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.

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.

Behold the power of Google’s PageRank! We all want a 7 or 8. We know this will bring us more traffic and traffic is money. Google always tries to downplay their PageRank saying that their algorithms look at 200 different points of criteria in order to give your URLs a ranking. Titus Hoskins wrote a good article about why you shouldn’t count this out.

http://www.sitepronews.com/2009/10/26/does-google-pagerank-count-anymore/

As SMS adoption continues to grow at an astonishing rate, more and more businesses are incorporating the channel as a serious form of customer communication. 10 years ago I could barely get anyone to pay for a SMS message, now we get hundreds of leads per month (Google “SMS Marketing”) from companies convinced that mobile is going to play a big part of their revenue stream.

As mobile starts to grow, so does the competition. There are all kinds of solutions out there that range from free SMS (with ads tacked on), to mobile agencies planning a complete mobile strategy. We thought about all of the criteria a business should think about before choosing an SMS vendor and have come up with a wonderfully short 30 point check list.

Written in conjunction with my colleague and good friend Marwan Soghaier we tackle the biggest and most important questions a business needs to ask itself before making any decisions.

I think you will enjoy, so please download the whitepaper and don’t be shy in giving us feedback: http://www.mobilestorm.com/resources/digital-marketing-white-papers/whitepapers/choose-an-sms-vendor/

Cheers,

Jared Reitzin
CEO
mobileStorm Inc.

I recently came across a great article on the future of deliverability.

Quick overview: We all know that when a subscriber clicks the “report as spam” button, the ISP gets data to help them make decisions about what they want to do with a senders email  such as block or send to the spam folder.

ISPs fight spam in a bunch of different ways, reputation, authentication, content blocking etc.

This article talks about how ISPs are starting to use other types of data such as, “subscribers who do not open emails”, to punish senders with poor best practices. Its all coming down to a marketers reputation.

If email marketing is important to your company and drives revenue, I suggest you work with an ESP (Email Service Provider) who can stay on top of changes like this and help you make decisions about the best way to manage your business.

I always say, delivery is as fluid and changing as water. New technologies and methods to fight spam are constantly being developed and innovated.  Think about it, an ISPs entire business depends on making sure their subscribers are not inundated with spam. If they don’t do a good job, people leave, and revenues drop.

Currently 72% of the 320 billion messages sent on a daily basis is spam. It will continue to become harder and harder to reach the inbox if you do not get good guidance and expertise, this is one of the main reasons we created mobileStorm Pro.

Read this great article on the future of deliverability here:
http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2009/10/future-of-deliverability-1-role-of-user.html