Category: Digital Marketing Best Practices

Mobile coupons can be a powerful tool in your digital marketing arsenal, but with a certain sense of ambiguity surrounding the concept for most people, it’s easy to overlook the most basic set of unofficial rules or “best practices” that should accompany any successful and legitimate mobile coupon campaign.

Falling under the realm of mobile marketing, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has set fourth best practices, or a so-called “Code of Conduct for Mobile Marketing,” that all campaigns should comply with.  But beyond that, mobile coupons differ in nature from other forms of mobile marketing and therefore require a special set of best practices to ensure an overall compliant and successful campaign.

Since most mobile coupon campaigns involve the use of SMS or MMS, the same rules, regulations and best practices that govern the distribution of mobile messages apply to mobile coupons as well.  Privacy, respecting user-consent and your terms and conditions are the primary areas to focus on when distributing mobile coupons.

The terms and conditions related to your mobile coupon campaign are particularly important, and must be conveyed to your users at all times.  When promoting your campaign, you should clearly indicate whether the service is a subscription, for example, and the cost of which (if any).  Also, if the terms and conditions materially change the offer in any way, it should be highlighted and presented at the beginning of the offer.  Finally, service availability should always be disclosed as well, on a carrier-by-carrier basis.

In terms of the design of your actual mobile coupons, it’s important to prominently display the expiration date and make sure any barcodes used are compliant with the redemption mechanism.  It’s a good practice to also include an alphanumeric promotional code as well in case the primary validation method (scanners) don’t work.

Beyond the broad “Code of Conduct” rules set fourth by the MMA, your attention should be focused primarily on adhering to your user’s right to privacy and disclosure, as well as other obvious rules and regulations related to mobile messaging.

When done properly, a well-executed and compliant mobile coupon campaign is a valuable asset for any marketer or retailer.  Still confused about the whole process?  Get first hand knowledge on how to use mobile coupons to drive revenue with this all-inclusive Mobile Coupons Webinar.

Being in mobile for a decade, I have heard it all, especially from those who think mobile marketing is stupid. There is a common theme among companies that believe mobile marketing is intrusive. I speak with prospects all the time that have either tried mobile and said it was not successful or won’t try it because they feel their customers will get upset. After asking a number of questions about what went wrong or drilling down to what their fears are, I almost always come to the same conclusion:  there is a big misconception about how mobile should be managed and, guess what, it all starts with email.

SMS costs money, and 95% of SMS messages are read within four minutes–two facts that can bring together a horrible user experience if not executed properly. Almost every company looking at mobile is an email marketer, and I know email marketers are jaded because of their experience with email and realizations about spam. 72% of the 320 billion emails sent on a daily basis are spam, so who could blame them? Most companies don’t understand email best practices and, as a result, they have felt the burn of user complaints, poor open rates, getting blocked, and ending up on blacklists. Legitimate companies are not spammers; they are generally just ignorant. They don’t realize that you should not upload a list that has not been sent to in two years or fail to confirm an email address upon opt in.

So back to those who think mobile marketing is stupid. Mobile is very different from email and it has to be done right. I like to help people understand that if your strategy was to build the largest email database possible, then mobile needs to be about building a database of your best and most loyal customers. Mobile is about loyalty–period. Those who are willing to have their day interrupted as their pockets buzz are going to be your best customers. If you have the email marketer mentality of “batch and blast,” mobile is going to be a disaster for you. However, if you learn to treat mobile as a totally different type of channel, it can be truly successful. With mobile, there is a new set of best practices and they are different from email.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the full article here: http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/1425/get-out-that-rake

“Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan had a problem. With an abysmal delivery rate of 81.29 percent, his email campaigns weren’t getting through to many of the people who wanted them. “The company was constantly getting complaints from its subscribers,” explains a mobileStorm case study. “Consumers claimed they hadn’t received Cesar Millan’s once-monthly newsletter or that they only received it sporadically.”

Analysis by mobileStorm revealed the likely cause:

• When subscribers signed up, their addresses were not verified.
• The list—which dated back to 2005—contained inactive and invalid addresses, making it especially vulnerable to spam traps.

To clean up the list, mobileStorm used tactics like these:

• Identifying subscribers who had never opened or clicked on an email message
• Removing obviously non-engaged subscribers
• Sending the rest a message asking them to confirm their subscription, and letting them know their address would be removed if they didn’t respond by a certain date

Finally, the case study reports, “confirmed users were added back in along with known good addresses. Suspect addresses, opt-outs, and non-respondents were removed.”

After the company cleaned the list, the delivery rate shot up to 99.7 percent. ‘Nuff said.

The Po!nt: Time for some fall raking. To help ensure your holiday emails get the most response, clear your lists of “fallen” addresses. A timely clean-up could pay off.

Source: mobileStorm. Read the full case study here.

Last week, I explained that videos and email marketing messages go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Click-through rates for marketing emails increase two or three times with the inclusion of video! This is in part because increasingly larger numbers of consumers (we’re talking trillions!) want to spend time watching online video, and also because it’s becoming easier for them to watch videos sent via email.

Today, I’ll offer some tips on how marketers can create videos that consumers will want to receive via email and watch online. I’ll aso explain explain how marketers can analyze the results of their video email marketing campaigns with mobileStorm’s technology.

Because some companies might not have tried their hand at creating videos, here are some things we at mobileStorm learned while making our online commercials and comedy shows.

• Online video is not the same as a feature-length movie or network TV show. Its purpose is to quickly pique interest in a brand. Thus, it should start off with a “bang” and not be much longer than a few minutes.
• Links should either lead to a video posted on a site like YouTube or MySpace, or else should lead to specially-designed landing pages. Never use embedded video in email!
• Providing your video in the smallest file size possible, but still retaining a satisfactory image quality, is part of best practices for all Internet video. Flash compression is often the best comproise of file size and quality, making it ideal for online media.

Once you’ve deployed a video email marketing campaign, you need to determine how well it did. Read the rest of this entry »

mobileStorm’s six messaging types for marketers are all conducive to our stance that multi-channel campaigns are best. We’ve also long suggested that marketers be multi-channel within a single message–for example, by including video in an email marketing message, which engages the recipient and also makes the message viral.

We’re so forward-thinking that it’s only been recently that the rest of the marketing industry has caught up, and realized that–like chocolate and peanut butter–video and email can be combined into one message to really entice consumers. Two great tastes taste great together, indeed!

• According to analyst David Daniels at Forrester Research, putting a video link within an email, such as a clickable screen shot, “can increase click-through rates by two to three times.”
• Mr. Daniels also notes in his recent report that between July 2008 and July 2009, 17 percent of marketing executives surveyed planned to use video in email. Marketers are getting competitive with video email!
• Meanwhile, Nielsen Online reported that in April of this year, 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month; total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago, while streams-per-viewer are up 27 percent and time-per-viewer is up 58 percent. Consumers love watching online video!
• Technological advances make viewing video in an email more seamless for the consumer. For example, Gmail Labs now has a feature that allows users to turn on previews of YouTube videos. Once consumers set this on their accounts, they’re able to watch YouTube videos from inside the email message. As word spreads, marketers will reach increasingly more Gmail users with video emails!

So savvy marketers will want to beat the competition before it beats them. This requires them to: (1) post videos where they can easily be found, and (2) incorporate video into their email marketing messages. This may be easier said than done, but with mobileStorm’s technology and expertise, it’ll still be relatively easy. Read the rest of this entry »

Speak of the devil. Last week when I wrote about Cloudmark’s SMS spam hype, I thought I made a good case, noting that the majority of marketers follow industry-accepted best practices, and that the price of sending texts will greatly limit SMS spam-senders.

But it’s easy to use fear to cause good intentions to veer to the dark side. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” and all. That’s what could happen, though, with a new proposed federal law aimed at curbing SMS spam.

The act, called m-SPAM and introduced by U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe and Bill Nelson, wants to restrain marketers from sending unwanted texts to consumers. No one can argue with that. But the law as proposed could unintentionally harm legitimate marketers–those who only send messages to people who’ve opted in to receive them–and even consumers who wanted those texts offering a coupon, entry to a party, or other discounts or specials.

How would this harm honest mobile marketing campaigns? As our CEO, Jared Reitzin, told Mobile Marketer, “I’m extremely against having wireless numbers on the do-not-call list, it’s absurd… They’re going to charge people to scrub against it? Will they offer APIs we can automatically scrub against? How long is it going to take to get your data back? That will be shot down… Overall the m-SPAM Act is probably a good idea to establish best practices, but not going to stop spam.”

Legislators should work with mobile marketing leaders to create the most effective law, one that will criminalize mobile spammers while supporting the efforts of honest SMS marketers. Carriers should weigh in too, since SMS marketing is one of the reasons why texting has become such a revenue-driver for them. Marketing experts should write to their own Senate and Congressional representatives, explaining what lawmakers need to consider when crafting the federal statute.

Those on the Hill shouldn’t be quick to rush in heavy-handed.

Recently I started receiving email marketing messages from a high-end department store. I honestly don’t remember signing up to get them, so I was willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt on that. But my goodwill was very short-lived.

I soon found myself getting messages every single day. Now, I would definitely remember if, when I signed up, I had been told the frequency of email that I would receive from this company. Clearly I wasn’t. This violates one best practice standard: As they first sign up, marketers should tell subscribers how often they can expect messages, so that they know what they’re in for. Or at least, give them a choice as to how often they would like to receive them.

As a digital marketer, I’m usually more open to receiving marketing message campaigns. After all, I want to promote our industry! But the barrage of messages from this particular marketer made me decide that enough was enough. So I hit the Unsubscribe link.

That’s when the second violation of best practices occurred. Instead of being a one-click process, in which I should immediately be told that I have been removed from the mailing list, here’s what happened: I was directed to a page that asked me if I wouldn’t instead want to change the frequency of messages, and was given a list of options like “once a week,” “twice a week,” “once a day,” etc.

Not only did this anger me–I said I want to unsubscribe, so just let me, darn it!–but it also made me sneer at the incompetence. These frequency options should have been offered at the beginning of the subscription process, not at  the end.

The unsubscribe process should be as painless and easy for the consumer as possible. One click and it’s done. Otherwise, all you do is harbor ill will from the consumer, who will then (A) decide never to opt-in for marketing emails at a later date; (B) be wary of online commerce with the offending retailer, since his/her email address might be added to the marketing mailing list without permission–because after all this retailer doesn’t bother with best practices; and (C) choose to do business with a competing department store.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm Inc.
“I’d rather you text me”

Finally, those folks at Google are earning their free lunches.

Today the tech company announced that its Gmail service now has an Undo Send button that lets people stop an email message. Handy for when you wrote that angry rant just to blow off steam, not to actually dispatch. Or when you accidentally hit “reply all” (a pet peeve of many colleagues here at mobileStorm). Or when you have second thoughts about sending spam and realize your sender reputation is more important.

Unlike penning a snap-reaction email, though, the “Undo Send’ requires a little forethought. You have to go into “Settings” and the the “Labs” tab to activate it. And it only delays the message for five seconds–so the service doesn’t replace personal responsibility.

Small inconvenience. And a heck of a lot more useful than the drunk-messager test Google crowed about last fall!

Many have heard about Girl Scout Wild Freeborn. Her father tried to aid her lofty goal of selling 12,000 boxes of the organization’s famous cookies, by creating a YouTube ad and an online order form. The scheme was successful–until Girl Scouts of the USA forced the little Brownie to shutter her Internet campaign, saying it went against Scouts rules. But the real story is, why have such a ban when current technology and best practices ensure both safety and big revenue?

I definitely understand the group’s concerns. As spokeswoman Denise Pesich said, “We want to make sure that whatever the girl is doing is integrated into the program that she’s studying, we want to make sure we are in the development stages of a technological platform that will integrate it and be fair and equitable for all girls. But more importantly, it’s girl safety at its core.”

However, everything Ms. Pesich noted absolutely can be achieved in a digital marketing campaign, as long as best practices and the right technology platform are used. Here’s how:

• Create an online form in which the customer has to input his or her contact information, including email address and perhaps cell phone number, as well as order information such as what kind of cookies and how many boxes. The form should be sent to a database for cookie campaigns. In this fashion, no personal contact information for any girl or troupe is ever given out.
• To make sure that sales are attributed fairly, the orders can be sorted via zip code or city that the purchaser inputs. Thus, each sale would be credited to the scout troop that is local to the buyer.
• If revenue is supposed to go toward a specific program for a certain troupe or individual scout, then instead of having a generic online form for the entire Girl Scout organization, the Scouts’ website should first ask a potential buyer where he/she resides. Then the buyer should be served up a form that was created for the troupe closest to his/her location. This way the form would earmark that order for that particular troupe’s coffers.
• Have a messaging system in place that, once the cookies have come in, will notify customers that their orders are ready, via email or SMS (whatever method the customer chooses). This message can also specify the time and place where they can pick up their goodies, perhaps in front of a local supermarket or another public place. Since the orders are sorted by locale, it will be easy to give each consumer the proper pick-up location–outgoing messages too can be sorted according to zip code or city. Troupe leaders and parents can hand out the boxes along with, or instead of, the girls themselves.
• The Scouts can save customers’ contact information and, come next cookie season, can send out an email or SMS message asking if they’d like to pre-order their Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

The preceding can be used for both pre-orders (the traditional method of hitting up friends and neighbors and asking them to order what they want) as well as for the buy-in-bulk method (in which troupes buy loads of boxes and then sell them at public places). As a consumer who doesn’t personally know any scouts, I’d love the latter–that way I don’t have to worry about driving around supermarkets and shopping centers trying to find a cookie table.

Meanwhile, I think Wild’s dad was on the right track with the online video commercial. After all, 700 boxes were sold before it was yanked! Such an ad could be created by an entire troupe; this would make a great project, as would creating the order form. And if using the right platform, the advert could be distributed to the top video upload sites with the same technology that handles the online sales form and order notification messages.

Too bad this isn’t happening already. I’ve got a hankering for Samoas and Lemon Chalet Cremes!

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm
“I’d rather you text me”

Thanks to universal search, local business listings tend to rank higher than general websites in search engines, particularly in Google, the world’s largest search engine. This is why it is so important that your local business is listed everywhere.

Previously I suggested that you include your phone number on your website, but many companies make one mistake: They place the number as an image, not as text. I suggest adding phone numbers, (and local addresses) as text, because it makes you much more easily found on the web. For example, imagine if a former client only has your number, or only remembers part of your address. Your business can still be found on the web by using this information in a search query.

Another tip I want to expand on is testimonials. Positive reviews of your services or products should be in the most visible area of your site. In addition, it would be more effective if you link to an external authority resource, such as a review site, where there is positive feedback placed for your company. This will indicate credibility and openness to potential clients. There are plenty of local review sites out there, and you can ask your current customers to leave feedback on them. (I’ll be giving a list of these kinds of sites at the end of these series, as promised.)

Are you blogging? Did you know that a blog is probably one of the most effective SEO tools available today? Search engines love blogs because they update content frequently; they are specific to their areas of expertise; they are well-categorized and sorted; and they know the subject matter. If you have the time and resources, start blogging. This will help your business website get more traffic, show your local audience your great expertise in what you do, and will eventually result in more sales.

There is another thing to consider: The more local you are, the more successful you are. When it comes to choosing the right keywords for local optimization, remember that “California plumbers” is not as good as “Los Angeles plumbers,” which in its turn is not as good as “South LA plumbers.” The point is that the more targeted your marketing is, the more sales you’ll be making. Think how you would search for anything local, and optimize your campaigns accordingly. Cities are better than states, large neighborhoods are better than cities, etc. And some people search locally with zip codes, so why not add an optimized page to target these people as well?

Think carefully when you choose the local keywords for which you will optimize your pages. The keyword suggestion tools I referenced earlier will tell you that “things to do in Denver” would have about 10 times more searches than “Denver tourist attractions.” Many sites miss much traffic by targeting the wrong keywords.

And to make sure that each locally-oriented page that you have created is indexed by search engines, add those links to your sitemap with different link anchor texts.

Social media sites can be very useful in online local marketing. People always try to find someone local through these sites. So if you are represented in many social networking sites, you get local traffic to your website from these pages. The same rule applies to local discussion groups and communities. They all contain highly-targeted traffic that you can effectively use in your favor, with almost no competition and with no budget.

Next time we’ll talk about mobile local search marketing. Until then,

Shavkat Karimov, Internet Marketing Manager, mobileStorm
http://www.seomanager.com/