with the empty seats, the owners tasked him with boosting ticket sales – the email manager tried everything, promoting to his email list (approximately 7000 names), working closely with the advertising group for television, print and bill board ads. He tried PR initiatives and even dressed up in a sandwich board to hand out tickets. Nothing really worked.

So one afternoon, while stuffing envelopes, he decided to promote a contest. He put out an email to his entire list (7000 names). Asking recipients to print out the email and bring to the game, those who did would receive a puck to chuck into the goal during half-time. From his list only 700 opened, 200 brought in the email as instructed and had their chance to chuck-a-puck. There were five winners, who received merchandise, free tickets or photos with the players.

After the contest, the announcer told everyone where to sign-up for the next game and their chance to play. By the next week he had 1,400 new subscribers, the email went out and had 3,600 opens – 2000+ people printed to play at the next game (he still had five winners). By the third game he had even more subscribers, an open rate above 60% and a huge conversion. Response was so overwhelming that he pressed further by giving the non-winners an opportunity to fill out an online preference survey with the chance to win box seats for the next game.

Today (three years later) he promotes his events on Facebook. He uses intrigue to engage his fans. He uses online contests to grow his reach. He leverages social media and mobile to survey his recipients. He even gets his fans to predict plays. He was a one man band, but sales are so good he now has a team - a very productive one too.

So the moral of this story is that a little interaction goes a long way. This one contest helped the manager 1) grow his list; 2) get more “cheeks in seats” and 3) actually CONNECT with customers (he collected personalized information that could be leveraged for future campaigns.)

You could do the same, think of ways to solicit interaction, it could revitalize your email campaigns, reduce direct mail cost and give you access to the personal information you need to attract advertisers… you may even unload some of those expensive “Jack Nicholson” seats.

Read more >>

Bollywood Masala: TV, Mobile, & the Web

Imagine a television channel run without celebrities! No hosts on TV - all of the interaction is done through a set of animated characters. The animated characters run the program - they play out requests, and they keep people entertained with a set of funny skits. 9XM is a Bollywood Music-only channel that features popular videos and skits.

The process is really simple. You could be watching the show on TV, you like what you see - so you text in your approval, add a request, and personalize your request with a message you select. Your song soon follows on TV with your personalized message being displayed. Every so often they run contests where they solicit skits from viewers. These skits are then played out by the animated characters.

Their offering appeals to the entire family – young and old, throughout the country found something from the animation, interaction, music or latest Bollywood gossip. The users can be engaged across channels - the web, TV, and mobile. They have been doing this prior to all the buzz around social media and mobile - true pioneers in a field that continues to grow dramatically.

Their site is constantly updated too; serving as a destination so users are constantly engaged and have a reason to return – this is a lesson for all marketers, keep your users engaged by looking at your site as a destination, providing users a reason to visit often. Also, keep them glued by interacting with them, & don't forget to mix things up across channel.

Read more >>

Mobile, Email, & the Consumer

In most organizations you have separate initiatives for email & mobile. Plus it is rare to find these digital marketing initiatives tied directly to traditional marketing programs. Most people look at email and mobile as a cost benefit program because it is cheaper to execute than other direct marketing programs. What makes things myopic is that marketers measure these programs with a time to redemption clause - 'you can get things done quickly.'

Very few organizations are beginning to invest in email and mobile to build branding across channel. While marketers like that you can track both these channels, they tend to track things separately. As a consumer you may get an email offer and a mobile offer. Both offers are tracked, but there is little coordination between what was offered across channels, and worse, almost no leveraging of one channel response into the other.

In an ideal state email and mobile should not be looked at as an email program & a mobile program; but rather think of them as a consumer marketing program. The consumer comes to you because you provide value. This value could be information, products, services, or special deals. Your focus should be on engagement and how the offers can be simplified as they are served up to the consumer.

Marketers should make it very easy for the consumer to communicate back with them. They need to leverage the consumers feedback into how the consumer can be approached on the 'other channels.'

The more the user is engaged, the more feedback they provide - the more interesting your content can get. Are you leveraging user generated content into your mobile & email mix?

Read more >>

Can Your Airline Do This?

Emily needs to schedule a last minute flight. The airline that 'knows' her is sold out. She searches the web for good last minute deal and is able to find the flight she needs with another airline. A first timer on this airline, she decides to set up an account.

The account set up process is simple, three simple questions, & then she is asked for her email address and mobile phone number. She sees a banner ad promoting the convenience of mobile messaging and decides to see just exactly what it’s all about. She doesn't mind trying this new interaction after noticing an ‘unsubscribe option’ if she finds the service obtrusive or not necessary for her lifestyle. Relaxed, she tells the airline a little bit more about herself.

When she arrives at the airport, she decides to check-in using a self-service kiosk that she noticed when entering the building. She is recognized, welcomed, and offered something relevant. She told them about her favorite foods & restaurants, and right there she has an offer to purchase a meal for her flight which is displayed by a banner ad next to her flight summary. It recognizes that she is flying coach, has an exit row aisle seat, and displays her proper food selections. She accepts the offer and the meal is charged to her cell phone. She is pleased that she took the time to fill out her preferences from home.

As she makes her way through security, she receives a text telling her that her departure gate has been changed to B30, where she makes a mental note and continues on.

As she settles into her seat, Emily received an email from her smart phone of her current mileage summary as well as directions to her hotel at her destination. Again, she is pleased - she took a minute to tell her airline where she was headed, & they remembered. She does get a text, thanking her for flying the airline, an offer to take a survey, & a coupon to her favorite restaurant.

Later that evening Emily logs back into her airline account, takes the survey, and then notices a banner ad promoting that she is five trips shy of getting a free ticket. She is also offered 25000 bonus miles if she gets a credit card from the airline. The airline promises her offers that are relevant and useful.

As Emily was preparing for her meeting the next day, she could not help but be amazed by the personalization and technology that she had experienced first-hand, by flying the new airline that morning.

After her initial trip, Emily called the new airline about matching her status - they did, & she became a more frequent flier on this airline due to her rewarding experience. She continues to receive emails, mobile messages, & direct mail with personalized offers and information that is relevant to her while she is looking into new ‘hotspots’ and earning points toward her incentives.

Oh, and Emily now raves about her friendly airline to her friends on her social networks. Free publicity that was well earned by an airline that cared to listen.

Two things are going to drive the future of interaction - preferences, & presence. Email, mobile, & social are all key drivers to achieving this interaction.

Read more >>

How to write Use-Cases: Email, Mobile, Social

You need to come up with a plan on how you can communicate with your consumers via email, mobile, & social media. To keep the user even more engaged you need to make sure that all three channels are truly driving a relevant two way dialogue. Here are five things you could do to make sure that you are communicating in coordinated fashion.

1 - List Channels & their Purpose - You use email for offers, updates, & transactional messages. You may be using mobile for offers, alerts, & transaction receipts. You use Twitter for customer service, Facebook for engagement & contests, & your Blog as a repository for information. Create a grid where you list each channel (or sub-channel) and what the purpose of each channel is - so you know where you’re making contact with your customers and prospects.

2) Who is your Consumer? (customer, member, prospect) – Ask different people in your organization who they think they serve and build a persona for each profile/ type. For instance, Jill is 30 and single; Brad is 45 and married with two kids; Ed is 65 and married. Put together information about each type including how you should communicate with them, map this information with your subscribe page, preference collections and surveys to insure you are capturing information effectively.

3) Write your Script – Think about messages to help you fulfill the purpose of each channel. Think about the person(a) and how you would communicate with that person(a) over that specific channel. Think about ways you can drive people from one channel to another. People may not buy instantly, you may need to guide them through a series of messages before you can get a sale. List those use-cases and group them together.

4) Test your Message – Will the message you’re sending appeal to your core groups? Will Jill respond, or is this message designed more for your Brads and Eds? Make sure you’re segmenting based on content/ offer epically for the top portion of your list.

5) Don’t forget about Growth – Using the combinations created; determine how to attract more consumers like them from both your existing base as well as new prospective consumers. Think about what motivated each type to give you their contact information. Leverage this information to create compelling reasons as to why your consumers should provide you with their contact information. Do this across channel. Keep it engaging. Keep soliciting feedback. Alter as necessary.

Remember to engage with your recipients as often as possible, and never forget to factor all possible places they could interact with your brand.

Read more >>

Future of Email, Impact of Mobile, & Mobility

People will pay attention to your messages if they are relevant, if they can access your messaging whenever they want, & if they can interact with you while on the go. The advent of the smarter phone coupled with the ability to personalize conversations is going to drive the future of email marketing. Organizations need to think about a few things as they prepare themselves to have a relevant dialogue with the consumer.

First, they need to overcome the idea of silos in marketing. Take a look at email & mobile - more than likely each channel sits in a separate department. Even if they are in the same group, the objectives for the two channels do not align.

Second, they need to think about accounting for consumer preferences in one database. They need to ensure that they are communicating and not badgering. Most importantly, they need to make sure that the different channels are communicating with the same consumer with consistency.

Third, these businesses need to think about existing regulations & the law. While there is some clarity in email law, there is still a lot of fuzziness in mobile marketing. To top it off, many organizations simply follow the law to a tee, which means in many ways they are pushing things to a point of being legal but unreasonable with consumers.

Email can become communication central. Mobile gives you the opportunity to personalize things even further. Mobility forces you to think about a consumer who is on the go. You can not only track your messaging, you can also track location - you should leverage this into coming up with more efficient messaging.

Marketers are going to have to bring together two 'instant' outbound marketing programs - email & mobile. They need to focus on preferences, by listening to what the consumer wants to hear. Additionally, they need to be present for the consumer. Want to learn more about the future of email, the impact of mobile, and mobility? Join BrightTALK's email marketing summit - my session on preference, presence, & empathy is at 12:00 noon EST.

BrightTALK is hosting an email marketing summit - some great information to help you with your multi-channel marketing efforts. Even if you can't attend the live sessions, you can log in to listen to some really good information later.

Read more >>

Five Key Challenges for Mobile

Mobile offers you the opportunity for real time engagement. With smart phones becoming smarter - mobile merges email, & phone. Additionally, it gives the consumer instant access to social media channels. This means that a business can connect in real time. Here are five issues to consider.

Consumer Acceptance - Mobile has the ability to target people one on one, yet there still exists the 'horde' marketing mentality. 'Horde' translates to as many offers to as many people most of the time. Instead the focus should be on extreme personalization (which might be hit or miss and you can learn from it) driven through preferences.

Emerging & Transitioning Technologies - Old mobile was designed for the flip phone. New mobile is being designed for the smart phone. The phone is becoming 'smarter' and consumers are just getting to what is available. Applications being built for both environments – the old flip & the smarter phone; and in some cases being delivered without any real testing. Keep in mind that testing here needs to be done to ensure that they work correctly and are mobile friendly. You will get fewer second chances to make first impressions with mobile applications.

Cost of Usage & Bandwidth - While incoming is free in many parts of the world - many US providers make a lot of money on incoming messages. Hefty fees on the transfer of data coupled with real network bandwidth challenges (my 'smart phone' goes blank for long periods of time in New York City) are going to be the gauge on driving user engagement. The cost will have to come down, bandwidth will have to increase, and the applications will have to be more efficient to keep users engaged.

Regulation & Laws – Do you know about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? Before capturing user preferences businesses need to make sure that the consumer has opted-in to receive mobile messaging. There are a number of companies that are offering to get the consumer opted-in to your marketing messages via SMS, yet their methodology opens up a can of ethical worms.

SPAM – You have to be wary as this is the easiest way to increase regulation, choke bandwidth, increase costs, flood the consumers in-box, consequently reducing consumer acceptance. A few large companies with top notch programs are ‘unaware’ that their ‘local brick & mortar places’ have their own mobile messaging initiatives!

These are some of the issues we will be discussing on our monthly call – Friday, April 30th – ‘What can mobile do for the marketer?’

Read more >>

Amen Corner: Email, Mobile, & Social

Those in the business of golf rejoiced this weekend – the number of people watching the Masters tournament was tremendous. People were willing to pay a premium for the tickets & golf merchandise sold really quickly. In addition to all the eyeballs on television & the web – there was a lot being done on mobile.

I had the opportunity to sign up for email alerts. Not just an update about how the day went, but I could pick and choose which players I wanted updates on and how often. I had the option of choosing text only, or rich media which included pictures and links to videos. The subject lines were relevant and they gave me enough information to decide whether or not to open the message. The email was mobile friendly as I could see most of it quickly on my ‘smart-phone.’

Social Media was well leveraged as there were discussion groups and lots of comments. The best part about the campaign was that it put together fused content – text, image, & video into a powerful combination – to me this was buzz at its best – I could see the tournament and even track what the chatter was all about. Check out FanZone @ PGATour.com.

My mobile phone allowed me to link into Amen Corner (holes 11, 12, & 13) – I had access to live video. In addition to the video, I had access to the live leader board, the ability to access articles, and jump into the social media discussion.

Even when I watched the sport on my TV – I was dialed in to the web for email updates and my smart phone for what was happening in Amen Corner.

My smart phone knew what I was watching and that is what drove content for my email campaigns. The advertising by email was very tastefully done. I was gently ‘coaxed’ into content that gave me options, engaged me with questions, (obviously) tracking my responses, to create more compelling messaging.

This year the Masters ran in my opinion one of the best cross channel messaging initiatives. There were some really good lessons for marketers to apply to our own marketing campaigns.

Read more >>

Use Cases: For Mobile, Email, & Social Media

A use case allows you to write down a script on how you can communicate. You have the consumers mobile number, their email address, & you know where they hang out. Why don't you consider writing out a script of how you can use each of these channels to drive a dialogue with your consumer. You have to consider being a guide - guiding your consumer through possible scenarios and making sure you cover all the bases versus having random acts of messaging.

A use case is made up of actors & the role they play (how they act). The actor performs multiple roles (or acts) ... each act is a use case. Use cases allow you to break down complex acts into simpler steps.

You have three emerging channels for marketing that you can make effective - email, mobile, & social media. It no longer means collect addresses or phone numbers or point out your social media presence. It has evolved to include other channels and in an ideal environment, serves as a vehicle for conversations between recipients and the company (AKA you.)

Determine your effectiveness by considering all the possible types of people who sign up for your campaigns. Consider the various parts of your organization that interest that person/ type of person – by coupling each type with various acts you’ll be able to predict how each series of interactions will play out. Consider the possible communication streams for each of your channels - email, mobile, and even social media – draw on your strengths as a marketer – over time you’ll be able to identifying each interaction type and engage the recipient in a dialogue leveraging your interactions to drive them down previously designated paths.

The recipient will feel as if each message was designed for them – the bonding, transactional, and even subsequent messaging based on feedback & interactions.

Digital channels are interactive & instant - employing use cases is a powerful way to help you with the process.

Read more >>

Seven Ways to Rejuvenate Your Marketing Database

A visit to so many marketers shows people poring over paper reports, having meetings about the validity of the reports, and decisions being made without all the data. Here are seven things to consider doing to rejuvenate your marketing database.

1 - Create a Roadmap - You know where you are and what you can do today. Start by listing where you would like to be and start coming up with small steps in between.

2 - Focus on the Business Needs - Put forth a list of those who use your database and ask them about what information they need and how they want to use the information. In the world of use cases, this means you are listing the actors (users) and asking them to list their use cases (tasks) on how they would use the marketing database.

3 - Find the Gaps - You will find that you are missing information, have duplicate information, take too long to update information, or it is really hard to find the information. Additionally, users may not be able to find the information in different places compatible with each other. You consequently need to highlight these gaps and start improving the quality of data (or put it on the roadmap).

4 - Design the Reports - Do this first as people will want to see the information in a particular format. Once you start getting people sold on the look and feel of what the reports are, you will find them much more amenable to changes that might be required later.

5 - Educate the Users - Teach them how to use the database. I usually recommend a three step approach. I ask the users to write down specific use cases on what information they need from the system. Next I ask them to point it out in the reports (step 4). Once they have done that, I encourage them to click through to find the appropriate data. These three steps can now be captured as part of the user manual and should be kept available for online support as well.

6 - Make the Database Accessible - If people can access your database to get the reports that they desire - they are more likely to use it. From a performance perspective, limit the number of power users (users who can run any query) so as to not reduce the performance of your system. Pre-run popular reports so that the information is available to those that need it. Also, work with the power users to add to the repository of reports and keep evaluating (and removing) reports that are not used.

7 - Make Reports Mobile - Allow your key users to have access to summary reports on their mobile devices. This is power messaging at its best and it really helps to rejuvenate the utility of information and your marketing database.

Read more >>

Mobile: What consumers really want?

Imagine walking into a retail store. You see a sign with an offer - you like it. You are offered a vanity number to dial in to. As a consumer you dial the number. Two things have happened. First, the retailer has captured your telephone number, second - they know what offer drove you to complete the transaction (they know your possible preference).

Mobile has helped identify you to the retailer. You now walk through the store to a display that could potentially play an extended advertisement of what you saw earlier. If you like what is on this display, you could download the offer and redeem the offer across channel.

You could also share the offer or what you like with your group of friends on your social network.
The same thing could apply to a meal that you are eating at a restaurant. You come in, and put your mobile number in for an opportunity to win a free lunch. Midway through your meal, the restaurant could serve up an offer for a desert to you. You could also be asked for input about how the restaurant fared by a simple three question survey. Another opportunity for engagement.

You are looking to lock in a rate on a mortgage. You could provide the financial institution (FI) with your mobile number. The FI can now use your number to give you rate updates and also leverage the information to learn more about you and try to personalize your transactions.

Mobile has the ability to offer timely relevance, plus the consumer has the ability to access you from wherever they want. Mobile offers a great way to start a relationship, the key lies in engaging the consumer past what their immediate need is. Brands that will succeed with mobile will be those that will use mobile to engage you across other channels.

Join us on Friday, April 30th as we talk about effective mobile strategies as we join a panel of experts in a discussion around best practices. More information on the call can be found at Service in Action.

Read more >>

Mobile: Opportunities for Retailers

Consumers want convenience, timely messaging, & really targeted offers. Mobile gives the retailer an opportunity to do all three things effectively. Even without offering mobile commerce on their sites, here are some things retailers can consider doing to engage their consumer.

First, retailers should make it easier for consumers to be able to find products, services, locations, or other relevant information from mobile devices. A mobile application versus the full screen from the site is prefered. The important thing is to make sure that the search function is mobile ready. Quick search on mobile is going to help your brand more than anything else.

Second, let the consumer know that if they are to provide you with their mobile number, you will ensure that their mobile device will be one of the first places you are going to provide the messages to. Mobile is more personal than email and also charges the consumer for the transaction. Many catalogers were very successful with their email programs because they were able to send email offers before offers in print. Use the same philosophy to show that the mobile number is valued and will be used for really timely messaging.

Third, use the consumers preferences, and their mobile presence to provide them with succint offers on their mobile devices. Mobile marketing is definitely not like a catalog or email. You are going to alienate the consumer if you put all the offers within the email onto the mobile device. Instead, keep encouraging the consumer to update their preferences and then use those preferences to put out targeted 'single' offers back to the consumer.

Do two other things - first, make sure that you keep a syncrhonized view of your consumer. This means that list their mobile number, their email id, & their other direct mail information together. This way when you communicate with them there is a coordinated message that makes sense & it helps you keep track of everything that you have sent the consumer. Second, RESPECT the consumers ability to un-subscribe from your mobile marketing - make it easy, they will stay on longer.

Mobile can provide timely relevance and help you create an interactive dialogue - just remember, you have to do it on the consumers terms.

Read more >>

Mobile Marketing: Opportunities for FI's

Many financial institutions (FI's) have got concerted efforts underway to capture mobile numbers for their prospects, customers, & members. Their first step is to grab the number, next introduce the recipient to the FI, & then perhaps convince the consumer to access the FI's mobile banking platform. When a connection is made, the consumer has access to the FI's site & the FI has access to the consumers information. The key now is to leverage the telephone number to only communicate with the consumer when it is really important.

The consumer may access the FI's site from their mobile device at any time. The opportunity for the FI is to ensure that the information presented to the consumer is easy to find, succinct, and consequently useful for the consumer. If this is accomplished the FI can build up trust with the consumer and leverage this trust to lure the consumer with relevant offers.

Outbound contact represents a big dilemma for many marketers including financial institutions. They are trying to use the consumers number and 'trust' to offload all the consumer communiqué's - but the consumer does not want to be overwhelmed. In our survey of consumers in 2009 - more than 67% of consumers surveyed, did not want their mobile device to be used for 'marketing-only' offers.

This presents three opportunities for the marketers. First, start building up a repository of preferences so as to leverage this within conversations. Second, use the consumers visit to your mobile site to serve up relevant messaging or cross-sells. Third, remind the consumer to look within their other channels for valuable offers from you. Of course, you can always ask the consumer to tell you what they are interested in and then with their permission serve it up to them via mobile messaging.

FI's can create the best relationships with their consumers on mobile devices, their challenge really lies in limiting the dialogue and driving relevant conversations.

Read more >>

Key Drivers of Change for Smart Phones

The race is on and that too at a frenetic pace - a lot is being done to make the smart phone even smarter. Phone, email, & social media - they are all drivers of the change for the consumer. The consumer is driven by their need to communicate, to stay in touch, and stay entertained. Here are a few things that are helping fuel the innovation on smart(er) phones.

Improvements will take place in the operating system of smart phones. The operating system controls how the phone application communicates with the microprocessor within. There are currently many complex messages that are given for every command. While there is enough speed to handle this complexity, the power consumption for complexity is immense. There will be newer mobile processing platforms that will strive towards reducing the amount of complexity ultimately leading to lower power consumption. This lower power consumption will result in longer usage of the device, shorter amount of down time (charging), and the ability to serve richer content in higher resolution.

The network is becoming stronger and will need to become extremely secure. Live streaming of video and the ability to download applications in real time will drive investments in network improvement. You will also see the need for secure point to point payments which will result in applications being downloaded for one time use only. This will really raise the bar in terms of device identification, access authentication, secure transactions, & transaction validation (a real receipt).

Unprecedented software application development. If you think there are too many applications already - you have seen nothing yet. There are three kinds of application development taking place. First, the re-engineering of existing applications (on more traditional devices like computers, television, & game devices); second, development of point applications - things that users need; & third really innovative applications that are emerging as paradigm shifters in how we use these devices.

Accelerometers, Magnetometers, & Haptics?
Accelerometers help detect tilt, motion, & rotation gestures to a mobile device. This allows the view to change from landscape to portrait depending on how you move it. Additionally, it also allows for more intuitiveness on applications.

Magnetometers facilitate map applications. There is a digital compass in your smart phone and this helps you to navigate better. This is also the foundation for geo-targeting that can be leveraged by marketers.

Haptics is a user interface technology that relies on a sense of touch to provide physical feedback back to the device. The sense of touch will drive changes, and yes allow for devices to be more personalized to an individual. There are tremendous applications here for both secure transactions, and speed of execution.

Synchronization technologies will improve dramatically, allowing users to do updates to their applications, transfer data to other devices, and even control the flow of information being synchronized intuitively. There will be more device options available and the mobile wallet will make synchronization even more secure.

All this innovation is what is going to drive secure, personalized, & multi-media messaging to the smarter consumer.

Read more >>

Mobile: From Smart to Smarter

Mobile has arrived! From just having a mobile device to having a device that is really smart (cool too) - mobile is driving unprecedented innovation. The consumer uses the smart(er) phone for so much more - to talk to people, email, & engagement.

Your phone is becoming smarter in three ways.

First, your mobile phone has graphics and is extremely intuitive. Second, your mobile phone knows where you are and can help you find things. Third, your mobile phone is 'your' mobile phone - it can be personalized & can serve 'your' specific needs. For marketers to leverage the smarter phone they need to leverage each of these features.

Graphical Intuitiveness
Your content has to fit the norm and your applications need to be accessible. Merely enabling your web site to work on this device is not going to cut it for the consumer. You need to think about reducing the amount of scrolling that is required, reduce the number of steps it takes to complete a transaction, & allow the consumer to navigate through options intuitively. This may mean a re-engineered user interface for what you do, but it is vital for engagement.

I Know Where You Are
Your phone company knows exactly where you are. With applications being available from businesses, the business can deduce your location as well. If the phone knows where you are and can help the consumer find things, the marketer needs to leverage geo-location into their marketing mix. You can vary content, & offers to the recipient if you know where they are at with their device. NFC or near field communications type technology is going to drive significant innovation to the anywhere consumer.

Personally Speaking
Your phone is personalized, it is your lifeline in many ways. It is your phone. This means that it could be your gateway to preferences, your mobile wallet, & even your identity. Applications need to be written to leverage the personalization by remembering user preferences before serving up content. The key now is not to overwhelm the consumer but to tactfully engage them in a useful and relevant dialogue.

Three things will drive smarter communiqués - knowing what consumers want, being available when they need you, & communicating with empathy. The mobile phone allows for anytime access, it is much more powerful - serving up really good content, & comes at an incredibly low price point. Businesses need to enable C2B access. Mobile facilitates that engagement.

Our focus this month is on mobile and the impact it can have in enhancing consumer relationships. In addition to a series of posts, we will publish the results of a mobile survey, give you some very practical ideas for applications, & close the month out with an opportunity to engage some real experts in a Q & A session.

Join Mickey Alam Khan, Editor in Chief of Mobile Marketer & Barg Upender, President of Mobomo in a discussion around what to expect and how to prepare for effective mobile enablement. The call is set for Friday, April 30. More information on the call is on the Service in Action site.

Read more >>