Category: Mobile Marketing

Nearly 100 million votes were cast during this week’s American Idol finale, resulting in Kris Allen winning the competition for the show’s eighth season. Last night was also a win for SMS marketing, just as much as it was for Mr. Allen.

Why? Television experts have been saying that Idol ratings have been down this year, and that its popularity seems to have waned. Yet the 100 million votes–sent predominantly via text message–is a record high for the show. Even if there are fewer viewers, consumers are engaged with the brand more than ever.

This means continued success for the show, whose production company, FremantleMedia, is also a mobileStorm client. With texting, fans really become invested in the Idol outcome. Comment boards on news and entertainment sites right now are bursting with ways people say they are able to send as many messages as possible so that their faves will win.

Such proof that these consumers are so committed to the brand means that Fox will likely command a high price for its commercials, ratings be darned. Fremantle, too, will continue to get paid big bucks from Fox to keep American Idol on the network.

Consider also the claim that it’s much easier to text a vote into a short code than it is to call the show’s toll-free landline–and to ensure that that vote counts. As the business publication Broadcasting & Cable said in a report: “Text messaging is digital [unlike phone lines, which are analog] and simply doesn’t have the same traffic jams. A text message is also time-coded, meaning that all of the votes messaged during the two-hour period can be lined up like jets on a runway and eventually recorded.”

So after the upset of Idol frontrunner Adam Lambert, fans of future frontrunners will be spurred to send ever-more SMS votes.

Last week, the shooting death of Wesleyan University student Johanna Justin-Jinich shocked the small city of Middletown, Connecticut. Even though, according to what police have said, it sounds like she was the sole target of an alleged stalker, university authorities did the right thing: They sent text and email alerts to students, canceling events and keeping them updated on the crisis.

That’s what’s so great about digital marketing strategies: They can be used for the greater good. In this case, Wesleyan University used a multi-channel digital marketing-like strategy as part of its Rapid Alert System for emergencies.

The school sent text messages to students–smart, because young adults never go anywhere without their phones, and so they would get the news and safety tips right away, no matter where they were. Officials also sent email messages, which would reach students once they were safely back in their dorms and waiting for more information. (Emails could also reach a limited number students who had cell phones with email capabilities, but text was the best way to ensure reaching as many phones as possible during the first critical moments after the shooting.) The university also posted updates on its website, viewable to both students on campus and their worried parents far away.

We’ve talked about using SMS (and to a lesser extent email) for emergencies in past Digital Marketing Blog posts. The mobileStorm platform, we’ve said before, can be used to send mass emergency alerts, as part of an overall public safety strategy. (Interested readers should contact the mobileStorm sales team via email or toll-free phone call).

Though Ms. Justin-Jinich’s death is a horror, at least no one else got hurt. Maybe because students were warned well enough in advance to retreat immediately to their dorms–preventing the shooter from targeting any more victims. Wesleyan University’s usage of SMS and email is a great lesson for any institution or government body that is considering ways to best reach denizens during times of crisis.

Bankruptcy, falling revenues, decreasing patron counts: These offer just a glimpse of the tough realities casinos are facing.

The casino marketer today must deal with a unique problem set. To triumph in these times, it becomes necessary to open up new channels. Many marketers who are after high ROI and quick ramp-up times are turning to mobile as the solution. To those properties who haven’t added a mobile component to their plans: Be warned. The time is now.

Fitch Ratings, a credit research firm, has seen casino revenue drop 2.5 percent, with no recovery in sight for the next few years. To counter this, casinos that implement mobile programs are seeing returns on their investment up to nearly 30 percent. Because of this success, mobile seems like a perfect fit for casino programs.

mobileStorm is an expert in the distinctive problems that face casinos—and has developed a whitepaper that specifically discusses applying SMS/text programs to the casino industry. “How the Casino Next Door is Getting Ready to Kick Your A**: Why it’s Time to Get Real about Mobile in Casino Marketing” is available for download now! It covers topics like:
• Types of programs casinos are running now
• Ideas on applications of SMS for one’s property.
• Why mobile is so relevant for this industry.

As a low-cost medium, SMS/text programs provide a viable alternative to traditional channels such as direct mail, and also provide increased response.

Whether you are ready to implement a mobile program, or just want more information, download mobileStorm’s newest whitepaper here: How the Casino Next Door is Getting Ready to Kick Your A**: Why It’s Time to Get Real About Mobile in Casino Marketing.

For other white papers, go to this page.

To view the press release:
/press/new-mobilestorm-whitepaper-sms-marketing-not-a-crapshoot-for-casinos

Shaneli Ramratan, Director Of Marketing, mobileStorm

Last month, Bredin Business Information put out a study about the marketing goals of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). What’s particularly striking about the report, though, is how digital messaging can help these companies reach their goals.

Here’s a look at some of the data offered in the study, and how digital message marketing–emails and text messages that consumers choose to receive–fits into these objectives.

Marketers said their biggest challenges in 2009 include growing business with limited resources (15 percent) and increasing awareness (15 percent). Email and SMS marketing can be very cost-effective, especially with a do-it-yourself system that can tackle several message types with one platform (like mobileStorm’s). So marketers from smaller businesses with limited budgets can easily afford these types of campaigns. Meanwhile, both email and text messages increase brand awareness because they are extremely viral. That is, they are often and easily forwarded from the initial recipient to several new ones–especially if they contain valuable information such as a limited sale or a space on the VIP list for a one-time party.

Retention and acquisition of customers: 48 percent said they are balancing their acquisition and retention efforts this year, 32 percent are concentrating more on acquisition, and 20 percent are focusing more on retention. Digital messages help marketers both acquire and retain customers. A multi-channel campaign draws consumers in–that is, it uses other media to advertise the short code and keyword, or the Web form, for consumers to contact in order to receive texts or emails, respectively. These consumers can be converted when the messages offer coupons, new product announcements, or other information that encourages the sale. Then once these customers see these benefits, they’ll likely continue to patronize the company in question.

Marketers will spend less on market research in 2009 than in 2008. Because of this, marketers will want to do their own research. The right marketing platform will let them do so. It can sort message subscribers according to geographic, demographic, and eve”n psychographic” categories. It can also let the marketer know which campaigns were the most–or least–effective, so that they can improve future campaign efforts. Marketers can thus arm themselves with home-grown research that lets them cater specifically to their own customers, as well as consumers like them who they want to reach.

I wish someone from the Newspaper Association of America had read my blog posts about how and why papers should use digital messaging for both distribution and branding.

Instead, the NAA’s big meeting this week was all about traditional vs. new forms of media. The association griped about aggregators and third-party sites–which at least know how to leverage their stories. Sure, Google chief Eric Schmidt pointed out that his company helps drive traffic to news organizations’ sites, offering a way for those companies to charge a premium for online ads. But what NAA members really should have discussed is, ”How to get to the consumer first?”

And I’ll answer: Digital distribution. Papers are never, ever going to get print subscriptions up to what they once were. But they can obtain subscribers who want their news delivered digitally, like through text message/SMS, email, or RSS. (By the way, the mobileStorm 4.0 digital marketing platform lets clients send all of these types of messages.)

The benefits are many.  Consumers can rest assured that they’ll get the news straight from the source as soon as it’s ready to read. They can even pick and choose which kind of news they want, if they like–”politics,” “local crime,” “arts and entertainment,” etc. And organizations can make money by either charging consumers a subscription fee, or by using an ad-supported model (like other websites using their copy already do).

Will they get it? I’m hoping that after NNA chief John Sturm’s absolutely clueless appearance on the Colbet Report, they realize that they have to start thinking way, way outside the box.

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.

Just over a year ago, mobileStorm CEO Jared Reitzin wrote a detailed explanation about why spam will never be nearly as prolific in SMS, or text-messaging, as it is in email. Sadly, it’s time to revisit the topic after messaging security company Cloudmark released a scary-sounding announcement in time for CTIA Wireless.

“Mobile spam attacks on the rise as unlimited messaging plans and increased adoption of mobile applications create attractive market for spammers,” read the subhead of the company’s press release. The logic is faulty, to say the least. Cloudmark claims that the great rise in the use of text messaging in general means that the number of unsolicited texts is also rising. But it fails to give any meaningful numbers that show this correlation–only vague concerns attributed to mobile operators.

Sure, Cloudmark points out SMS spam in Asia–specifically, that there were 300 billion spam texts received in China last year. But the company fails to point out that in Asian countries, texting has been popular for much longer than in North America, because it has always been cheaper than voice calls. Thus SMS is really the best way to reach anyone, friend or consumer. What makes for a ripe environment for spam in one part of the world simply doesn’t exist in another region.

It really is an apples-to-oranges comparison to talk about the rise of spam email and potential spam SMS. Particularly in North America, SMS became widely adopted thanks in part to marketers using it for legitimate marketing purposes, i.e. opt-in messaging campaigns. Email meanwhile was first popular among techies, then among consumers, and only then among spammers.

So the importance of best practices has been ingrained in the SMS marketing industry, and there is a strong sense of self-policing. Those who try to violate these practices, by sending unsolicited texts to consumer phones, get quashed by their message sending service providers as soon as they get wind of it.

Another thing: As Jared said in his earlier post, the expense of sending SMS will always be greater than the expense of sending email, and that’s not going to be acceptable to scumbag spammers. It costs ZERO money to send emails.To send texts, however, incurs either a per-message charge or a set monthly fee for a certain (or unlimited) number of messages. I don’t care that the cost to send a single text has dropped considerably over the past few years: It still costs, compared to email being cost-free, and that’s a major consideration for spammers.

So marketers, don’t fret–your legitimate, opt-in text messages will never get drowned in a sea of spam. And consumers, think about how many spam messages you’ve gotten lately (not counting solicitations from your carrier itself, which can’t be prevented by any security company)–and you’ll realize there’s no epidemic at all.

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

Seventy-four percent of the world’s digital messages were sent via mobile in January 2009, says TNS Global. Said TNS’ Sam Curtis, “As mobile devices slowly take away usage share from fixed services in developed markets, in emerging markets consumers are more likely to bypass fixed communications altogether and go straight to mobiles.”

That means that to reach a consumer, it’s best to try them on their mobile phones. Of course, you can probably do that with email, since as the report says, 69 percent of North American mobile emailers use the feature daily. The bigger takeaway from this report is the utter reliance that increasingly more consumers have on their phones.

Thus, it’s important to contact consumers using every message type available on a handset–not just email and MIM (mobile instant message), but also SMS. After all, text messaging is something available on the most basic handsets being sold today. So a much larger number of consumers can be reached via SMS than they can with mobile email and MIM, features that require the more advanced smartphone type of handset.

As for consumers who do have smartphones? Why, SMS helps the marketer make a campaign multi-channel. Think about it: Consumers can browse the Internet and read marketing emails on their smartphones; these are great places to put a call-to-action asking them to sign up for promotional text messages, such as mobile coupons.

If marketers don’t have a mobile database, then they’re missing out big-time.

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”

Today’s smartphones are affordable for almost anyone these days, as competing handset makers strive to make devices that offer better-than-ever Web-browsing experiences on cell phones.

What if you suddenly need to look up a local business? With a smartphone, no matter where you are you can get online and start searching for it. Many technologies already offer to search locally; they can even show where you are “right now” on an interactive map, and then show the businesses around you that fit into the category you are researching.

How great would it be if a customer enters your office or store, and says he just found you on the web via his mobile phone while driving around? This possibility ought to encourage you to market your site locally on the web.

Start going this road before everyone else, because soon it’s going to be really busy. People are going to search the Internet with their mobile devices more frequently, especially for something local. Before long, it might be too late for you to get in on the action.

In order to start marketing locally for cell phones, here is a list of major resources to help you work with the top three mobile search engines:

http://mobile.yahoo.com/go: This includes local listings arranged by distance and ratings, pulled out from the Yahoo Local database.

http://www.google.com/mobile/: Google’s local solution for mobile devices, which offers local search results for particular device models.

http://www.livesearchmobile.com/: Live Search Mobile by Microsoft provides click-to-call listings of local businesses.

Shavkat Karimov, Internet Marketing Manager, mobileStorm
“Every problem comes with a solution”