Category: resources

A key innovation that’s made itself known recently in the world of digital marketing is the concept of API integration.  The ability to easily transfer data to and from different platforms and software within a single marketing campaign has made life much easier for any digital marketer.

A single digital marketing campaign can include things like email marketing, RSS-based marketing, and even mobile marketing solutions such as SMS, mobile coupons and a variety of other things.  Each aspect of that one digital marketing campaign includes specific software and platforms that help coordinate the data flowing through each solution.

For example, if your campaign includes email marketing, mobile coupons and RSS feeds, you’re likely faced with using one platform for your email needs, another to facilitate mobile coupon distribution and tracking and yet another for your RSS-based marketing.  Certain data flowing through one platform might be needed to influence data flowing through another, and so on.

That’s where API integration comes into play.  Instead of having to manually login and interact with each platform separately, APIs can be introduced to systematically communicate and migrate data between all aspects of your campaign without any interaction from you whatsoever.

APIs are particularly beneficial for those who have already developed applications in-house, but need a way to import and export data between those in-house applications and third-party providers.  For example, suppose you maintain your own in-house marketing database made up of opt-in contacts that you’ve collected overtime, but you’d like to import that data into a third-party marketing platform for use in future marketing campaigns.  Instead of having to manually input the data into the platform, a simple API could be introduced that extracts the data systematically for you in real-time without you having to life a finger.

The power of API integration within digital marketing campaigns becomes more apparent as the complexity of the campaign increases, but it’s still relevant within the most basic of campaigns as well.  In today’s digital marketing landscape, let APIs handle the legwork for you so you focus on making your campaign as successful as possible.

Learn how mobileStorm leverages APIs in its digital marketing solutions to make life easier for digital marketers large and small.

Despite continued innovation and sophistication in regards to email marketing platforms and software over the past ten years, quality control measures remain largely unchanged with responsibility remaining in the hands of the email marketer themselves.

A few months back, the Email Experience Council (EEC), a leading email industry group, came under fire after repeatedly including errors in a series of email communications.  It signaled a growing need for basic quality control in email marketing campaigns big and small, given the fact that even the so-called “industry ambassador” was making the same mistakes.

Some common errors and mistakes present in a surprising amount of email marketing campaigns include things like broken links, missing images, incorrectly coded subject lines, unsubstituted personalization fields, faulty unsubscription methods and duplicate messages.

The fact remains that a simple HTML message has links that must work, images that must load correctly, authentication mechanisms such as SPF and DomainKeys (or DKIM) that depend on appropriate technical configuration, various response addresses (from and reply to, possibly unsubscribe), character sets and content encodings that must match, and a list of recipients that may require data loading and suppression.

Still, most e-mail solutions leave all the heavy lifting in the hands of the sender, with essentially manual processes to boot.  Things like link destinations, images, response addresses, and authentication can all be checked automatically, but a lot of the time it’s not.

This is when you, as the marketer, must adhere to basic quality control measures to not only make sure you don’t include silly mistakes that could jeopardize the credibility of your campaign, but to also make sure your campaign is as efficient and successful as it can be.

The British are coming! The British are coming!

With their mobile coupons, that is.

A new Juniper survey reveals the impressive growth of mobile coupons in the UK with an estimated three million Britons having already redeemed coupons through their mobile phone. According to the report, the popularity of mobile coupons is the result of an aggressive mobile marketing push from British brands now reporting a six-fold increase in response rates due to mobile coupons.

Although the results of “The Mobile Coupons Consumer Survey” from Juniper come as music to the ears of mobile marketers for whom the explosion in popularity of mobile coupons simply can’t escalate fast enough, it ultimately doesn’t take field research to tangibly indicate the accepted ubiquity of mobile coupons, particularly in portions of Europe.

Between May and June of this year, Coca-Cola Great Britain (CCGB), with the assistance of digital voucher company, i-movo, executed a mobile coupon campaign in the United Kingdom that, according to i-movo, delivered an 87% redemption rate, making it the most successful British mobile coupon campaign in British history.

Despite mobile coupons not resonating with North American consumers as quickly as many advertisers would prefer, the British boom is inspiring, nonetheless, and portends favorably for the overall resurgence in coupon redemption. Better than 75% of those surveyed, in fact, said they are aware of mobile coupons and that there is also a “strong possibility” they will redeem them.

According to Howard Wilcox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research, “The redemption rate for traditional paper coupons is typically 1% or less, but, based on our survey, mobile coupons offer 6 times these rates. This means that retailers and brands have the opportunity to exploit the mobile channel via personalized coupon offers direct to the ultimate personal device – the mobile phone.”

The findings published by Juniper this week nicely follow their previous study which forecasts that one mobile subscriber in ten in developed regions will use mobile coupons by 2014. Consequently, Juniper estimates that consumer usage of mobile coupons could potentially generate upwards of $6 billion globally in retail redemption value by that time.

“The Mobile Coupons Consumer Survey” is now freely available for download from the Juniper website.

To find out more about the power and potential of mobile coupons, check out this all-inclusive Mobile Coupons Webinar.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

For mobile marketing, a tale of two cities has emerged. And it’s a story with which many mobile marketers are already familiar. Although mobile marketing is growing by leaps and bounds as an industry, issues remain with the consistency of consumer engagement among various demographics.

A new study from BIGresearch suggests that while a vast, wide open sea of opportunity exists for the mobile marketing industry as a whole, choppy waters thrive in the short term for consumers who continue to express reluctance or outright disdain for many of mobile marketing’s most common practices.

Among the findings most unsettling to some mobile marketers is that “since June of 2008, the percentage of people who don’t like mobile marketing has increased.” That unwelcome reality is partially due to the growing number of mobile customers who have become resistant to the appeal of text ads (67% now find them unfavorable as opposed to 64% last year). Higher disapproval is also being logged for voicemail ads and video ads.

Although such findings are disturbing to those who once expected mobile marketing to become universally beloved, mobile advertising remains advertising nonetheless. And at times, mobile ads will reach those who simply have no desire or interest in the products and services being pushed.

Of course, all is not gloom and doom for mobile marketing. BIGresearch’s findings, for example, reveal that mobile marketing’s audience possesses an accelerated tendency to purchase a broad variety of consumer electronics – televisions, computers, cameras, etc. If the ultimate objective of mobile marketing is to sell a product or service to a targeted consumer group, it’s evident that mobile marketing continues to help drive consumer electronic purchases.

Taking the good with the bad is a way of life in advertising, and for that reason, its important to reject the temptation to think that any consumer resistance to mobile marketing is a deathblow to the industry as a whole. So while the tale of mobile marketing remains a tale of two cities, it may still prove a tale that ultimately yields a happy ending for all.

Text-to-screen campaigns are an aspect of mobile marketing that seems to get overlooked all to often.  Beyond the basic uses in sports stadiums, concerts and other large public venues, text-to-screen provides a method to interact with your audience on a very unique level.

Text-to-screen is a concept that enables a brand to engage their audience and compel them to participate in a variety of ways, while still allowing them to see results in real-time as well.  By enlisting a simple short code, keywords and a large screen, brands can leverage the group-aspect of any crowd to both interact and collect valuable consumer-data along the way.

When you utilize a text-to-screen campaign, it usually involves designating a short code and select keywords to allow users to text in various content to then be viewed in real-time on the screen.  The underlying benefit of using this method is that anytime someone texts in, that user’s information is then stored in your central database- subsequently increasing your message subscriber base very quickly.

In addition, various opt-in opportunities can be included in all responses to your users to build other opt-in databases that you can then market to in the future.  This is a very valuable resource for any mobile marketer- opted-in mobile users represent the best possible audience to advertise to.  Getting opted-in users is usually a painstaking process that involves several calls-to-action to encourage mobile users to opt-in over a long period of time.  Even then, you’ll still only gain a handful of opt-ins from your efforts.

Utilizing text-to-screen, on the other hand, initiates the best possible call-to-action you can have; a unique crowd-based engagement technique that has the potential to help you gain numerous opted-in users in one fell swoop.

The many ways text-to-screen helps obtain valuable consumer-data as well as opt-in subscriber lists for future marketing campaigns is the number one underlying benefit of utilizing this unique mobile marketing channel.  To get more information on how text-to-screen works and the many value-added benefits, check out mobileStorm’s all-inclusive offerings.

Rapidly fading to an antiquated era of advertising is the tireless marketing guru toiling for hours if not days to craft unforgettable jingles and eye-catching ads for print or broadcast advertising. The era of 21st century advertising is poised for dominance by mobile marketing and its many efficient and cost-effective tools.

According ABI Research, “Mobile marketing has the same potential to change the advertising and marketing space in the same way that the emergence of the Internet did a decade ago.” Yet, incredibly, a vast number of businesses continue to shy away from this emergent force in contemporary marketing. Rooted in the erroneous notion that mobile marketing is the exclusive province of bottomless budgets and mega-corporations, scores of entrepreneurs and small business owners consistently fail to harness the enormous but still cost-effective potential of mobile marketing.

In recent years, the cost of launching a mobile marketing campaign has been reduced dramatically, both in terms of the affordability of turnkey platforms involved in SMS marketing and the cost of SMS dropping from $0.15 per message two years ago to about $0.07 today, with even lower rates available for larger campaigns.

Apart from the industry-wide innovations and developments that continue to make mobile marketing more affordable, there remain innumerable steps advertisers can take to personally reduce the overall expense of an otherwise invaluable mobile marketing presence.

• K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid)

Crafting a successful mobile marketing campaign doesn’t require the full time assistance of a dozen hired consultants, mobile strategists, graphic designers, etc. The tools and resources to personally but professionally plan and implement an effective, affordable mobile campaign are widely available.

• Target, not blanket

The growth of mobile technology allows mobile marketers to target small but critical segments of the population rather than wide swaths of consumers, most of whom will have no need for the product or service offered. If a quality campaign is effectively targeted to a niche market, a successful mobile marketing campaign can be executed without incurring exorbitant costs.

• Planning is pivotal

Have a game plan and a time frame for your mobile marketing efforts. One of the biggest contributing factors to a blown-out bottom line is failing to adequately budget time and expenses. From the leasing length of your dedicated short codes to the duration of the campaign itself, having a plan and sticking to it ensures that even a minimal budget won’t be exceeded.

• Observe and react quickly

A watchful eye on your return on investment (ROI) is critical to any mobile marketing endeavor. Guage the efficiency and effectiveness of the plan in place and be quick on the draw to make any changes necessary to avoid wasting time, money, and opportunity.

• If you build it they will come

Plain and simple, mobile marketing requires a leap of faith. Although many old-school advertisers find it difficult to embrace mobile marketing, consumers have grown exceptionally unresponsive to traditional marketing such as billboard and television adverts, print adverts, telemarketing and email spam. If marketers who are still tentative about the prospects of mobile marketing can just resist the temptation to invest in traditional media, the leap of faith could ultimately prove an enormously rewarding decision.

For more information, check out this comprehensive whitepaper on mobile marketing and how to select an SMS vendor.

In today’s economy, marketing budgets are being slashed across the board.  Subsequently, marketers are having to re-think their strategies in terms of getting the most bang for their buck.

In the old days, a shrinking marketing budget simply meant buying less of the same old types of media- simply because there were few other options that could be utilized in lieu of mainstream marketing mediums.  Today however, one option exists that gives marketers facing the daunting task of gaining increased ROI against shrinking ad-budgets a way out — mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing, and in particular more targeted forms such as SMS, provide a unique medium in terms of the audience, user-engagement and overall targeting potential that simply can’t be achieved with other marketing channels.

When faced with smaller budgets, mobile provides the highest ROI of any marketing channel available to you.  Unlike mass communication via TV, radio, newspapers and even Online advertising, mobile allows you to pick and choose your audience according to a wide array of targeting capabilities, location-based benefits and much more.

Combining the immense targeting capabilities of mobile, the fact that consumers are much more apt to respond and interact with mobile and the simple fact that everyone owns a mobile device of some sort equates to an ROI that’s simply unmatched by any other medium.

Looking at the benefits of SMS-based mobile marketing in particular, here’s a few key advantages over other mediums:

• Immediacy - Mobile campaigns are easy to create and execute; messages are delivered to recipients within seconds.
• Affordability - No need to pay for postage, printing or air time, just a nominal per text message fee; prices are very modest and they decrease as volume increases.
• Distribution - Reach out to people all over the world. Delivery is almost always guaranteed, unlike email, direct mail, and other forms of advertising.
• Response Rate/Effectiveness - The average respose rate is approximately 15%, versus 2 – 3% for other advertising mediums such as direct mail.
• Personal /Targeted - Content is targeted to individuals who have opted to receive them; the medium provides the ability to customize the brand message to a diversified audience.
• Mobility/Reachability - Messages reach recipients wherever they are. No need to be by a TV, radio, computer, or mailbox; phones are within our reach 80% of every day.

It’s not hard to see why mobile is key when trying to get the most out of your marketing budget.  Getting past the mis-conceptions that mobile is a complicated medium to understand, deploy and support, you’ll soon realize how going mobile is the smartest thing you can possibly do- especially with shrinking marketing budgets.

To learn more about the process and to get a better understanding of how to choose the appropriate vendors for your next mobile campaign, check out mobileStorm’s whitepapers and other valuable resources.

It’s no secret that email marketing is a powerful tool for communicating with visitors, customers and prospects, but like other marketing mediums, you have to uphold a certain set of rules or best practices to ensure a compliant and successful campaign.

Two of the most important aspects of successful email marketing campaigns are adhering to certain codes of conduct regarding unsubscribing and signup confirmation.  In certain countries, there’s actually laws in place that mandate an unsubscribe link in all marketing emails, so it’s always a good practice to include your link at the bottom of each email and direct users to a courteous page that removes them from your mailing list quickly.  Making this a “one-click” process is also a good idea.

In terms of signup confirmation, you should always use a double opt-in confirmation process.  This means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send a “confirmation” email.  This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.  This ensures you don’t come off as “spammy,” which could be detrimental to your email marketing campaign.

Speaking of spam, try to avoid using keywords such as ‘free,’ ’save,’ ‘discount,’ etc. in both your subject line and content to avoid getting caught in your users spam filters- which have become very complex in recent years.

The concept of personalization is key in email marketing campaigns as well.  Instead of using the common “Hi there,” or “Dear Subscriber,” you should use individual subscriber names to create a more personable relationship with your readers.  It’s estimated that by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the boring “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%.  Why?  Put simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

To maximize click-thru rates, which is most likely the goal of any email marketing campaign, it’s good practice to include clear, concise links that ensure your readers don’t get confused by a design filled with graphics, text, buttons and more.  There’s been numerous research papers that prove that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link as opposed to a banner or button.  If you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they’re bold, blue and underlined.  This will mean more subscribers click through and subsequently more conversions/sales for you.

In terms of the best days to send your emails, studies conducted by online research analysts have shown the best days are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication.  This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend.  On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend.  This has been heavily experimented with, and the best results were achieved by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday, studies have proved.

These are just a few simply rules, best practices and tips to ensure your email marketing campaigns remain successful.  Of course, it always takes testing and a trial and error approach to determine what the best strategy is for your particular campaign, but certain aspects and un-spoken rules must always be applied to ensure you don’t upset your readers and to make sure you don’t violate any of the most simplest of rules regarding the sending of mass marketing emails.

Since there’s a lot that goes into an email marketing campaign, it’s sometimes best to leave it up to the professionals to worry about the boring technical and compliance issues.  Check out MobileStorm’s PRO offering for an all-inclusive digital marketing platform that will allow you to focus solely on the outcome of your campaign.

More evidence of the rampant growth in mobile coupon marketing can be found in the new report from Juniper Research, a well-respected provider of analytical services to the global communications sector.

According to the report, more than one mobile subscriber in 10 in developed regions will use mobile coupons by 2014. As a result, Juniper is confidently forecasting that consumer usage of mobile coupons could potentially generate upwards of $6 billion globally in retail redemption value by 2014.

The growth can be directly attributed to the increased willingness of consumers to accept and use mobile coupons, a situation that has prompted better than 25% of all North American marketers to invest, time, resources, and treasure into some form of digital coupon marketing.

In the report titled ‘Mobile Coupons & NFC Smart Posters: Strategies, Applications & Forecasts 2009-2014’ Juniper’s findings do, however, warn of the possible obstacles born of potential “user apathy” in the general public and an unwillingness to learn a new method of making financial transactions. Optimistically, however, NFC trial results indicate “very high levels of user acceptance.”

“Marketers can use the mobile device as the ultimate personal marketing channel. It is almost permanently switched on and physically with the consumer. This makes a great opportunity for brands and marketing agencies to access clients immediately, driving footfall and encouraging an instant decision,” said Howard Wilcox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research and lead report author.

‘The Mobile Coupons and Smart Posters’ report also published additional findings important to the mobile marketing community. They include:

• ARPU from NFC coupons and smart posters will exceed ARPU from NFC payment transactions
• The vast majority of mobile coupon redemption value will be generated by the Far East & China, Western Europe and North America in 2014

The report, released today, is now available for download from the Juniper website.

To find out more about the power and potential of mobile coupons, check out this all-inclusive Mobile Coupons Webinar.

Often mysterious but never in short supply, the digital creatures known as mobile coupons have become a presence far more profitable, formidable, and ubiquitous than most realize.

With the tangible benefits of mobile coupons beginning to resonate with consumers just as the newspaper clipping variety once did, businesses and entire industries have accepted that mobile coupons are among the best promotional tools of the trade in contemporary, cutting edge marketing.

Although many companies large and small have exhibited reluctance to hop aboard the mobile coupon bandwagon due to their lack of understanding of mobile marketing and its potential, retailers who successfully craft and implement effective mobile coupon campaigns promptly discover how the pennies they offer in savings can quickly yield enormous monetary and branding gains.

Why are mobile coupon campaigns effective?

• Rather than viewing mobile coupons as spam, most consumers who receive interesting mobile coupons actually review the offer. A sizable portion of those views consistently result in sales.
• The average cell phone user’s handset is switched on for the majority of each day. As a result, mobile coupons can reach the masses efficiently and effectively, which is important, particularly during time-sensitive marketing campaigns.
• The accessibility and eco-friendly attributes of mobile coupons provide consumers with a highly attractive purchasing opportunity.

It should come as no surprise then that the findings of a recent PROMO magazine poll indicate that better than a quarter of all North American marketers are now actively investing in some form of digital coupon marketing endeavor. And even though the look and feel of each marketer’s offering may look slightly different, the overwhelming majority of mobile coupon campaigns adhere to one of several established models. For example:

• A buy one, get one free coupon or promotional code.
• A free trial opportunity – an incentive coupon or code for first time buyers or subscribers.
• A rewards-based offer – a coupon that rewards customers of a product/service with a discount on a related product or service.

The great potential for growth in the business of mobile coupons is ultimately rooted in the nearly sixty percent of consumers who report being eager to receive a coupon on their mobile phone. The average consumer’s warm embrace of mobile coupons is the reason a new report from Juniper Research is forecasting that consumer usage of mobile coupons will likely generate close to $6 billion in global retail redemption by 2014.

When appropriately chiseled out to follow the same regulations and best practices governing the distribution of mobile messages, a mobile coupon campaign can prove a surprisingly cost-effective way for businesses and retailers to generate lasting streams of revenue.

To find out more about the power and potential of mobile coupons, check out this all-inclusive Mobile Coupons Webinar.