The More You Know – Talking LBS

I recently read a post on Geofencing and Location-Based Messaging from Mobhappy (you can read it here). After reading the post, I reached out to the author Carlo Longino to continue the conversation.

The result, I did a Q&A with Mobhappy on the value of LBS. You can read the full post here.

In the Q&A, we discuss the value of LBS from the consumer perspective, the need for compelling messaging, and just how “relevant” messages should be for the consumer.

Take a look at the post, and I would love to hear if you agree or disagree. As always, you can reach me at: msilk@waterfallmobile.com if you want to discuss further.

You can also follow Carlo Longino on Twitter @caarlo (or me at @WaterfallMobile).

– Matt

Cottonelle Wants to Know – Over or Under?

Cottonelle recently launched a multichannel campaign and I think they deserve some recognition for a job well done.  The campaign set out to answer one question – Over or Under?  And in doing that, they took a market (toilet paper) that is traditionally not very interactive and got people to engage with the brand and debate the question.

Well Done, Cottonelle!  You put a great multichannel campaign together that incorporated mobile, social networks, and WAP sites and you engaged the consumer.

The campaign allowed for voting via SMS, WAP, and online.  According to the brand, they found SMS to be extremely important because it allowed people to vote immediately and on the go after seeing outdoor ads (you can see an example of the outdoor ad to the right).

You could vote for yourself by texting UNDER or OVER to short code 30241, or by going online to: http://www.cottonellerollpoll.com/.

The campaign, of course, allowed for sharing your vote on Facebook and Twitter.

Additionally, Cottonelle incorporated mobile banners into the plan to drive consumers to a WAP site to vote at: http://VoteRollPoll.com.

The brand also allowed users to choose to receive the final tally announcing the winner at the end of voting – giving them another opportunity to connect with the consumer.

This is a great example of making marketing channels work together.  Other brands should take a lesson in consumer engagement done right from Cottonelle.

You can read more on the campaign at Mobile Marketer.

And the Oscar goes to…

I would like to take a moment and give a big congratulations to our client Participant Media, and everyone involved in the Best Documentary Oscar-winning film, “The Cove.”

If you missed the big win last night, you can catch it here under “Acceptance Speeches: Documentary” (Make sure to pay attention for the mobile call-to-action).

I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed the cameras quickly pan away from one of the filmmakers’ banner with the call-to-action spelled out (right?). Luckily, people have other means of distributing a message rather than live television, and we saw that first hand last night as the Twittersphere blew up with support for the cause.

You can’t force something to go viral, but Participant Media tee’d this one up perfectly and found the perfect trigger to get its message out.  Since last night’s win, we’ve seen the mobile subscribers more than double – and the numbers are still flowing in fast.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to text DOLPHIN to 44144 to add your name to the list to continue to save the tens of thousands of dolphins and porpoises slaughtered each year in Japan.

You can also VOTE TODAY (this is the last day for voting) for Participant Media and Waterfall Mobile in Adweek’s Buzz Awards – People’s Choice Award for the mobile campaign supporting this cause.

Also, the movie is already available on DVD, so don’t forget to add it to your queue.

Again, a huge thanks to all to tweeted to get this word out.  The film has a powerful message, and we are thrilled to be a part of this campaign.

Digiday Mobile – Who’s Coming With Me?

I’m going to be in Los Angeles on Monday for Digiday: Mobile participating in a panel about location-based services – a topic that has been getting a lot of attention recently.

The Digiday panel, entitled “Location, Location, Location,” should be a very informative discussion about LBS – where carriers fit in; overcoming privacy concerns; the basics on geofencing and the technology that drives mobile marketing LBS; and ROI-tracking.

I’m very much looking forward to sharing the panel with reps from Verizon, NAVTEQ, JiWire and Geodelic.  And I am especially excited to share the stage with Steve Madden and to hear more about that brand’s mobile plans.

You can find the full Digiday agenda here.

If any Mobile Demystified readers will be in attendance, I’d love to meet up.  You can reach me at msilk@waterfallmobile.com.

See you in L.A.!

– Matt

Don’t Just Dive In To Social Media

Many high profile brands are using social media these days.  But beware: just opening a Twitter and Facebook account won’t automatically help you reach your business goals.  Social media strategy is just as important as social media itself – perhaps more so.

Yes, you should definitely activate some sort of social media for your brand.  If not, a more visible, more social competitor may edge out your market share.

But you need to set clear goals for what you want to accomplish with social media.  Defining success early is a smart way to monitor ROI.

As e-Marketer recently pointed out in an article on strategy in social media, with more and more brands in the social media game, the bar keeps being raised on what users expect.  Only the savviest will survive.

On the consumer side, users of social media know the difference between those companies that are “faking it” and those that are legitimately immersed in social media.

For instance, despite their recent difficulties with Kevin Smith, Southwest Airlines is clearly invested in Twitter.  Dunkin’ Donuts is clearly invested in both Facebook and Twitter, and has appointed a specific employee (“Dunkin’ Dave”) to be the chain’s social media face.

Equally as important as “real”ness is keeping a close watch on how social media marketing reflects your overall brand direction.  If it does not, consumers will either be confused or, worse still, annoyed that they seem to be getting contradictory messages from the same company.  Starbucks in particular has done a great job of making sure that all company voices are whistling the same tune.

To kick-start a social media plan, determine what your organization wants to use social media to accomplish.  This can range from brand-building to lead generation to relationship building.  e-Marketer recently found 82% of brands are using social media for brand-building; most likely, your strategy will be a combination of multiple goals.

Remember, just like in life, relationships take time to build – and you should expect the same from the social media world.  You need to commit time to getting the results you are looking for.

Location, Location, Location

Today Waterfall Mobile is announcing a new strategic partnership with WaveMarket to power location-enabled mobile messaging.

As Mobile Demystified readers know, I’ve had LBS (location-based service) on the brain recently, and that’s because of this exciting new capability that will now be available to Waterfall customers.

WaveMarket’s Veriplace® product can access the location of all 125MM phones on the AT&T and Sprint networks with no application download required.  Waterfall will be able to leverage that capability to bring still more targeted location-aware marketing to Msgme’s already robust skill set.

The full press release on Waterfall + WaveMarket is here.

Benefit from Mobile – E-Commerce Times

I recently wrote a post for E-Commerce Times covering ways to leverage the mobile channel.

As we all know, mobile is a great way to drive sales and is an excellent addition to any marketing and advertising campaign you have running.

In the post, I run through some mobile no-brainers – SMS store locators, mobile subscription lists, and mobile websites – to more innovative ideas such as adding location-based services and offering SMS ordering.

You can read the full post here.

If you have any questions on using mobile to drive purchases, feel free to give me a shout at: msilk@waterfallmobile.com.

– Matt

Mythbusters

Waterfall’s own Matt Silk evaluates the myths and realities of LBS (Location Based Services) in a guest editorial for iMedia Connection that posted today.

iMedia Connection is a top trade publisher and event producer serving interactive media and marketing industries.

You can check out Matt’s post here.

May the Best Ad Win – Period.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article called “Giving Mobile Ads a Makeover.”  The gist of it being that with all the hubbub surrounding the iPad, on-the-go advertising may soon become a mainstream advertising technology.

Haven’t we heard this before?  With this new different ad sizes, interactivity options, CPC/CPA/CPM, etc., all of our mobile ad prayers will be answered. Here’s my question.  Does this same story deserve all of the hype it’s been getting over the last few months?  The iPad may well mean a renaissance for mobile advertising – which would be fantastic.  But, is a new ad type of size/shape really the nirvana that deserves this much ink?

Reaching your customers and prospects in this fragmented multichannel on-the-go world is what we should be talking about.  Let’s spend our cycles discussing and solving those problems for the industry rather than looking/expecting to find a silver bullet in the ad space. The variety of channels marketers now have to address to reach consumers presents a huge challenge and I would love to see more press and op-ed articles helping us solve that business issue.  Not only do marketers need to craft messaging that works in the context of each individual channel, they also need to keep an eye on ROI and track user engagement within each technology vertical.

It’s no longer a world of the Internet and email only.  Now mobile, social media and portable gaming devices are a part of the daily fabric of people’s lives.  Even my refrigerator is a connected device…  How best to insert brand messaging into that web of technology and habits?  And what types of messages, in what permutations, will actually stick – and be effective? Look for some interesting announcements in the coming quarters from Waterfall as we take these issues head on!

It’s no secret that the big guys, as well as the start-ups, have been nipping at the heels of marketers in the technology space, hoping to be the company/technology/app that takes mobile advertising from “small banner ads and spammy texts” into the big leagues.

What the news media has failed to recognize is that with all of these new technologies, there has to be a unified sense of consistency and brand unity, whatever the media.  It’s also worth pointing out that not every mobile user actually has access to the mobile internet, let alone the iPhone, or the latest gadget of the moment, the iPad.  A diverse digital messaging strategy that doesn’t alienate potential customers is sound policy in this fast-moving situation.

Let me step off my soapbox and get back to the original point of this post. Bottom line,: yes, mobile advertising will fully mature, and it will do so in line with market demand.  Relevance needs to go hand-in-hand with media and creative.  In short, may the best ad win and let’s get back to work.

Don’t Bet Against Mobile Coupons

Time and again, mobile coupon redemption rates have proven to be exceptional when employed as part of both pilot and real-world marketing programs.

As Mobile Marketer concisely put it,

According to Forrester Research, 30 percent of consumers would like to receive mobile coupons.

Redemption rates for mobile coupons range from 5 percent to 15 percent, which is much higher than typical print coupon rates of 1 percent or less.

Thus I’m a little puzzled by this survey from Honeywell and Harris Interactive – which our friends at eMarketer have teed up with the headline “Consumers Slow to Take Advantage of Mobile Coupons.”

Really?  According to the survey, 50% of 18-to-34 year-olds said they would be willing to share their mobile numbers with retailers in order to receive coupons.  To me that screams “green light.”

Maybe the issue is how the questions were phrased – something that has been shown to substantially impact polling in political campaigns.  Obviously, if you ask somebody if they want more advertising in their lives…they’ll probably say no.

But as this generation ages, digital life – specifically organizing one’s activities, shopping and entertainment through mobile devices – will become the norm.  In fact, it already has.  What’s lagging is significant participation by major brands, which will mature mobile coupons as an established marketing channel.

Mobile couponing can take several forms:

• 2D bar codes
• QR codes
• Text coupons
• Calls-to-action driving customers to mobile Internet sites
• Calls-to-action driving customers to mobile apps
• Mobile sites that are themselves coupons
• Mobile apps that are coupons
• ….Or some combination of all of the above

I’ve already moved past the question of “whether or not mobile coupons will catch on.”  They will.  Trust me.  The real horse race is which of these competing technologies, and factions within the ecosystem, will win the day to power mobile couponing and other marketing efforts for major brands.

Oh, and one last thing to watch out for –

The killer app that could permanently dispense with any confusion in this arena will be cloud-based “closed loop redemption systems.”  These systems will allow a retailer to redeem a coupon from any of the above listed channels within their cloud, and will also give retailers the opportunity to seamlessly push coupons out to multiple channels.

Happy couponing, everybody.