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M3
Mobile Marketing e-Newsletter (February 2010)
“Mobile Retailer of the Year”
By Chrissy Sirianni On Thursday, January 14th, national apparel and accessories retailer, American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (AEO) was awarded second place in Mobile Marketer’s contest for 2009 “Mobile Retailer of the Year.” Amongst the nominations were fellow retailers, Amazon (5th place), JC Penney (4th place), Target and Sears (tied for 3rd place). Although the competition may have been fierce, AEO’s mobile efforts proved they were more than qualified for this honor. With a focus on SMS and mobile Web and an aggressive strategy in place, AEO launched their mobile program with Philadelphia-based mobile marketing agency M3 Mobile Marketing in November of 2008. In just over one year, AEO has already risen to the top of the mobile retail industry via a comprehensive mobile approach that included email marketing, print advertising, sweepstakes, mobile commerce and social networking channels.
Red Cross Building Massive Mobile Database with Haiti SMS Donations
Posted in Mobile Marketing Watch
Through the effort of its $10 SMS donation initiative, the American Red Cross
has received a record $24 million and counting to aid those affected by last
week’s earthquake in Haiti. With an
unprecedented amount of mobile users utilizing the text-to-donate method, DMNews
is reporting that the Red Cross has seized the opportunity to build-out its SMS
database in a way never before available.
Users who text the keyword HAITI to 90999 to donate their $10, receive a
confirmation text which asks them to respond with word “yes” to confirm their
donation. Once the donation is
processed and the $10 charge is added to their wireless bill, the user is sent a
thank you text which also includes an opt-in to receive further communication
from the Red Cross.
“Our core demographic tends to skew a bit older, but the text platform gives
members of Generation Y another channel in which to express support in
charitable giving,” said Attie Poirier, public affairs contractor for American
Red Cross. The younger demographic
is much more in tune with SMS and more receptive to mobile opt-ins as well,
especially from respected sources like the American Red Cross. So far more than 130,000 users have
opted-in to further communication.
“The Red Cross will then contact those users up to four times per month,”
Poirier continued. ”However, those
retargeting efforts have not yet begun.”
What’s interesting is that the Red Cross conducted a similar SMS donation
campaign during Hurricane Katrina in which it raised a total of $120,000. It proves further how far SMS
donations, mobile payments and mobile communications in general have come in
recent years.
The Haiti relief effort marks the first attempt by the Red Cross to build-out a
mobile SMS database using SMS donations as a driver. With the help of a massive media
campaign driving call-to-action, the ease of donating via SMS and the outpour of
generosity seen across the country the Red Cross has again risen to the task at
hand, and solidified a bright future for its mobile initiatives in helping those
who need it.
Mobile Can Help Retailers Find Right Price Points for
Valentine’s Day Gifts
By
Giselle Tsirulnik
For retailers using
mobile as part of their Valentine’s Day marketing, there is an opportunity to
get a sense ahead of the game for which price points are going to be the most
appealing to consumers.
There is a lot of talk
right now about whether or not consumers are feeling “frugality fatigue” and are
tired of trying to save every last penny. For all retailers, the challenge will
be to find the right price points for Valentine’s Day gifts.
“So if you take some of
the campaigns that 1-800-Flowers has run around Mother’s Day, you can apply a
lot of those lessons to Valentine’s Day, and specifically how to extend those
campaigns to the mobile phone,” said Nikki Baird, Denver-based managing partner
at RSR Research.
“My favorite was the
‘what kind of mom do you have?’ campaign that then guided people to different
flower arrangements,” she said. “A mobile app that is a Valentine’s game, with
gift advice at the end or even a Valentine m-card is the key to creating
something engaging, that resonates with the holiday, but also can provide some
kind of insight as to whether this holiday will be a big spending holiday or
not.”
As with any mobile
campaign, retailers and brands should avoid anything pushy or over-promoting,
and it should have a mobile angle as much as possible.
For example, something
scaled for a mobile device, leveraging mobile capabilities like location
awareness and not just something ported over from an online campaign.
Money, money, money
This year retailers and
brands need to tread carefully around how much consumers are going to want to
spend on the holiday.
Just because economic
conditions seem to be easing does not mean that growth in spending for this
holiday is a slam-dunk. In that respect, mobile has a bigger opportunity than
ever, because it is a less expensive venue to reach consumers than traditional
media outlets.
For retailers who plan
to have a mobile commerce storefront this Valentine’s Day (i.e. a mobile site or
application), eliminating the guesswork involved with finding the perfect gift
is key.
Retailers need to offer
gift suggestions to consumers looking for the ideal present. Offering deals,
expert tips and budget-saving advice is going to be key this Valentine’s Day.
With the current
economic situation, people are likely not to spend as much. Coupons will be a
good incentive to get consumers to buy their loved ones gifts this Valentine’s
Day.
Messaging
SMS is going to be
really big this Valentine’s Day and retailers should try and find some way of
including a text-message component in their marketing strategy.
Valentine’s Day rang in
more than 1.06 billion SMS and MMS messages last year, according to VeriSign.
Messaging continues to play a major role in how the world communicates and
retailers should aim to talk to their customers the ways in which they talk to
one another.
“I think in general you
want to be as ubiquitous and available as possible this Valentine’s Day,” said
Dave Sikora. “Sometimes there isn’t a lot of planning going on for getting the
perfect gift so when there is an opportunity to be right with the consumer at
the point of an impulse buy, retailers should jump at it.
“Mobile lets retailers
be right there with consumers at any time and any place,” he said. “But
retailers should not over message people. Sometimes the tendency might be to
overwhelm folks with specials and promotions.”
Advertising
In terms of mobile
advertising for Valentine’s Day, retailers should focus on ads that help the
consumer move effectively into the store: find the deal , find the store and get
a wakeup call for the sale.
Mobile can help
Valentine’s Day marketing move consumers from the ad placement to the
point-of-sale, online store or lead-generation engine.
Retailers’ media
planners need to bridge the consumer, to really get value from the mobile
channel.
Multichannel
Vibhav Prasad, vice
president of Web and mobile marketing at 1-800-Flowers said that cross-channel
message consistency is key during Valentine’s Day.
“Integrate mobile into
overall marketing efforts so that mobile reinforces existing messages in other
channels,” Mr. Prasad said. “1-800-Flowers is engaging in SMS campaigns to
provide special offers and reasons to continue to engage with us via the mobile
device.”
A broad strategy is
also important. Retailers should not just focus on one platform or smartphone.
Diversify into iPhone, BlackBerry and Android platforms and market in each
application storefront.
Mr. Prasad also
suggests that retailers focus on serving their best customers this Valentine’s
Day.
“We integrated loyalty
programs into our apps and mobile Web experience so we give them an incentive to
come to us on their mobile device,” he said.
Mr. Prasad also
provided some “bad practices” for mobile marketing during Valentine’s Day:
–Not getting involved
in mobile marketing as soon as possible: People are accessing you via their
mobile devices. Don’t stay on the sidelines and not learn what they are looking
for from you.
–Creating applications
for the sake of creating applications: Only spend the time/effort to create an
application if it’s compelling to the customer. Too many weak applications do
not help your brand
–Not following a double
–Not following a double
opt-in for capturing mobile numbers for marketing purposes.
“Last Valentine’s Day
we started building out our SMS capture list, so we could capitalize on traffic
coming to our site year-round,” Mr. Prasad said. “We’ve focused on SMS because
of its ubiquity and customers’ willingness to engage with us in this channel
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“It’s a key focus of
our strategy this year as well,” he said.
Google Adds New Mobile Marketing Services for Retailers
By
Sarah Clark
Google has introduced a
series of new mobile marketing services for retailers, initially in the US only.
In December, the search
engine giant sent out window stickers containing 2D barcodes to the 100,000
local businesses that have been the most sought out and researched on Google.com
and Google Maps. The businesses have been grouped together as Favorite Places on
Google and are located in 9,000 towns and cities across the US.
Each of the window
stickers has a unique QR barcode that can be scanned with any of hundreds of
different mobile phones. When consumers snap a picture of the barcode with their
mobile phone, they are automatically directed to the business’ Place Page on
Google Maps where they can find customer reviews, get a coupon if the business
is offering one or star a business as a place they want to remember for the
future.
Although consumers can
access reviews from their phone, they can’t currently leave a review using their
mobile. But, says Google, that functionality will be added soon. Google also
says that it plans to periodically send out new waves of window decals to
qualifying businesses.
Businesses wishing to
offer consumers a coupon can do so using Google’s Local Business Center service
and, when a business adds a new coupon to its listing in the Local Business
Center, by default it is now available to view on a mobile device.
Google has also made it
easier to find places which are ‘near me now’. The service works with iPhone and
Android browsers and is aimed at addressing two problems. First, says Google, we
wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate
vicinity, whether you’re standing right in front of a business or if it’s just a
short walk away. Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of
nearby places really simple.
“Imagine that you
emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don’t see
a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by
using ‘Near me now’,” the company explains. Users can also access reviews before
they go inside and can also access an ‘explore right here’ option.
White House Launches New iPhone App
Posted
in The Huffington Post
The iPhone welcomes a new free app, and it belongs to the White House.
"Today, we're excited to announce the new White House App available for Apple
iPhone and iPod Touch. The White House App delivers dynamic content from
WhiteHouse.gov to the palm of your hand," read the blog entry titled
"WhiteHouse.gov: Anywhere" on WhiteHouse.gov, posted on Jan. 19 at 10:38 p.m.
EST. Since there are several White House apps on iTunes -- priced from .99 cents
to $1.99 -- be sure to look for the free app called "The White House."
This is the White House's first iPhone app, and the move was inevitable for a
White House that's been consistently breaking new ground, from hosting online
town hall meetings, offering live chats with top administration officials, to
creating a robust YouTube channel, which hosts 481 videos, most of which are
presidential speeches and events as well as press briefings by Press Secretary
Robert Gibbs. And the timing of the app's release was no coincidence, of course,
near the eve of President Obama's one-year anniversary in office. For the
record, Obama's WhiteHouse.gov officially went live at 12:01 p.m. EST on Jan.
21, 2009.
First released in June 2007, more than 21 million iPhones have been sold
worldwide. Some 100,000 apps are available on Apple's iTunes store.
Now, the most powerful office in the land is just a tap away in your iPhone.
Arguably the most innovative feature in the White House app is live video
streaming. Last week, for example, users were able to watch Obama's State of the
Union address on their iPhone in real time.
This is the first step in the White House's mobile strategy, according to the
White House's new media department, led by Macon Phillips, a veteran of the
Obama campaign. Soon, the White House will launch mobile.WhiteHouse.gov., a
mobile-ready version of the White House's virtual headquarters that is optimized
for any Web-enabled mobile device. In other words, WhiteHouse.gov won't just be
iPhone-centric. "Mobile web usage grew over 100% in the last year" in the U.S.
and more worldwide, the official blog posting pointed out, linking to a recent
TechCrunch article that noted Apple's dominance (the iPhone and the iPod Touch)
in the mobile space, with a 65% market share in the U.S.
"We'll continue to look for new and emerging technologies to engage the American
people and make information about the President and his administration easily
available," the White House blog read. |
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